Paris avec mes parents

It’s been a while since I posted, but that’s largely because I’ve been busy exploring the city. Last week, my parents were in town and I tried to show them some exciting places in Paris. Now, keep in mind that my parents have been to Paris at least half a dozen times! So I was a little bit hard pressed to find things they would not have seen and give them a new experience.

We did a lot of walking (exploring Quartier Latin, Champs Elysees, Jardin Tuileries, Sacre Coeur, etc). I think I may have made my poor parents walk too much though! My mom kept saying that my dad was tired and we should rest, while my dad kept telling my mom that I was tired and we should rest. Neither one of them seemed to want to admit that I was being a slave driver and forcing them to walk far too much! Nonetheless, we did get to explore a lot of the city and I showed them the Marais which they had, surprisingly, never explored, while they showed me Sacre Coeur which I had not yet visited!

We also indulged ourselves with a lot of eating. I took them to my favorite places like Le Loir dans la Théière and Chez Paul, both of which were met with approval, and also decided to go to Angelina’s. Now, everyone who knows me, knows I have a heck of a sweet tooth. What you wouldn’t know is that I inherited it from my dad, as opposed to my mom, who is oblivious to all things chocolate and such. There is a running joke in my family that my dad can smell where chocolate is stashed in the house (since my mom likes to hide chocolate in random places in the kitchen). So when my mom went shopping, I decided to take my dad to Angelina’s for their amazing hot chocolate and desserts. Now, my dad and I never met a dessert too sweet or chocolate we did not like. But, having finished his mont blanc, and having drank the equivalent of 2 or 3 cups of more or less melted chocolate (which we both loved!!!), my dad and I looked at each other and realized that this may have been the very first time we went too far when it came to sweets. In fact, when we finished our dinner, about 6 hours later, my mom wondered out loud what she should have for dessert… at which point, my dad and I wrinkled our noses in disgust and proclaimed that we would never want dessert again… actually that’s an overstatement and we revised it to for the next day or two!

Lastly, we took a heck of a lot of pictures. Now, my dad is a phenomenal photographer! And I do mean, phenomenal! (Look at www.graizer.net if you don’t believe me!) So between him and I, walking around with our Canons, we took way took a LOT of pictures. Unlike me, who takes pictures of pretty building and settings and random red-headed children), my dad likes to pretend he’s a spy… meaning that he wants to get the quintessential feel of Paris, thus he walks by a table of Parisians drinking their cafes and smoking cigarettes, and snaps pictures of them like a covert agent. My favorite moment was when we saw a Parisian protest (with possibly more cops in riot gear than there were actual protesters) and my dad started snapping pictures of all the dashing Parisian police officers. After the 50th picture or so, one of the cops told my dad that it is not allowed to take pictures of officers on duty. My dad nodded in understanding (he speaks fluent French…) and proceeded to walk away. However, upon reaching the next bridge, full of more cops, he decided that the rules no longer applied and started to take pictures again… My dad likes to break rules apparently. Where-as I was thinking of what on earth I would say (and for that matter how I would say it in French) at the police station when I would have to come to bail my dad out… Luckily for all those involved, the cops ignored my dad breaking the rules.

There was also the moment when a drunken homeless guy decided to yell at my dad! Apparently, he didn't want my dad taking pictures of his scraggly looking dog! In order to relay this message though, he yelled that if my dad so much as thought about taking said dog's picture, he would kill him. And here I thought that anything spoken in French sounded pretty ;)

Anyways, I had a great time exploring Paris with the parents! I’m glad I got to share some of my Parisian experience with them and they got to see Paris through my eyes a little and I got to listen to their stories and see the sights they love!

Portugal story time

So last week was our lovely spring break here in Paris, meaning that we had the opportunity to travel for 10+ days straight as opposed to quick 5 day trips ;) So I headed to Portugal and Spain with some new friends!

I will start this with declaring my love for all things Portugal! I can tell you all about the yummy food we ate and the kind people we met and the lovely sites we saw in Sintra (which is a magical place!), but instead, I will tell you some fun little stories!

On the first day, after paying 7 euros for bread (yes, there is a trick in Lisbon, where bread is brought to your table along with appetizers, which you never actually ordered but you pay an arm and a leg for if you eat them), we decided to drown our sorrows with ginja (a brandy like drink with cherries sold in little shops on the streets ) and then after riding a tram all the way up a hill and back down (in search of the castle, which we didn’t find until much later in the evening, and I blame this on the ginja!) we drowned our sorrows in nutella coffee (yum!).

On the following day, we explored Lisbon with a bike tour. Now this may sound innocuous enough, but, if you are me, and you haven’t been on a bike (other than in cycling class) in, oh, maybe a decade, and you are a klutz like me, this could be problematic! Now I thought I was doing ok, and getting the hang of all this, and then we veered away from the bike path and joined traffic. In fact, before joining full on city traffic, our guide told us to be careful because the streets have tracks for trams, and we needed to be careful because our bike tires could get stuck. So, now you can picture me, on my bike on a cobble stone street, sharing a lane with cars and trams, trying to drive straight, stay away from the tracks, ignore the honking by angry motorists all the while thinking that while a car can actually go around me, if a tram were to appear, I’d be slightly dead since there was nowhere for me to go. Having survived this lovely portion of our bike tour, our guide then told us that we would have to go up a small hill. Now, a hill I can do, at least I can in cycling class and I figured this would not be a problem. Ahh, I can be so naïve. At this point, I saw a hill unfold in front of me, and indeed it did look fairly small, but steep, though most importantly, said hill involved motor traffic. But when I say motor traffic, I’m really not giving you the full picture. What you have to see is me, peddling up this hill, standing up to try and get some leverage (as I’ve been taught to do in cycling class), realizing that there are cars going by in the lane next to me, and thinking that at any moment I just might roll back and then realizing that there was a bus behind me and that rolling back would, well, not result in anything good! Obviously, as evidenced by my live status, I obviously did not roll back and made it up the hill.



Now, our last stop in Portugal was Porto, where, since we only had a day to explore, we decided to do a hop-on-hop-off tour and headed to their information desk to figure out the details. MC and I decided to talk to the man in charge, who was a good looking young guy and, at this point wearing sunglasses, looked at us and told us to wait a moment until he was finished with another client. MC and I stood around, waiting for this guy to pay attention to us, annoyed that he wasn’t helping us immediately, and then he came back… In fact, he sauntered back and, with a move reminiscent of a supermodel walking out of the water and shaking off her wet hair, he removed his sunglasses and revealed his superpower – his eyes. His beautiful, unexpectedly deep blue eyes, which caught both MC and I off guard and caused us to stammer and lose our train of thought. As MC put it, he was ‘deceptively’ good looking! In fact, as we found out, if you want to find a good looking man in Porto, you should head to this bus tour area as this company seems to have cornered the market on good looking men in this town!

In fact, those may have been the only good looking men we saw in Porto, until we arrived at the airport that is. We were flying Ryanair, which has a lovely policy of one carry-on (ie, your purse had better fit into your other bag!). Since each of us had a carry on plus a purse, one of the Ryanair employees decided to give us a warning. Now, I looked up, to shoot this man the evil eye and argue with him about the fact that in theory my purse can fit into my bag, and that I would simply rather keep it close so I can have easy access to my book and music, but when I looked up, I managed to lose all semblance of speech and simply smiled and nodded that yes, we would put our things away. In case you hadn’t guessed, this man was tall, dark and quite handsome! I shoved my purse into my bag, making it fit, and as we stood, he came back and said that he was working the plane and he wanted to help his customers so we wouldn’t get into trouble later. All I could do, was smile, nod and say thank you. He asked how Porto was and if I liked Portugal, I smiled, nodded, and said that I loved Porto and Portugal. Then we got on the plane, and things went from shameful to worse. He checked my ticket, I said hi, he said hi, and then, I’m 99.999% certain that I said hi again. I sat in the aisle seat that MC and Teena had kindly forced me to sit in (and by forced, I mean they jokingly suggested it and I thought, why not, I can flirt with the steward, but alas, that was not meant to be), and smiled back at him every time he came by my row and offered me a smile. Yes, I know, my actions (or lack thereof) are despicable, but at least they should be funny to everyone but me, and really if you can’t laugh at yourself… well, then that’s unfortunate, so in the spirit of laughing at myself, the story is here for everyone to see 

If you can't beat 'em...

Today I had a lovely Parisian day. I took the metro out to the Arc de Triomphe, walked all the way down the Champs Elysees, through the Tuleries, to Notre Dame, where I attempted to veer towards the Luxembourg Gardens, but somehow ended up doing a giant circle and ended up by the Pont des Artistes (before heading back to Notre Dame, up rue Rivoli and then home).

Upon arriving at Pont des Artistes, I was met with many many lovely young couples – doing what you may ask? Making out of course! Now, in my pre-resolution life (no more complaining, about the small things at least!), I may have complained about the situation, but post resolution I decided that if you can’t beat them, join them. As such, I grabbed the nearest man next to me and decided to join in the fun. As luck would have it, this man was Joaquin Phoenix, who immediately declared his love for me and… oh wait I’m confusing this with a dream I had… Ok to be clear, lest my mother (who may actually be reading my blog) think I’m going around kissing random Parisians (or that her daughter is delusional), I’m just kidding and I’m not going around kissing random men on the bridges of Paris.



In any case, I rounded out my day with a visit to the Louvre and then yummy Japanese food in Paris’ Japan Town. All in all, a wonderful day! Paris, j’adore.

Resolutions!

So I know that it’s March and the time for making resolutions has long passed, but I’ve had a revelation of sorts and have decided to make a resolution that will make me as well as everyone around me (I hope) happier. I am going to do my best to stop complaining and enjoy things around me. As someone French told me, the French love to complain, however, I guess this is just one of the “Olympic events” that I will not be competing in.

How did this come about, you may be asking? Well, I keep realizing that my life is quite good. So every time I complain or think of how sucky something is, I remember that really, I’m quite privileged. Now, I’m not talking about being upper class privileged, I’m talking about being privileged experience wise.

On Saturday, the last night of our spring break, MC and I turned to each other and noted that we didn’t want our vacation (more thoughts on the actual vacation later) to end and go back to the real world. Upon further contemplating the situation though, we each realized that our real world was Paris. We were heading back from our adventures in Portugal and Spain, to continue our Parisian escapades. Really, life is not *that* bad!

So in lieu of complaining, I’m going to walk around with a permanent smile and relish the fact that I still have 4 weeks in Paris, after which I will be sad to leave, but I get to go to Chicago and see all my lovely friends and take amazing classes and enjoy Chicago life. Really, life is, simply, not that bad.

Week at a glance

So this was my last full week in Paris until I take off for Portugal/Spain on Thursday for about 10 days and I wanted to make the best of it.

I had a few recommendations of places to explore, but unfortunately, as the weather did not comply, I only did a little bit of exploration outdoors. Things I did this week:

1) Parc des Buttes Chaumont - Beautiful little park with a temple/oracle/rotunda in the center. Very nice and quite place to explore if you want to get away from the big city feel. Also, on a clear day, the view from the temple is absolutely amazing! One thing though to mention, if you take the metro to Buttes Chaumont, when you get off the train, there are two "sortie" signs, one points to stairs and the other to an elevator. Take the elevator! I looked at the sign and figured that a few steps wouldn't kill me and I wasn't about to go and take a smelly and tiny elevator up, what, a floor or two? I mean come on, I climb to my 5th floor walk-up every day (sometimes 3 times a day!). Yeah, so in my wisdom, I took the stairs, and I felt like I must have climbed to the 6th or 7th floor. In fact, from the bottom, I couldn't even see the end!! Take the elevator people.

2) Louvre - I bought my carte jeune which, for 30 euros, allows me entry to the Louvre, the temporary exhibits, allows me to bring a guest twice a week during special evening hours and also allows me to skip the lines for the next year. A good deal, methinks. I began my exploration by going to see the Richelieu wing (beautiful paintings as well as the apartments) and then checking in on the Mona Lisa for a quick minute. I think I might go back this Wednesday before heading on "vacation".

3) I got "lost" in the Marais and found a lot of little side streets with cute little shops and finally made it to Place des Vosges. Luckily, while it was super cold on this day, it was at least sunny!
At Place des Vosges, I saw the cutest little redheaded boy, who was a complete troublemaker - then again what redhead isn't? This kid stole a scooter from his big brother, attempted to steal a ball from a kid that was younger than him and then proceeded to dig a hole in the dirt (all this in the 10 minutes or so that I stalked him with my camera). Ahh, a kid after my own heart :) I think I could have passed him off as my own if I had stolen him!

Oh and for this week, and this week only, I will not be commenting on my annoyance at having a couple pretty much making out on top of me in the metro and I will chalk it up to Valentine's Day.

That's about it, on top of my near daily walks to the Notre Dame area. I have a lot more to explore though and I will get back down to business upon my return. March promises a visit to the Loire Valley castles, maybe (hopefully) Mont St. Michel and of course, as a good Jew, who can forget all the churches in Paris!

Food review

This past week, we decided to try a little restaurant called L'Ambassade d'Auvergne.

When the first two people in our party arrived, they were told that since they had no reservations, the restaurant did not have room. However, upon our arrival, my roomie was able to charm them into finding us a table. We sat down and were handed menus. In French. Not a big deal, right? I mean food is generally easy to understand, right? That would be a no.

For instance, there was a dish called "Saucisse de Parlan & Aligot". Sausage with something. But with what? There was also the "Filets d'Omble Chevalier poêlés aux Amandes, Purée de Potiron" where the words we understood were filet (of horse?!) with almonds and puree. After much examination and attempts at translating the menus, I finally broke down and asked for an English menu, and low and behold things actually made sense (though we are still not sure if that really was a filet of horse on the menu).

The waiter brought us bread and pork pate (yum!) to hold us over until our food was ready. One of my friends ordered the lentils, which were actually fairly decent and had a bit of an onion-y spice to them. For the meal, I had the aforementioned sausage with mashed potatoes with cheese (or is it actually more fair to say cheese with mashed potatoes?). This dish was absolutely delicious and I would highly recommend it. I also stole a little bit of the cabbage millefeuille from someone at the table and it was quite good as well (this coming from someone who tends to hate cooked cabbage). Unfortunately, we did not have room for dessert portion of this event, though we all dreamt about the mousse au chocolat. The table next to us told us that they had ordered one mousse au chocolat which came in a big tub with enough for 3-4 people to share easily!

Definitely a thumbs up and I intend to drag my parents here so they can try the sausage and potatoes and I can indulge my sweet tooth!

Late nights and bike rides?

So last night as I was leaving a club and bidding adieu to my friend, despite being offered a place to crash until the metro came back to life, I assured her that I would just catch a cab and be home within 10 minutes. Ahh, yes, for those familiar with Parisian night life, you can see how silly I was!

I walked to the main square at Republique, sure that there would be millions of cabs. There were hundreds and hundreds of cabs. Unfortunately for me, and everyone else, the cabs were all full. I then saw that there was a queue of people waiting for taxis and decided to abide by the rules and get in line rather than try to poach a cab. I stood in the line for a good 5 minutes and quickly realized that I hadn’t moved nor had I even seen an empty cab pass.

At this point, I realized that there were night buses and made the rounds, searching for a stop where I might actually catch a night bus that went to Bastille (all the while, still hoping against hope, that I might see an empty cab). During my search, I also came across people trying to rent bikes, for what I can only assume, was their trip home. Now, in case you are not familiar with this, Paris has bike stands all over the city (and I am told that there are cities in the US who also subscribe to this phenomenon). There are something like 10-20 bikes at each station. You sign up online, come to a bike stand, rent a bike for some tiny fee, and ride it where-ever you want. You can even ride it from one stand to another and drop the bike off there. As I searched for a taxi or bus to take me home, I started wishing that I had one of these accounts because despite the high heels and dress I was wearing, I would have gladly hopped on a bike and ridden it home.

Lest you be concerned about my welfare, I did indeed find a bus and took it home. Upon getting off at Bastille, I was greeted by about 10 kids riding their rented bikes home from a late night out. I guess riding bikes doesn’t constitute a DUI here. I am however debating investing in a bike membership for my last month here, if not for the convenience of being able to explore the city by bike in addition to by foot, but also in order to be able to get home late at night with as little hassle as possible considering we have a bike stand a block from home.