last of the pictures

Okay, here are the rest, including the pictures from the Money gardens!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mckeown09

Thanks!

-Steph

quick note about pictures

We're still working on getting all the pictures up here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/scarlson09

But I also wanted to say that if anyone wants to print any of our pictures or anything, don't use the versions on the website. They've been shrunk so that they upload faster and I can fit more on the page. Email me if you would like any to have, they are all about 4MB each, so huge files, probably large enough to print a decent size. So just let me know which numbers, if any, and I'll be happy to send the original files. Again, thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has seen and enjoyed at least some of the pictures (I realize there are a lot!)

My email is scarlson09@gmail.com.

-Steph

Day 30 - last full day in Paris

Today was bittersweet - of course we're sad to leave, but we're excited to get back home to family and friends (and English-speaking, and Mexican food, and Target...). We leisurely enjoyed our day and finished up everything we needed to do and planned out all our packing. We are bringing home a fair amount more than what we came with, though a lot of it is light. I decided not to bring home any cheeses though, which was a tough decision. Mostly I just wasn't too specific on what I wanted, not really knowing what can only be found here, and I wouldn't be able to decide on just one or two (since I probably couldn't afford more!) But Andy, thank you for the advice, I do appreciate it! The next trip I make to Europe, this first one as a real "adult" (as in, having a career and making enough of my own money) whenever that may be, I'll spend a lot of time and money hunting down wines and cheeses and shipping them home. Next time, I'll shop at the department stores. Next time, I'll eat at all the best restaurants, including the Jules Verne at the Eiffel Tower. On this trip however, we had a blast finding the bargains, and hell, just being under 26 in order to get into just about everywhere cheaper. This trip, we bought our groceries and snacked on baguettes and pastries all day (I dd NOT lose any weight, like I did last time). This trip, we spent a lot of time walking, just enjoying the free sights and sounds of the city. This trip, we lived more like locals.

Today, we made our fifth and final stop at Berthillon. I've had eleven scoops of cold, creamy goodness (one day I had a triple). I will miss it dearly. Even my beloved Yogurtland cannot compete. We wrapped up our shopping, buying some of the old fashioned French advertisements and prints of Paris landmarks for our sparse apartment walls back in Tucson. Also, we had to trek up to the Gare du Nord to get our Eurail passes stamped. We bought tarts one last time at our favorite little patisserie just downstairs. The girl who works there greeted us by holding up a baguette when we stepped through the door, since it's our usual stop at that time of day. We ate dinner at one of the only restaurants on our block we haven't tried, Cafe Chouchou. They have a great menu deal, though we didn't realize how great a deal it was until we got our heaping plates of couscous, chicken, and vegetables with all the seasonings. It was great, especially so with the happy hour pints of Stella Artois. It's funny that here in France, all the bars and cafes have a "Happy Hour" special, and it is actually "Happy Hour" in English, like there's no French equivalent. C'est Happy Hour.

So now we are all packed up, ready to grab a croissant in the morning and take the RER to the airport. Tomorrow afternoon, we will be in Montreal, and then Friday, back home at last.

Thanks to everyone who read the blog; we put a lot of time into it, and we appreciate knowing that you all are enjoying it!

Until next time,

Steph

Day 29

It’s getting towards the end of the trip, so we’re trying to tie up loose ends and just finish everything that we wanted to do, things to see, things we want to get to bring home, etc. We started out craving one more time the delicious pitas at Man’ouche just nearby, so that made a great lunch. Next, we walked over to the Bastille to see if we could get some last minute Opera tickets. We saw the Proust ballet at the Opera Garnier (the old, classic one that inspired “Phantom of the Opera”), but we didn’t get a chance to see the newer (20 years old) Opera Bastille, with its great modern architecture. They don’t do open, self guided tours (at least during the summer), only the more expensive guided tours that only happen on select days and times. There hasn’t been anything playing there for the last couple weeks, but a new show just started there last week, “King Roger,” a Polish opera. There were tickets available, but the cheapest at 35 euro, a bit much for us to do, especially since we really just wanted to see the building. Oh well.

Next we hopped the metro to my favorite place, Le Grand Epicerie, again. We needed one more fix of the best macarons in town, and I wanted to get some herbes de Provence for my mom. On the way back to the apartment after that venture, we stopped at Les Halles to check out France’s most populat electronics store, fnac. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it, I haven’t heard it spoken! It was sort of fun to see the differences and similarities between it and its American counterparts. And also fun to see the computers with European keyboards. On our last trip, we didn’t bring a computer, so whenever we sent an email, it was in an internet café somewhere, and it took twice as long to type because we had to reorient ourselves to the letters being in different places. One of the many reasons (including this blog!) I’m happy we brought a laptop this time around.

After a nap (the last two days were long and tiring) we decided on one more Croque McDo for dinner on this trip, and lounged around eating in front of the Pompidou Center just before the sun was setting. Tomorrow is our last full day in Paris. The blog won’t be as interesting, since tomorrow will entail a lot of cleaning and packing. But anyway…

-Steph

28

22 June, 2009

Today was one we’d been excited for through most of the trip: the Monet gardens. After stocking up on a variety of pastries for the train ride, we headed to Gare Saint Lazare and bought our ticket to Vernon, the closest station to Giverny. It’s only about forty-five minutes by train. To get to Giverny, where the actual Monet locations are, you can take some stupid bus or shuttle or whatever, or you can rent bikes! One guess what we chose. The bar right next to the train station at Vernon probably makes most of their money by renting out bikes. They’re certainly not state of the art, but they have two wheels, a seat, and a basket at least. We get a map to guide us there, but the directions are basically, go straight until you cross the river, then take the second right. Past the river, it’s bike path all the way. It’s nice to not have to worry about cars, and be able to see the greenery and all the houses and B&B’s. (Mom, you would love these bed & breakfasts! I think you and Dad should look into retiring here and running one.) The whole trip is only 4km, but we had to stop a couple times to fix the chain on my bike, it kept slipping off the gears.

Once there, it was only a short line to get in to Monet’s house and gardens, and I was surprised how relatively inexpensive it was, only 4.50 euro each. We toured the house first, and it was nice that there weren’t too many people visiting. I was even by myself in the kitchen for a minute! I touched the stove, even though you’re not supposed to. The house is all nice, bright, spring time colors, with windows in just about every room overlooking the garden, and a large but cozy dining room painted daffodil yellow, and a sky blue kitchen with blue and white tiles. In addition to reproductions of many of Monet’s works on the walls, there were tons of Japanese paintings, including many by Hokusai, a favorite of ours.

The gardens are large; though nowhere near the size of some of the others we’ve seen (Versailles, Jardin des Plantes). Still, we spend a few hours walking around and taking pictures, enjoying the scenery. There are, however, a ton of school groups there, so occasionally you have to duck to the side while a gaggle of six year olds go parading past. There are two separate gardens, the one by the house with rows upon rows of flowers (roses and poppies were primarily in season and prominent); and the water garden, with the famous bridges, water lilies, and weeping willow. There are paths through both, and more benches than we’ve seen at any other garden – very conducive to painting.

After we’d seen everything at the gardens, we exited back onto Rue Claude Monet, and looked through some of the smaller gardens, restaurants, boutiques and galleries along the road. There was a pretty field of wildflowers at one point. Getting back on our bikes, we stopped at the church of Giverny, though we didn’t go in, but we did see Monet’s tomb where the artist and many of his family members are. Biking back to Vernon, the bikes worked fine, but we stopped a few times for photo opportunities of the countryside. We returned the bikes and caught a train back to Paris that put us in the city just around dinnertime. We took the metro back and stopped for Happy Hour again at Cavalier Bleu, on our corner in front of Pompidou. Again, Kyle had his chicken club sandwich and I had the quiche of the day, with some drinks. We really enjoy that restaurant, it’s a great place to hang out.

A note about our pictures: we’re already at album 6! We’ve taken a ridiculous amount. So many in fact, that we’ve reached our allowed storage limit for the website. Bummer. But, we’re trying to find a way around it, maybe we’ll start a new account, but we’ll post whenever the Monet pictures are up, it truly was a spectacular place.

-Steph

Day 27 6-21

Today we tried to get up early (trying slowly but surely to get back into the swing of things for normal time schedules and such) and got ready to go out and grab a quick bite to eat a restaurant we had seen earlier that had a very good menu. It was on the other side of the river, past Notre Dame, but it was an easy walk and along the way we were able to pick out a few decent spots of where other bands would be playing later on in the day. Since it was the summer equinox, there were city wide festivities planned that had many orchestras, choirs, and bands of all genres (and I mean ALL genres) scattered throughout the city to play music in hour or more increments to the public for free. Most of them didn't start until five o'clock at night, but we were able to catch a glimpse of some spots just near us, and a few on the other side of the river as we went to lunch.

After lunch we head over to the Musee d'Orsay, which was the first museum of the trip, which we saw on our second day in Paris. There were a few items, now that it was towards the end, that we had wanted to look for at the gift shop while we still had the chance. We took the route that followed the Seine deeper into the city, casually browsing the multiple tourist gift shops and old book stands that are set up along the road on the weekends. After the gift shop, we head back through the Jardin du Tuileries and tried to enjoy a brief break at the large fountain in the gardens. I say try only because the wind was blowing hard enough to spray the fountain water with it, causing just about everyone in the nearby seats to get drizzled on.

Once we were back to the apartment we looked up as many locations and groups as we could to get an idea of where a lot of them would be, and what types of music were playing near us. We knew that Notre Dame had an organ recital open to the public and we were anxious to go there, for at least a few songs, before it got too late. Luckily, after walking through the nearby streets and seeing a bunch of different bands (late 90's rock/pop was very very popular), we went to Notre Dame for the organ recital and stayed for two pieces. The organ, and the acoustics, are awesome to hear in the cathedral. Words can't describe how powerful the organs all, and the sound produced definitely lives up to their large statue, as this one in particular covered up most of the west wall in the cathedral. The other organ we heard playing in this trip was the one at St. Eustache, which is also the closest cathedral to our location, and is known for having the best acoustics out of all of Paris (and thus probably France).

We spent the rest of the night exploring other parts of Paris, trying to stay local, but still adventurous, and ran into many mixed scenes of rock, pop, and techno. It was lots of fun to be able to see everyone having a good time without any real troubles in any way. (which is good because in the beginning of the festivities we did come across a group of about 10 police men, all in their full gear with what looked like modernized battle arm, and riot shields. Luckily they were just hanging out, and we never had to see them in action).

At the end of the night, with sore feet once again we retired to the apartment for some frozen pizza and prepared for the next day ahead.

- Kyle

Day 26

Day 26

This morning, for Saturday brunch, we started out for a place mentioned under the best sandwich shops in one of our guidebooks, Le Pain Quotidien. It’s not too far from our apartment, and when we get there, we see a short line out the door. It turns out to be not so much what we expected, we’d thought it was more of a counter style sandwich shop, but it’s a small restaurant specializing in sandwiches and breakfast, and it’s organic. After only about ten minutes, we get a table, or rather seats at one. There are individual tables outside, but inside it’s all one big long table that seats probably 25 or 30. It’s lots of fun, and smells great and there’s all these assorted jams on the table for the bread. However, we’re in more of a lunch mood, so we order tartines, open faced sandwiches. They arrive, five triangles of bread spread with toppings, and vegetables (lettuce, cucumber, tomato) on the side to pile on at your leisure. Kyle’s was beef, basil and parmesan, and mine was a delicious, herby tuna with roasted red peppers and olive “paste” like a fine tapenade. It was great! Topped off with a mint tea for me, and a chocolat chaud for Kyle, and it was one of my favorite places to eat so far; it’s a pity we happened upon it so late in the trip.

It started to rain a bit outside, but we were headed to the Picasso Museum, also not too far away, in the Marais district. For some reason that we’re still not sure of, it was free today. Score! Haha, we hypothesized that perhaps whoever runs the ticket booth just called in sick? Who knows. Anyway, the museum is a converted mansion, so the layout is interesting, not just one big hall of rooms, but lots of smaller rooms that weave through hallways and through the levels of the house. I guess Picasso’s heirs decided to donate his works, as to not be so indebted with inheritance taxes. Anyway, it was all ordered pretty chronologically, something I like because I enjoy how the paintings tell a sort of life story, showing the progression of style. There were also a few by some of Picasso’s friends, like Matisse, Miro, and Renoir. Not too shabby! It was a nice way to spend our afternoon. However, there were no pictures allowed, so don’t look for any except for an exterior of the building. There are no signs to this effect. The watchdog people who sit in the corner of each room just like to yell at people, “No pictures!” I wonder if they just get to decide which days pictures are allowed and which days they aren’t. I also wonder how many such people are employed in this position in Paris. How many people get paid (or perhaps volunteer) to it in a corner and babysit paintings and sculptures? How many in the Louvre alone? We’ve been to a lot of museums on this trip, these things start to pop into your head.

After that, we made another pilgrimage to Berthillon, the fourth time I believe (oh no, I’m losing track), stopping along the way to buy a cheese grater shaped like the Eiffel Tower. You can find these, and many other cheeky, amusing household items at Pylones, on Ile Saint Louis. At Berthillon, between the two of us we had cherry, hazelnut, tiramisu, and vanilla. We have yet to find a flavor that’s not good, and cherry is still my fave.

Heading back, we stop into Notre Dame, realizing that in all the times we’ve walked past it, we haven’t been in (not since last trip anyway). So we went in, and through the hordes of visitors, we could tell that a mass was going on! That was cool to see. We heard the organ a bit too. Still though, and even though I’m not a religious person at all, it really surprised and irked me how disrespectful some of the visitors were of the mass going on. The cathedral wouldn’t be there to visit were it not for its religious purposes. Still though, most people were making no effort to lower their voices, some even on cell phones! How ridiculous is that? It’s an amazing church though, the architecture is incredible. We’ve seen a lot of great churches on this trip too.

After that, I bought another postcard that I wanted to mail, but it was in the evening, so we figured most of the post offices would be closed. But on the way home, we went into the Pompidou, since they sell stamps and have a mailbox. When we got there, we saw something going on in the lower level, which is open to the main floor. We looked over the side to see a band setting up, and the floor all decorated in colorful electrical tape, with people still making designs along the edges. It’s a huge space, so this was cool to see. The band, called The Bad Dogs, was a three person group, with an awesome singer and a killer girl guitarist. They did covers of American rock songs, it was funny and cool how well the girl sang English with no accent. The space, called the “Playground” will open officially in January as a place dedicated to teenagers to hang out and have a creative space, which I thought was awesome. So all in all, a good night to swing by the Pompidou randomly, and also a performance filled day all around. Just walking around throughout the day, we saw a guy paint a portrait of Obama upside down in six minutes; a guy balance a bicycle on his chin; a guy playing the piano on the sidewalk; a whole band, probably thirty piece, out in the park behind Notre Dame; and a guy making giant bubbles.

We finished off the night with dinner back at the apartment. I took the leftover ratatouille from a couple nights ago, heated it up on the stove with some tomato sauce, garlic, and fresh parsley, then tossed it on top of some rotini. It was pretty good! But then again, what do you expect? ;)

-Steph

Day 25 - Fri. June 19th

Today we set off in hopes of doing a little bit more shopping and general exploring of some more of the city. We also had a bad sweet tooth and some supplies for the apartment that we needed so we head out to our local Monop' to get some more goods. After putting the groceries away we head back out to find some stores we had passed but never really went into, including a three story H&M which definitely had a few... interesting items. As the afternoon continued our sweet tooth got worse, and Steph had the great idea that before the Louvre at night, we should take the longest metro ride yet over to La Grande Defense, in the more corporate/company skyscraper part of town. We picked up tarts for the night and to satisfy our current hunger, than head out to the business district of Paris. La Defense was amazing to see, especially from it's base, where it is tall enough and wide enough to fit Notre Dame underneath it. We happened to be there while a "Run against hunger," event was going on, which was also fun to see since their course was really just running around the base of the arch and it's small plaza in front of it. From it's base looking back towards the city the Arc de Triomphe was easy to see, and beyond that, all on the same road, we could see the Concorde and the Louvre. We also enjoyed walking around the huge mall right next to the arch, mostly just to see what it was like inside, and trying to get into "Le dome," which ended up being a restaurant.

We head back to the city and got out of the metro at the exit for the louvre, allowing us to enter the building not from the city and pyramid above ground, but from the awesome corridor and pyramid below ground. It was a little before six at this point so we wouldn't be able to get in for free quite yet, and instead went into the gift shop, feeling slightly obligated that we had been there three times now, and had yet to financially contribute to the Louvre's grandeur. We left with a magnet of the Winged Victory, a Mona Lisa ipod case, and a louvre bag. For the third and final part of the louvre we aimed for the Sully wing, and started at the basement level for the history of the louvre and to explore the bottom of the moat which used to surround the mansion back before when moats were necessary. We head upwards, exploring the vast amounts of uncovered ancient idols, and stone works from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and other early civilizations from the fertile crescent. Most of the statues were awesome to see, and a lot of the little pieces that had been found were also neat since even from the BC times they were able to get really detailed on items the size of a finger nail. We then passed through the ancient roman objects, which were mostly pots and dishes with stories circumventing the outside. The ancient Egyptian artifacts were definitely my favorite, especially the statue of the dog, and the four monkeys which we high-fived on this trip, just as we had the last time we came across them accidentally. On the top floor we were able to see many great artworks from the 19th century, including a few by Pissaro and Renoir which are always fun to see.

We walked home from the Louvre with sore feet and both fairly tired to return to the apartment for some grilled cheese made with slices of Gouda. We were happy with the way that we went through the Louvre, and are glad to say that we honestly saw every room that was open, and thus every work that was displayed at the Louvre, which is definitely something that not too many get to do.

- Kyle

Day 24

On our twenty-fourth day, we started off in the afternoon toward Place de la Madeleine, the gourmet center of the city. On the way, we passed through the Place de la Concorde, with the obelisk and a great view of the Eiffel Tower. At Madeleine, we saw the church that gives the square its name, and also found the two most famous gourmet specialty shops of Paris, just a few doors down from each other: Fauchon and Hediard. Of course we explored both (or rather, I dragged Kyle around) finding all sorts of interesting things, jams, teas, condiments of every kind, honeys, chocolates, et cetera, et cetera. Hediard also has a grocery and bakery, and Fauchon has lots of ready to go dishes at a little café area including salads, sandwiches, pastries, and more substantial fancy things at another counter. Both have a ridiculous selection of wine. I don’t think we’ll be bringing any wine back, partly because of the added weight but mostly because of the one liter limit – how can I pick just one or two bottles? Anyway, we did some modest shopping (both stores are, as one would expect, very expensive, though the quality is there to back it up) and I was mostly happy just to have a bag from each to carry around with me the rest of the day. Status, you know. I’d take the red and black stripes of Hediard over any silly Louis Vuitton pattern ANY DAY!

After, we decided to check out the church of the Madeleine (it’s so tough for me to type Madeleine instead of Madeline – I was thinking of my sis all day there), and it was beautiful. We were lucky enough to see a choir concert going on when we went in, adding to the overall ambience. The lighting was gorgeous, and there were some interesting sculptures in addition to the usual selection of saints, see pictures.

Anyway, after this we realized that it was around 4:30 and although we’d bought food, we hadn’t eaten anything. Since we had dinner plans, however, we didn’t want anything too much. Luckily, we pass the Paul patisserie, one of a chain that we’ve passed (and admired) before. I had an apple tart, Kyle an apple grille, and they were both fabulous. My tart had really thick slices of apple, just soft from baking, and a nice light glaze.

For dinner around 7:00 (early by Parisian standards, but we decided to keep on the safe side since we didn’t have a reservation) we ventured into the Saint Germain area, passing the famous Café Deux Magots, to find a restaurant that my parents had recommended. La Petite Chaise holds the distinction of being the oldest restaurant in Paris, established in 1680, when Louis XIV was king. We both ordered from the three course prix fixe menu, and everything was great. The onion soup was a pretty even ratio of cheese and bread to soup, just the way I like it, bubbling gratin on the top. Kyle started with an appetizer of poached eggs in a camembert cream, it was genius. For main course, I had salmon (let’s face it, my usual) and Kyle had roast duck. Dessert was awesome; I tried the coconut flan with dark chocolate sauce, and Kyle went with the brownie with almond ice cream (a dish that, when we looked at the menu online before going, he declared, “MINE!”) haha

It was all a great night, and the fullest I’ve been yet on this trip, making the walk back to the apartment a little difficult, but we made it!

As always,

Steph

Day 23

Today we set out for a part of Paris that was definitely unlike anything we had seen before… the catacombs. We head from our nearby metro directly to the catacombs and were ecstatic to find that the line today (as we had tried for it a while ago) was almost non-existent. We waited for about ten minutes before taking the winding narrow stairs sixty feet below ground, running below the sewers and metro system. The first room in the catacombs gave a detailed description about the history of them (they began as a small quarry) and the many famous Parisians that had gone to visit them so long ago. We continued through the underground tunnels for a while, making sure our heads didn’t bump the ceiling until we arrived at a larger room that gave more detailed information about the catacombs, and warned us (as we hadn’t seen a bone yet, just creepy locked barred doors and rocks with their quarry identification numbers carved on them) to ‘Stop, this is the empire of death.’ Really the sign above the entrance said "ARRÊTE - C'EST ICI L'EMPIRE DE LA MORT" but we continued onward to be greeted by piles and piles of bones, which were made into nice tunnel walls by the stacking of many femurs and skulls. The catacombs were a blast; there were a few “designs” of hearts and crosses made out of skulls, with a few neat different ways that they were all piled up. Towards the end, in a larger room with a huge domed ceiling, an employee of the catacombs shined a light onto the ceiling which had 1875 carved into it, which left us wondering what else we had passed and simply couldn’t see.

We came back to the land of the living in a part of Paris we had yet to visit, and stopped at a Monoprix (the real version of our local Monop’) to pick up a coke, croissant, and a sugar donut for breakfast/lunch. We went down to le grand epicerie (Bon Marche’s gourmet/supermarket) for some more mini macaroons, the rest of our ratatouille ingredients, and for Steph to get a tote bag. We walked back down towards the apartment to stop by Gilbert Joseph, the multiple story, two building bookstore. We continued back to the apartment, and relaxed with a new kind of baguette (l’ancienne), which we had with our second fantastic dinner of ratatouille.

-Kyle

Day 22 - Chartres Cathedral

On Tuesday, we started out at the Gare Montparnasse to hop a train to the small French town of Chartres, which contains a cathedral that’s one of the oldest in France and one of the largest in the world! It’s only about an hour by train (and this is local train, not high speed), and as soon as we walk out of the small station, we can see the cathedral. Parts of the cathedral date from the 1100’s, and the most recent parts were added in the 16^th century. The highest spire reaches 370 feet, and the ground area is 117,000 square feet. It’s massive. It’s hard to miss.

So we walk over there, passing through parts of the picturesque town. Given that most of what we see while traveling is big cities (like Paris), it’s a nice change of pace to see a small place relatively unchanged through the years. Everything was very clean and well kept, another nice change from all the graffiti we’ve gotten more and more accustomed to in Paris. We get to the cathedral, just in awe of it’s size, and of course all the detailed sculptures that adorn it, all the flying buttresses (because who doesn’t love those) and the two giant spires. The inside is giant, of course, and quite dark – there are hundreds of huge, beautiful stained glass windows, which are currently undergoing a very careful cleaning process. It’s obvious instantly which ones have been cleaned, and which ones still carry decades of grime. First, we walk around the whole cathedral, no small task. There’s a choir screen that goes around a big part of the center, intricately carved. There are several smaller chapels off to the sides, dedicated to one saint or another. The part of the chapel semi-enclosed by the choir screen is off limits, some renovation is going on.

We had read that there is a tour given in English twice per day, and after a bit of initial exploring, we are right on time for the first one, at noon. Our guide, Malcolm Miller, is a British man who has, as of this year, been giving tours of Chartres Cathedral for fifty years! He has written five books on the cathedral (we bought one at the gift shop), and gives lectures around the world. During the hour and a half tour, we are given details about the building and history of Chartres, as well as information and details on some of the individual windows inside and sculptures outside the cathedral. We learned how the stories of saints were told through stained glass to a largely illiterate 12^th century population, and how, during both World Wars, all of the windows were individually moved from the cathedral and hidden a hundred miles away in order to spare them. There are 176 stained glass windows, most of them comprised of about 24 individual panes, each pane with various pieces to make a scene. We found out that the whole cathedral is in the process of being cleaned, and in five years, it will look like new. We’d noticed a difference in two of the chapels toward the back which looked brand new, gleaming tiles and white arches. One of these holds the holy relic of Chartres, an article of fabric said to have belonged to the Virgin Mary, given to the cathedral by Charlemagne in 876. Anyway, it was amazing to see the difference that the cleaning had made in parts of the cathedral, just cleaning, not replacing. It seems to us that all of these places are just made of huge dark gray stones and intended that way, but apparently they were all painted and vibrant at some point, on the inside and on the sculptures at least. Mr. Miller pointed out some places on the walls where you could see the old paint poking through. The story was that in the years following the French Revolution, the Church no longer had the wealth necessary to properly maintain the buildings. Rather than the expensive task of repainting, they painted over with plaster, hence the gray hue to everything.

We had a great time on the tour, took lots of pictures, then decided to break for lunch. We’d brought with us some crackers, cheese, sausage, water, and dino gummies. We found a little grassy park behind the cathedral with a grand view overlooking the town and laid out our spread. After eating, we took the long route back around to explore a bit of the city, walking through a tree lined bike path, passing some awesome old-style houses and the tiny river. Back at the cathedral, we looked more closely at some of the famous windows, and the clean chapels versus the ones yet to be done (the difference is shocking – look at the pictures!). Then, we went to climb the New Tower (the one from the 16^th century – this is “new” in the relative sense). There are about three hundred steps up, just one long stone spiral, though there are a few small landings and a place to walk outside halfway up and at the top. The top had a great view, you could see everything in Chartres, and probably beyond, you could see the gargoyles, greater detail in the architecture, everything. We took quite a few pictures before starting the descent back down. After stopping in the gift shop, we headed back out and took our time getting to the train station. The trip back to Paris was easy. I bought some French magazines at the newsstand, which I still haven’t read, though I’m excited to. Another great day trip down, one more to go.

-Steph

P.s. The picture below is the result of the story that follows: As we were at the top of the New Tower, we decided that we needed a picture of the two of us at the tower but didn't want another photo of us just holding a hand out and taking one of just our faces. In the photos you'll see in a lot of the corners of the walls designs of flowers, and dog/lizard like animals. Steph was already in the higher part that the stairs up through the tower reached, and I was on a slightly lower level that went around the perimeter of the top. I handed my bags to Steph, ran back down and set the camera up to point in Steph's direction. We couldn't see or use the screen on the camera to tell us if we were pointing the camera in the right direction or not, but we knew we had it pretty close to what we needed. I set the timer on the camera for 10 seconds, balanced it up the top of the flower in the corner of the wall, hit the button and ran into the stair case, up a few spiral stairs and next to Steph with enough time to smile and hear the picture be taken. This photo is the result of a lot of great guess work and lucky balancing.

-Kyle

Day 21

Today we did our best to wake up on the earlier side (to us) and get a fresh start with some morning coffee, a croissant, and pain au chocolat. We head off through the light drizzle to le Concergerie, which had multiple uses throughout the ages but is most famous for being a prison during the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette was held there for her final days before facing the guillotine, so we were eager to see the large and very cool stone work within the building, and to see the tiny cells that prisoners were squeezed into. One room showed the list of about 2500 names of those who had faced the guillotine during the revolution, which included French King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette.

Within the same grounds of a larger building (aptly named the Palace of Justice, sadly no super heroes live there... that we know of) we went over to the famous Saint Chapelle. Inside the grounds of the Palace of Justice is Saint Chapelle which boasts the most beautiful stain glass windows in all of France (and arguably, the world. Check out the new photo album, and you'll quickly see what we mean). The ground floor of the church appears modest, and oddly enough, a little dark. The paintings and decorations on the ground floor are very different from the other churches we've seen, with a lot of color on the walls, deep blues, golds, and reds, with a lot of fleur de lis designs. We looked at the gift shop and then moved up to the second floor, climbing a very tall/steep and narrow spiral staircase to have it open up, to one of the best sights we'd seen this whole trip. The pictures, even though it might be hard to believe, really don't do Saint Chapelle justice. After the dark ground floor and narrow staircase our eyes were shocked to turn the corner and see the fifteen very tall and colorful stain glass windows. We spent a lot of time taking it all in, while taking many pictures in hopes of trying to give a good perspective of what it felt like to be in the cathedral.

After reluctantly leaving the cathedral (and picking up a magnet for home of a Notre Dame gargoyle), we head back to the apartment for a quick breather before heading out to an awesome row of restaurants we saw the night before, and head down for a great night of wine, live piano music, and great food. Happy and full, we returned back to the apartment to relax and get as much sleep tonight before we try to head out of France to the small town of Chartres, which has the fourth largest church in the world.

Enjoy the pictures!

-Kyle

Steph's notes:

Before we hit the Conciergerie, we passed by and walked through the famous Marche aux Fleurs, the flower market which occurs daily on the Ile de la Cite. One of the vendors' stands was named Stephanie! Oh how I would love to have a little flower shop in Paris.

Also, we hit up the Monop' again today, stocked up on snacks and whatnot. Kinder bueno is a type of chocolate bar that we've seen advertised and in vending machines quite a bit. We tried it today, delicious.

Also delicious, we needed a pastry fix, but our usual bakery was closed, so we sought out another one and found Maison Julien, which just emits the most overpoweringly wonderful smell of baking bread. The apple tart and millefeuille were good too!

On the way out of the Sainte Chapelle, we saw the actor who plays Andrew Van de Kamp on Desperate Housewives. (of course Kyle had no idea, and so therefore can't back me up very well, but I will admit that I watch the show.) He was just walking around, vacationing. I would have felt like too much of a creeper to take a picture though, so I didn't. Guess I won't be interning at TMZ. haha.

Day 20

Another Sunday in Paris, meaning most things were closed, so it’s always a bit of a slower day. We started off with some crepes sucres at the “Creperie de Paris” on our street, Kyle’s with lemon and honey, mine with nutella and bananas. I was in a bookstore mood, so we headed over to Saint Germain, in the student area where there are tons of book shops. On the way, we passed by a place called Mona Lisait (a clever play on words – it means “Mona was reading”) with a variety of new and used books on various subjects, mostly art, history, food, and travel, and some cool post cards out front. We bought a few postcards (so, Mom and Dad – please check your mail in about a week!) and kept walking.

Pretty much anytime we cross the river, we pass by Hotel de Ville, it’s just on the way. There was a plant exhibition out front, and I don’t know exactly what it was about, but I got the idea it was just promoting vegetation and greenery in general, trying to keep plants in the city, and showing all the different types of plants and flowers of Paris. We’d seen it in various stages of being set up, and for a few days it pretty much just smelled like manure when you walked past, so it was nice to see it all done.

The bookstore we’d been walking to turned out to be closed, but there were still a few little places to poke around in, including a place that had some old French records for 0.20 euro.

We made sure to be back to our part of town by 5:30, since we’d heard that on Sundays at St Eustache, the church only a couple blocks from our apartment, they have an organ concert for half an hour before the 6 o’clock mass. Supposedly the organ there is one of, if not THE best in Paris. Sure enough, it was massive and sounded amazing. It was cool to see the inside of the church too, since we walk past it so frequently. We’re thinking about going back next Sunday too.

After that, we finally decided to take up Cavalier Bleu on their Happy Hour deal of cocktails and pints of Pelforth marked down to nearly half. I had a raspberry bellini, it had a lot of fresh raspberries in it, lovely drink. With it, Kyle had the chicken club sandwich that he liked so well there before, and I had their quiche of the day. After all that, we popped into the Pompidou bookstore again, just to browse, and ended the night back at the apartment watching episodes of “Breaking Bad” online. I really can’t get enough of that show, it’s incredible.

-Steph

Day 19

Rue de Rivoli is bustling on Saturdays like this one – it’s warm and sunny and the shops are all open (unlike on Sundays when most close). I’ve been in the market for a new pair of shoes for the past couple weeks, and I found a cool pair of adidas that should do well for all the walking we’re doing.

After getting a late start (which seems to be a trend lately) and strolling around the shops, we went for a late lunch/early dinner at Creperie Beaubourg, the one near Centre Pompidou. We both got the Speciale, with ham, cheese, egg, tomatoes, and a side salad. On the sweeter side, I had a crepe cirton (sugar and lemon) and Kyle had an extravagant crepe of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and hazelnuts.

We stopped back at the apartment for a quick rest, then at about 8:30 we headed to the Eiffel Tower. We’d been up before during the day, so this time we wanted to try it at night. Also, this time we decided to take the stairs. Maybe a crazy move, yes, but hey, my calves look great now! Haha. The stairs save you three euro off the elevator price, and the line is less than half the length of the elevator line. The stairs get you up to the second level, where the Jules Verne restaurant is, about halfway up the full height of the tower. Beyond that, you hop on the elevator to get the rest of the way to the top. It was a warm, muggy day, and especially after walking all those stairs we were feeling pretty gross, but at the top it’s all cool and breezy. We took lots of pictures of the view and the lights all around. We stayed up there until just after midnight – long enough to see the flashing lights (tons of white lights flicker every hour when it’s dark). We got back down as quickly as we could, and headed for the metro, when we caught the second to last train of the night (whew!) at 12:45 to make the 15 stops back to our place, arriving some time past one. A long night, but well worth it!

-Steph

Day 18

Today with good weather forecasts and our feet a little rested we set off for the grand Jardin des Plantes, which houses plants from all around the world in one garden, and first opened to the public in 1640.  Anyone who enjoys gardening would go nuts here to see everything that they have.  Also on the grounds is the museum of evolution, an entomology museum, and a mini zoo.  We arrived about midday with a picnic in hand and walked through the "maze," portion of the gardens before finding a good bench to enjoy our salads, sandwiches, and snacks.  After that and amongst all of the groups of kids taking field trips to the gardens we were able to explore the entire grounds and take really awesome pictures of just some of the flowers that grow there.  The rose garden alone, has hundreds of different species of roses.  Please look at album four if you'd like to see any of the pictures, it is really hard to describe how neat it was to see all of these different plants just sort of lined up one right after the other.  The only things that were consistently not in bloom, were the irises, most of the kinds they had we had never heard of either.  

After exploring the rest of the gardens, encountering some frogs in little lily ponds and many bees who had no idea we were there, we left to catch a glimpse of the kangaroos, and head back to our apartment before we continued part two of three for our louvre night.  

This wing for the Louvre night was the smallest of the three, however it offers some of the more famous works of art and awesome rooms where these pieces are held, where the room itself is just as (if not more) impressive than the artwork it holds.  We began on the basement floor of the Denon wing and worked up to first see impressive sculptures and artifacts dating back to the dark ages, and progressively work up towards newer works of art.  Along the way we were able to see the famous Winged Victory, which happens to be one of our favourite sculptures/pieces in the entire museum.  We also saw Venus de Milo, who was thought to have been made around 100 BC.  Both of these statues are really awesome to see in person, and the last time we saw Venus de Milo she was in a different room, which made her seem really small and hard to get close to.  This time she was in her own smaller space but it allowed for better pictures, which made us appreciate her more this time than we had before.  Next we moved up to what Da Vinci's favourite painting and only portraiture, the Mona Lisa.  We were confused as we walked into the room because we saw a lot of camera flashes and people being able to take photos of the painting while the museum security stood close by but didn't try to stop anyone.  Last time, no one was allowed to take any kind of photo, flash or no flash, so this time we were happy to come back with proof that we had seen her haha.  The Mona Lisa is held in a room opposite of another famous painting which stands at about 20 feet by 40 feet, so it has always been funny to both of us that out of all of the extremely large paintings in the room, the smallest painting, the Mona Lisa, is the main attraction.  We continued through the rest of the Denon wing as the museum began to close and left a different way than we came, allowing Stephanie to grab more photos of the Winged Victory in all her glory (and luckily a few photos with no one else in the picture, and some right next to it for perspective).  

We had another awesome day and headed back to the apartment for dinner and to give our feet some much needed rest.  

- Kyle 

Day 17

Since this was the day right after the Brussels all day event, we slept in quite a bit extra, and our feet were sore so we didn't feel like doing much. Still, we somehow mustered up the energy to walk over to Ile St Louis for some of the best ice cream in the world - that's right, folks: Berthillon, round three. I tried the grapefruit this time, which was lovely, but my second scoop was cherry, still their best flavor in my opinion. Kyle had pistachio and white chocolate. 

After, we cruised the Ile, and around Les Halles a bit. I planned to cook some ratatouille with the vegetables we bought at Marche Enfants Rouges a couple days ago, so we picked up a fresh baguette. There are two women who work at our corner bakery, and it's always one or the other or both of them there. One lady doesn't seem too nice, but the younger girl there knows us (and our typical order!) by now. :) 

The ratatouille was great, possibly my best batch yet. After dinner we went downstairs to the restaurant/bar that's practically right below us, since they have live music on Thursdays. We got some drinks and listened to the jazz trio for a while, which was fun. I felt more like locals today than any other day so far. It was nice to just enjor our time, and relax in the city. 

-Steph

Day 16 - Belgium

Wednesday of this week was spent in Brussels, Belgium. We went on kind of a whim, never having visited Belgium before and not knowing much about it, but I loved this city. There’s just something great about it, in the atmosphere, the humor, quirky eccentricities, blend of modern and old architecture, and wonderful food. I mean really, what foods are famously Belgian? Waffles, chocolate, beer. And fries. Can’t go wrong with any of that. Evidently lace was always a big export of Belgium, but more on that later. We got up earlier than any other day yet on this trip to metro over to the train station and take the one and a half hour ride to Brussels Midi station. Thalys is the only train that goes from Paris to Belgium, and it was quite comfortable. Mention trains anytime around Kyle or me, and we’ll sing the praises of that form of travel. Seriously, trains in Europe, in our experience are always on time, very efficient, lines are nothing like at airports, and your ears don’t pop.

So we’ve arrived at around 9:30, and find our way through the Brussels metro (a much smaller system than Paris! It’s a much smaller city, very manageable to walk around) to get to the center of town. The Grand Place is one of the most awesome squares I’ve ever seen. The pictures really don’t do it justice. It’s really a big area, but the buildings framing the square are all so big and incredibly ornate, that even standing at one far end, you can’t quite get the other entire end into a picture. But still, check them out for fun and some idea of the detail on the buildings. There’s a tourism office there, and we didn’t have a very decent map, so in the office we were able to purchase a 4 euro guide that included a detailed map, as well as info on everything in town and a walking tour, which I will also reference later.

While Brussels seems to be a city of culture and history, it’s much more irreverent than Paris, much more casual. They have fine art museums, but their main emphases are comics and surrealism, personal favorites of mine. We start at the one place I’d been determined to visit, La Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee (Belgium Center of Comic Strips). It’s in a former warehouse, but that doesn’t describe the building well at all. There are lots of windows and glass ceiling to let in lots of light to the three open levels of the Center. It’s part museum, showing the process and history of comics (especially in Belgium, with emphasis also on France and the Netherlands), and highlighting some of the comic artists of great influence to the genre. See the pictures of this as well, while there are hundreds upon hundreds of pages on exhibit, there are also large three dimensional representations of characters and settings that make the exhibits a bit more whimsical. We see a lot about what are probably the most famous Belgian comics: Tintin, Asterix, and the Schtroumpfs. If you are unfamiliar with the latter, it’s because they are more known (and pronounceable) across the pond as Smurfs. We browsed everything for a while, and went back downstairs to the bookstore, and also took a peek at the library – the largest collection of comic strips in the world!

A bit hungry, we make our way back around Grand Place to find lunch. There are lots of alleys with nice looking restaurants and decent lunch deals, but we really don’t want to take the time for a three course meal. Luckily, we spot the Frit’N Toast. We each order a Stella Artois (cheap too, since it’s not an import there) and the “Special” which is a large helping of fries topped with mayonnaise, ketchup, and grilled onions. This delicious and filling meal was only about 10 euro for the two of us, and we don’t even finish all the fries.

So, remember the part about Surrealism? Yes, well after the Centre BD and the fries, we walked over the Place Royal, with gardens and a park and such, and we find the Musée Magritte Museum (which, yes, is Museum Magritte Museum, slightly redundant). It has only just opened on June 2^nd, and it’s a steal at 2 euro for students. Regretfully, no pictures allowed, otherwise the picture count for the day would have doubled, but it was great. Rene Magritte, even if you don’t know him by name, you know his work. It’s very common, you can google it. Over four floors there spanned nearly a whole lifetime of work, as well as a room playing a documentary about the artist. We bought a magnet from the gift shop, of the painting of the man with an apple obscuring his face.

Next stop, we absolutely had to see Brussels’ unofficial mascot, the Manneken Pis. I think that’s Dutch, but still, that pretty much gives you an idea of what it is. The Manneken Pis is a fountain in town, featuring a bronze statue of a young boy relieving himself and, well, hence the fountain. He is nicknamed Julien. We’d read about it in the travel book and all day, we’d seen miniature figures of the statue for sale in all the souvenir shops, the same as you see all the little Eiffel Towers in Paris. We even went by the Brussels museum which houses a couple hundred of Julien’s outfits from the last few centuries (true story!). We were damn curious at this point about the real thing. You must read about it first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis. Okay, so it’s not too far from Grand Place. We walk over, and see the fountain. The statue is only two feet tall! We’d heard that it was a small mascot, but really it had been built up so much that it was a hilarious sight. What a great city, I love that this is what they embrace as their mascot. We took some pictures of and with him and moved on.

The aforementioned walking tour from the guide was a huge, looping path around the whole city that took you along some of the major sights we had already seen, but the main attraction of the walk was comic walls. There are probably thirty to forty giant murals pained on the sides of buildings depicting various comic strip characters. Again, what a cool, quirky town. We decided that we had to find some. Since the city isn’t too large, but the map from the guide was a bit larger than a newspaper, a lot of these walls were much closer together than we’d originally thought. We saw nine of them throughout the remainder of the day, pictures of all are included. Midway through our own mini version of the comic walk, we decided to partake in the classic Belgian snack of waffles, mostly because we had passed so many little walk up places that smelled so good. Since the rain was coming down at this point, we chose one right by the Frit’N Toast that had an actual inside dining area. Kyle got his topped with caramel and I had a whipped cream and strawberry waffle. Both excellent. We also did a bit of shopping, browsing through one of the several lace shops, looking at all the varieties stocked at the Bier Tempel, and of course, finishing the shopping at (where else?) Chocopolis for some good Belgian chocolate. We calculated that we’d spent nine hours walking around at this point. After we finished up the comic walls on that side of town, we headed back to the train station to make the trek back to Paris, tired and wet but very happy.

-Steph

P.S. Aside form the aforementioned national foods of frites, waffles, and beer, the other main commodity throughout the city (really at every restaurant we passed) was Moules Frites.  This would be mussels and french fries on the same plate, in equal amounts, because they supposedly compliment each other?  We didn't partake in eating any Moules Frites but it was one of those little things you can't help but notice.  - Kyle

Day 15

For today we set out on a quest to explore Paris' famous underground Catacombs.  After waking up to some more rain and waiting for clothes to finish to dry we stayed in for lunch to have another delicious sandwich made by Steph of a baguette from a local bakery, stuffed with brie and salami.  Very full and clothes dry we head out on the metro to the other side of the Seine to journey through the catacombs.  Or so we thought... The Catacombs, due mostly to how dark and narrow they are, have a 200 person max. capacity limit on them, so it isn't about how quickly they can sell tickets so much as it is how quickly people walk through them.  An hour before they take the last person to go into the Catacombs there is a huge line with, what do you know, 200 people waiting to get inside.  Instead of wait the hour, and run the good chance of still not making into the Catacombs we continue on with our day's plan to visit Le Bon Marche.  This is the third main/large Paris shopping center and since it wasn't too far away from the Catacombs we set off to explore it.  This store, like the other two, was very neat to see and very ritzy as well.  We have fun exploring the upper two floors before heading across the street to their own special super market, which is very nice and well kept yet the prices are very good/normal.  Stephanie orders a dozen of the French macaroons, which turn out to be just as delicious as the ones we had the day before.  We have fun taking our time and exploring the rest of both stores, and then head back to our apartment to drop our purchases off.  We set off soon after for the oldest market in Paris, Enfants rouges Market, which is held, luckily, not far from our apartment.  We're getting there towards the tail end of things so some of the locations have closed up shop, but we find a nice grocer whose vegetables are cheap and has more than enough for what Stephanie needs to cook up some good old ratatouille.  We head back home after exploring the rest of the market and enjoy another nice dinner of Lebanese pitas.  

Tomorrow, it's time for Brussels.

- Kyle

Day 14 - 6-8-09

Today we began early with grand schemes for the day to try and head out to Brussels and enjoy a new city/country just for a day.  We left it up to some small chance though, if there wasn't a seat on the train, we wouldn't really do it since our time in Brussels would thus be less than we had hoped.  Upon arriving at Gare du Nord (what seems to be Paris' largest train hub), we found out that for today it would be a little more trouble than we had expected, and instead rescheduled to go to Brussels on Wednesday.  Up earlier than most of the bakeries, we walked back to our apartment and stopped at one of the nearby (and few that were open yet) bakeries.  This one seemed to be less family run and more part of a chain, but their croissants were still very good so we returned to our apartment with breakfast in hand and happy.   For a quick excursion we also head to clock just near our apartment but slightly off the main roads we've been using as we heard that it showed a knight, who on the hour, would fight back a dragon, crab, or bird that attacked the clock.  This clock, dubbed "the defender of time," was easy to find, and quite a sight compared to the other more public clock towers in Paris, however it was sadly not working. The weather for the day turned out, to not be so happy, and it rained on and off throughout the entire day.  One of our goals though was to go and see the Galleries Lafayette, and Au Printemps, some of the oldest and definitely the largest department stores in Paris.  We had fun exploring each floor and seeing what each one had to offer, Lafayette was much more geared towards tourists and more moderately priced in most of what they had, including a floor that seemed to be only gourmet food of different styles.  We got two types of breads from this area, looked at the souvenir section on the eighth floor of 9.  One thing we saw, was a huge Lego box that came with directions to build the Eiffel tower and was pretty good size.  Sadly, the box and the price tag was more than we could handle, but it was fun to see.  Also fun to see was a whole set of tables laid out around the escalators on the gourmet floor that sold spices in minor increments.  They really had a lot of stuff we hadn't heard of before (i.e. smoked, blue (iron), and Hawaiian salts).  It was an awesome idea for a store/gourmet area to have, but even cooler to see that quite a few people were utilizing it and that each spice came with recommendations for what it should be used with, or preset mixtures for fish, meat, etc.  

We left Lafayette and headed farther down the street to go to Au Printemps, which was much more ritzy and a lot less our style.  We had fun though as we head up to the top floor where the cafe was out, and took many pictures of us on the outside, open air rooftop of the building, which allowed for awesome views of the whole city.  Not to mention, there was some sort of an artistic thing going on throughout Printemps that involved bunnies in different colors just sort of among the rest of the displays in the store (or right outside the entrance, or on the rooftop).  Naturally, we had fun with the twenty or so bunnies on the rooftop, and just as it began to rain harder once more, we head back to the street and metro-ed back to the apartment.  

Towards the end of the day we head out to Belleville, partially to see that part of town and also because we felt for some cheap Asian cuisine and our books suggested any of the restaurants by the Belleville metro.  Sure enough we found a family owned restaurant (Dong Hoang's) that was pretty busy for 945 at night and had great food and fast service.  We have the feeling we'll be back around Belleville (probably earlier in the day) for more great food at least once.  

We returned to our apartment, like many times before, full and happy, and ready to report on the day's journeys.  

-Kyle

Steph's comment:

Also, when we were in search of "The Defender of Time" (how grandiose does that sound?!) we found another nearby bakery with some fancy pastries, including the famous French "macarons" so I got two, there's a picture in album 3. http://picasaweb.google.com/scarlson09

Delicious! They had lots of these cookies, and their mini versions, at the department stores, but far more expensive.

Days 12 and 13 (2nd weekend in Paris)

We slept in, did little, but ate very well. On Saturday we went over to what’s getting to be one of my most favorite areas of town, Ile-St-Louis, to visit a restaurant we saw last week that had a great weekend lunch special. Café Med, a cozy tea room/restaurant/creperie with quicker service than most and a three course menu for 9.90 euro! I had the soup and a creamy risotto with mushrooms (so good!) and Kyle tried the quiche to start and penne with gorgonzola. We each had a buerre sucre crepe for dessert. Since the weather was a little chilly, it was nice to sit and have a delicious hot meal. Since we were full, we saved Berthillon round three for another day. Enjoying the cool air, we took the long way around and walked through the city checking out shops along the way. Later in the day we walked over to the Place Vendome, which boasts several incredibly pricy shops full of watches and jewelry, and a huge bronze pillar monument in the center, commissioned by Napoleon and made from captured enemy cannons. On the way home, we made our every few days stop at the Monop’ for groceries and, still pretty full from our lunch several hours earlier, decided on a small dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches. But, of course, the cheese was great. Mmm, try a Gouda grilled cheese whenever you get a chance. It’s really good(a). Hahaha.

As for Sunday, our fast paced lifestyle of the past two weeks finally hit. In addition, it was cold and rainy, most things besides restaurants are closed on Sundays, and that day (June 7^th) just happened to be France’s Mother’s Day (Fete des Meres) and a European election day. So, the prospect of trying to go anywhere or do anything was none too appealing. Eventually though, we made it out for a pita from Man-Ouche, and went over to Forum des Halles, the nearest mall, to catch a movie. Since the only thing open at this underground mall were the movies, McDo, Starbucks, and Waffle Factory, it took a couple tries to find an open entrance. We saw Angels & Demons, and we both enjoyed it! I thought it was better than Da Vinci Code. Kyle has read the books, but I still need to get around to that. The movie started at 4pm, but there were 25 minutes of stuff before the movie. Only a few trailers though, mostly it was just a ton of commercials. And pretty much no one had popcorn or candy. There was a huge concessions stand though; maybe it was just the wrong time of day. Definitely a lot quieter than an American movie theatre, without all the crunching and wrappers rustling. Just some interesting cultural differences. Oh, and the movie was in the original English, with French subtitles… which didn’t do us much good when there were a few lines in Italian, but that’s okay. After that we just kind of hung out some more, but once it got later we felt like we wanted to get out, so we went over to one of the cafes on our block, Cavalier Bleu, and had a drink and a late dinner. It was good, and some of the biggest portions I’ve seen yet in this country. It was nice to have a few low key days, since we do still have some grand plans ahead. Belgium this week! Stay tuned.

-Steph

Day 11

Today with grand plans in our heads and our feet well rested from a nice night out at the Opera we have our breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt and head out towards Notre Dame once again.  Our original plan was a day of the Louvre, but feeling a little too relaxed and not quite up for the Museum of museums, we went towards the crypte of Notre Dame.  For Lunch we made and brought with us a baguette stuffed with brie and salami and have our lunch above the entrance to the crypt, with a great view of Notre Dame and the crowds.  Hopeful, we venture down to the crypts to find it is finally open! And due to our age, half price!  We quickly enter the underground museum and enjoy the ruins of buildings dating back to around the 3rd century.  We come out happy to have finally seen the crypts and journey around the mini-island looking to take pictures of the outside of Saint Chapelle, but the long lines make us decide to come back another time and we move back to the famous ice cream place, Berthillon.  I enjoy another double scoop cone of gingerbread and white chocolate ice cream, while Steph enjoys her cherry and honey nougat ice cream.  If you look in the pictures, you'll notice the awesome cones that this place offers which allows for each scoop to be separate yet on/in the same cone.  Happy once more, we take the long way back to the apartment to see more parts of the city we haven't seen before and relax at the apartment until 545.  We got ready once more and head out to the Louvre, which is free to those under 26 after 6pm on Fridays, when it's open late until 10pm.  (Steph says: "Score!") We figured it would be better to split the Louvre up to really take it all in, that way aside from our legs getting tired and our feet sore, we'd have a lot more patience when looking at each artifact or piece of art, instead of a marathon of ten hours of paintings.  We enjoyed our first third of the Louvre, by tackling the Richelieu wing.  We were able to see many sculptures from the 17th and 18th century, before moving on to 15-17th century paintings, and then to ancient remnants of Mesopotamia, including the Code of Hammurabi.  We'll be back the next two Friday evenings as well, one wing per day in three 4-hour blocks. Once we were done with our first third, we left the Louvre to take some more pictures of the outside, and began our trek home.  Along the way we picked up McDonald's for something small, cheap, and easy, and then relaxed for the rest of the night.  

-Kyle

Day 10, at the Opera

Another morning of croissants… I’m going to miss their accessibility in the States (the quality too). We took the metro over to tour the Opera National de Paris at the Palais Garnier, which is the classic, old opera house, not the new one at the Bastille, though I’d like to tour that one as well. I’d looked up performance dates and prices earlier that morning, and saw that all the remaining dates for the current ballet at Garnier only had more expensive seats left (85 euro and up). So on the way in for the tour, we stopped by the box office just to see if they had anything more. Sure enough, they had two 10 euro tickets for that night’s show. Score! So we toured the building, the grand staircase, the library and museum, the grand foyer with a ridiculous number of chandeliers.

Walked back to the apartment to hang out and get ready for the show, I fixed some pasta and a salad for a quick dinner. I put on my infamous feather hat and we were ready to go. Here’s what we saw: http://www.operadeparis.fr/cns11/live/onp/site/saison/ballets/ballets_details.php?lang=en&event_id=88&CNSACTION=SELECT_EVENT

It was wonderful. It was so cool to just walk up the marble steps (a lot of them) to our seats, just to be in the theatre. That’s mostly what I wanted anyway was the experience of going, but the show was completely amazing. Our 10 euro tickets got us pretty far up to the top, on the 4^th loge, but there were still plenty seats higher up, and we could see most of the stage, which is massive. I read that the stage can hold a cast of 450 people. I loved that we were in a sort of mini box, four seats: two on a lower step and two on a higher step. There were partitions between each box of four seats on our level. In some ways it was nice to be higher up, getting to see into the orchestra pit and be closer to all the detail of the ceiling and the 6.5 ton chandelier. We bought a program of the show, which has more information on each scene, each piece of music. Pictures were strictly forbidden, which I followed up until the end, but I took some while the cast was doing their curtain call. All in all, it was a great day. I feel more cultured already.

-Steph

Day 9

Since our other attempt on Sunday to go to the archaeological crypt at Notre Dame failed (closed due to holiday), we decided to try that again today.

And again, it was closed.

We couldn’t tell why until we walked around by Notre Dame (which was incredibly busy right out front) and saw two lines leading into the church marked “Air France” and “Families”. It must have been a memorial service, and a ton of people were there, a lot of news cameras too, and we saw Air France pilots and staff in uniform walking around throughout most of the day.

So we had to come up with another plan. We walked over the bridge to Ile-St-Louis, the smaller “island” in the Seine. There, we found Berthillon, fabled in one of our travel books to be the best ice cream in Paris. There was no way I could pass it up. It was a beautiful little place, with a tea room attached, on a charming street that was filled with patisseries, gourmet food shops, tea rooms, and little art galleries and boutiques. I’d like to go back there and spend more time. But anyway, the ice cream: I tried the sorbets and Kyle had the “glaces” (the ice cream in France is more like what we know as gelato), two scoops each. Mine were blood orange and pear, and Kyle’s were pistachio and caramel. Everything was amazing, such true, deep flavors. Knowing that they sell pints, I’m in trouble. I plan on several trips back. I’ll try every flavor before the trip is through. Also, a few other spots in town, many on that street, sell Berthillon as well but I think I’ll have to keep going to the real location. On the way off the island we stumbled upon some kind of film set. Could have been a commercial, a movie, TV, we have no idea, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Then we wandered around the Latin district a bit (called Latin because from the 12^th century, when the university was built, all the professors and students around the area spoke primarily Latin), and down Boulevard Saint-Germain. Full of bars and cafes, and the coolest bookstore I’ve ever seen (Katie, you would have thought you’d died and gone to heaven). Right along the Seine, there’s City Lights books, (in a building marked Shakespeare Company) an old house with shelves everywhere, every nook and cranny filled floor to ceiling with new and used books, all arranged in a funky way too, such as the “Beat Generation” section. Next door is its sister Rare Books shop. After browsing, we explored some more; we walked past the Pantheon and the Sorbonne. Further down St Germain, we found the French equivalents of Barnes and Noble, and Target, and browsed some more. The bookstore was six levels! The four volumes of the Twilight saga are known here as: Fascination, Temptation, Hesitation, and Revelation, respectively. Monoprix (the French Target) is not quite as great as Target, but still excellent.

On the way home, we picked up pita wraps from our Lebanese place, Man’Ouché, and tartes again from the corner patisserie (Kyle really fell for their apple tarte). Mind you, these are both within twenty feet of our building. So we ate and decided to explore Les Halles, the mall nearby. We had no idea how big it was! I had wondered where they hide the 19 screen movie theatre. Turns out, there are two levels above ground (not that big) and four levels underground (much larger)! I think we’ll go see Angels & Demons sometime soon, it’s one of the few American movies here we haven’t seen yet. Has anyone seen it? Any opinions? After Les Halles, we weren’t ready to call it a night, so we hung out in the square in front of Pompidou, which is always lively and great for people watching. Then I picked up some gelato from the other top ice cream place noted in the book, Amorino. I had crème caramel, and bacio, which is chocolate and hazelnut (one of the world’s great combinations – thank you Nutella!) So, if you’re counting, yes I ate three desserts today. The sugar rush may explain why it’s a bit past 1am and I’m not too tired. But still, I’ll give sleep a go. Louvre on Friday. Not sure what’s in store for tomorrow, but we’ll take it easy. One must prepare for Louvre Day.

Bonne nuit a tous,

Steph

Day 8 (June 2nd, just to keep track)

Since our whole first week was so busy, we got a late start and decided to take a picnic to one of the main gardens in the city. We packed up a fresh baguette, some cheese, sausage, fruit, a salad, chips, and water in our reusable bag from the Monop’ and went off to the Jardin de Luxembourg, one of the more popular places. It is gorgeous there, all the plants and fountains, lots of tennis courts and other sporting areas. There are lawns everywhere, but unfortunately people are only allowed on one of them. Not even one of the biggest areas, but it seems like a lot of students from the nearby universities are there, just hanging out. So we sat and ate our picnic lunch on the grass in the sun. It was honestly a great way to save money on food, and the fresh baguette from the corner bakery was better than buying a sandwich.

After, we went to the Hotel des Invalides, since it was Tuesday and we’d read that it stays open until 9pm on Tuesdays. We tourned Napoleon’s tomb, which was very impressive, and it’s in a beautiful building with an elaborate dome. The audio tour was great too, included in the price, narrated by a very dramatic British guy. Then we went through the museum of the World Wars, which covered both World Wars through video, text, uniforms from various countries and ranks, models, weapons, etc. It was interesting to see the history from the European perspective, which is so different from what Americans learn. It’s a great museum, very well laid out, lots of displays and information. This is where it all starts to go awry. There are three other parts of “Invalides,” so we head over to the next part (it’s about 6:00, we got there at 3:30) and see that the modern development part of the museum has closed at 5:45. As well as the ancient armor exhibits. Apparently only select parts of Invalides are open late: the parts we already saw. So basically we did the whole thing backwards and missed out on about half of the exhibits there. Had we gotten there at five just to see the parts we saw, it would have been a reduced rate. So, while the parts we saw were great, we’ll probably go back again. On the way home, we picked up some tartes from the corner bakery. Somehow makes the whole day better. :)

-Steph

Day 7

Well for the first week we had another awesome day in Paris.  It began with an adventure into cuisine with a small place right across the street.  Here we tried a Lebanese wrap of meat, and veggies, in a nicely cooked pita.  The little street vendor has a permanent location, but the "restaurant," is at best 12 feet long by 4 feet deep.  Amongst the large convex cooking dome which makes the pita rise and bubble, they also have a microwave, a display for all of their meats and sauces, and a flat screen TV.  It is definitely one of the more interesting places I've eaten from, but also one of the best.  We ate as we headed to the Metro by Les Halles, a large multi-story (2 above, 2 below) shopping center, and took the Metro to Pere Lachaise, the world famous cemetery in the heart of Paris.  The cemetery is world famous not only because of its immense size, but also due to the large number of famous people buried there.  For instance Edith Piaf is buried there (for those who don't know her, you must go and rent La Vie en Rose, I promise you'll like it).  The most famous grave though is Jim Morrison's, which used to have a bust of him on the top of the headstone but due to a lot of vandalism, it was removed.  Now he has just his headstone, with a larger family monument (a different family mind you) directly in front of him, which is full of names, lyrics from his songs, and other graffiti.  

            The grounds of the cemetery are amazing, and surprisingly very relaxing.  The large trees provide a lot of shade, and create a moist atmosphere for those walking around the cobbled "avenues," of the grounds.  If you like, there is a virtual version of it with real pictures here http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.htm .  Some of the graves are said to be famous for different reasons, the grave of victor noir is supposed to grant fertility, while the philosopher Allan Kardec is supposed to fulfill your wishes.  Oscar Wilde was a grave we visited not once, not twice, but three times.  If you look at our pictures, and I'm sure the pictures on the virtual tour you can see the numerous marks from lipstick left by women who have stopped by his grave to kiss it.  The first time we looked at it, went off and planned a route for which ones to see next. Then Steph decided that she wanted to leave a lipstick mark at Oscar Wilde's grave, mostly for the story. We waited for there to be as few people around as possible, then I picked her up to get to the spot that she wanted, on the wing of the angel. For some reason it didn't come out quite too well at first, only about half of the smooch was visible, but we left some what satisfied.  After visiting the rest of the graves of the people we were interested in we had an hour before the cemetery closed, and thus made our way back to Oscar Wilde's grave to wait for an opportune time where there were very few people, so that Steph could equip her lips with much more lipstick and replant her kiss at the same spot as before.  The second time went much smoother and with much success we took a few more pictures, and made our way quickly back to the apartment to get ready for dinner at Au Pied De Cochon.  This restaurant was awesome in its style, lighting, and service in every way.  We enjoyed, from a rather eclectic menu, our dishes, and were very very happy with desserts.  If anyone knows of anywhere in the states where we can get Rose ice cream please let us know because, in some weird way, the ice cream tastes just as the flower smells, and yes that taste is delicious.  We were slightly saddened, however, that we didn't order which almost everyone else in the restaurant had, which was a large bowl (about two feet in diameter) of seafood.  This dish came with pretty much any edible crustacean on it, at least twice.  We had a great time, and must thank Steph's cousin Andy for the awesome recommendation.  

            We returned to the apartment full and more than content with our day.  We relaxed, and watched Casablanca online, ready for another great day.  

- Kyle

Steph's notes: my dessert at Au Pied de Cochon, was the "La Vie en Rose" sundae. Rose ice cream, strawberry sorbet, rose jam, and whipped cream, all topped with a little pink "piglet" made out of meringue. There are pictures of it. Check it out. :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/scarlson09

Day 6

-          Today we got up to start off with some sandwiches from a suggested place of Pomme Au Pain.  We ate at little steps next to the Hotel de Ville where we also enjoyed a small tennis sporting area, where kids and exhibition matches were/would take place.  We moved down towards the River and got onto the Batobus, to take a tour through la Seine, and get off near Notre Dame to tour the Archeological Crypt, which runs below the Notre Dame.  Due to a Holiday we didn’t know about, the crypt was closed, we then continued with our plan to take the Batobus to Champs Elysee, where we walked past the Grand and Petite Palace, then past the shops lining Champs Elysee.  We passed four movie theatres, and the original Louis Vuitton.  After visiting the Arc De Triomphe to take more pictures, we hopped onto the open tour bus and made our way back to Notre Dame.  All in all it was a busy day, but one that we still had fun, and allowed us to do and see things we hadn’t before.  For anyone that is interested, I tried to show/get pictures of the detail laid in to the decorations of the Arc.  It really is insane to see a lot of the detail in something that large, and then to remember that it’s all made out of stone.  The streets, and all of the landmarks, were insanely busy and we didn’t quite understand why until we looked up once we got back to the apartment.  Apparently, most of Europe celebrates Whit Sunday (not white) and with it, Whit Monday, which is some religious holiday whose date is based off of Easter.  Once back in our nearby area, we ate some dessert crepes at our favorite creperie, and then (dare I say) went to McDonald’s for some greasy burgers.  Also enjoyed at the McDonald’s was a Croque McDo, which is a very very thin (really pressed down) sandwich, which has ham and white cheese, between two slices of different bread (not buns).  It was really good, and well worth the extra five euro cents.

-Kyle

Steph’s additional comments:

The Batobus was a neat way to get around. Not terribly speedy (especially the second time we got on – we had to wait for the 3^rd one to come by, the line was so long) but more relaxing than walking and much better view than the metro. We didn’t do too much that day, but we saw a lot of the city!

Day 5

We started off early with a croissant from next door and headed for the train to Versailles. It takes about an hour in all to get there, and we got off the train with a horde of other people also heading off towards the palace. I read a statistic that Versailles gets 3 million visitors a year. Since it was a nice, sunny Saturday it was plenty busy. We got the “passeport” to tour everything – the palace, the dauphin and dauphine apartments, special exhibitions, Trianon, the Marie-Antoinette estate, the gardens, and the “grandes eaux muicales” (fountain show).

                There really was too much to even describe. Everything is just so grand and spectacular. At the same time, you’re glad it’s there to see, but on the other hand you can really understand where the French people of 1789 were coming from. It’s just obscene amounts of money: entire rooms of marble, huge statues, the hall of mirrors. When you’re walking through the palace from room to room, bedroom, antechamber, drawing room, etc, it almost feels like it was laid out with the intent of being a museum. The rooms just flow from one to another in a big circle on each floor. The Queen’s bedroom was one of my favorite rooms of the palace. The wall covering and patterns of the linens were unique from the other rooms. After the palace, we toured a separate part that’s only open on weekends, the “Mesdames Apartments”. This is where the daupin and/or dauphine would live. Louis XV had something like six or eight sisters, and they each had their apartments here. The décor was different from the main palace, colors softer and more pastel, and I loved the intricate wood carvings of the walls. It’s quite a walk from there to Trianon (Grand and Petit), so we saw a lot of the gardens on the way out, the fountains, the canal. We got some ice cream along the way. 

Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon are like mini palaces out in the grounds, sort of retreats or guest quarters, not that there wasn’t enough room at the palace to begin with. Around Petit Trianon is Marie-Antoinette’s estate, and the “Queen’s Hamlet”. Louis XVI gave her all this area when he took the throne, so it was entirely hers, and you can tell that the style was more eclectic, different from the traditional style of the palace. She built her own theatre out there, had several garden areas and monuments, but the most outrageous part was the Queen’s Hamlet. There’s basically a little village out there, 12 buildings, with a farm (with real animals still there today!) and it looks like something that Disneyland Paris must have misplaced. Very countryside feel to it, supposed to mimic her family’s vacation home in Austria, and she built it for her and her children to get away from the palace life. There was a little garden behind one of the houses, and I hopped the hedge and picked a strawberry while Kyle stood guard. J He wanted to save the seeds and plant them in Tucson, but it got squashed on the way back on the train, so I don’t think we’ll be able to have the royal strawberries in Arizona.

                Once we’d seen everything out there, we walked back to the main garden area for the fountain show. This is really just the fountains turned on. They’re off the rest of the time, only on for a couple hours on weekends. The views are so amazing, I can’t believe just how much space they had there. They have numerous little stands selling fresh squeezed orange juice from the Versailles oranges. They really do just cut up two oranges and put them on the juicer when you order a glass. Let me tell you though, it’s the best orange juice I’ve ever had. We took some more pictures, sat by the fountain for a while, browsed the gift shop, and realized we’d been there, pretty much walking around the whole time for seven hours. Tired, we hopped the train back to Paris, bought a warm baguette from our bakery, and I made some pasta with fresh sauce for dinner, which we had with a glass of wine out on the patio. Overall, a very full day, and the most pictures yet- over 300 that day alone! So I hope you enjoy them :)

Steph

new photo link

I've dropped photobucket in favor of something faster. Here it is, it will sync automatically whenever I load pictures onto the computer. Pretty spiffy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/scarlson09

photo link

For some reason, it really does take forever to post pictures to photobucket. Here's the link to what's up so far though:

http://s664.photobucket.com/albums/vv3/scarlson09/France%202009/

Day 4 (wow, is it only day 4?)

As I write this, all of our pictures thusfar are being uploaded onto a photobucket album. very. very. veerryy slowly. While the pictures do jazz up the blogs, it takes way too long to upload them and it's hard to choose just one or two, so now everyone can see them all!

Today we started our "Paris a la carte" tour on the Open bus, which we took up into Montmartre. We didn't get to see any of Montmartre on our shorter trip three years ago, so it was exciting to get to see it and explore, pick out places from "Amelie," etc. We loved the neighborhood. While the main street may have been flooded with assorted sex shops, up on the hill the little streets seem very village like, residential areas with pubs, artists, restaurants. We hiked all the way up the hill and toured the Sacre Coeur, which was beautiful of course. The carousel and little grassy park out front were definitely in "Amelie" and the view from there was great. Then we sort of sought out, sort of stumbled upon the Salvador Dali museum (actually referred to as a "space"). It was a cool, dark, basement kind of place that had hundreds of drawings, photos, and a few sculptures, mostly lesser known pieces, mostly from later years, 1960's and on. We learned a lot, and it's great to see his work from all different media. There was a fun photo booth by the exit. We have Kyle as a melting clock and me with Dali's moustache. As soon as I get to a scanner, you'll see them!

We got lunch in one of the little touristy squares with all the street artists, and headed down the hill to find the Moulin Rouge. I have to say though, I was a little disappointed by the exterior, and I blame Baz Luhrmann entirely. No real building could have lived up to the grandeur of his film. But, the Moulin Rouge is 120 years old this year! That's pretty wild. We got to see into the lobby, but unfortunately not into the main room, but the pictures look amazing. We're not going to a show there this time, because no, I don't have 100 euro (without dinner!) just laying around for that purpose. Next time though. It was fun to see, and the gift shop was nice. Took the open bus back around the circle to the Republique, walked back to the apartment, then we went off on one of our Paris city walks cards. (50 cards that plot out little scenic walks through different parts of town - thanks Mom and Dad) Saw Les Halles, Hotel de Ville, Eglise St Eustache, a few streets full of cafes. Really, I know there are a ton of people in this city, and probably even more tourists, but with sooo many restuarants, bars, and cafes, seemingly an infinite amount, how do they all stay busy?

Meanwhile, since we had a big lunch, we just picked up some food to go from the Monop' (it's getting to be my favorite shop) and had a light dinner back here at the apartment. Tomorrow, Versailles provided all goes well. I'm so excited, the interior was closed last time we visited.

A bientot,

Steph

- Kyle's added comments

I highly suggest to everyone that gets a chance to look up pictures of the inside of Sacre Couer since we weren't able to take pictures of the inside ourselves. The interior is definitely worth looking at, since the inside of that place is awesome.

We also have a little video of a crowd of people sitting on the steps in front of Sacre Couer with two guys singing Hey Jude (the second time we were hearing it live) with a single amp, guitar, and microphone. Once we figure out a quicker way of posting our videos from Steph's camera, we'll get it to you.