On to Paris

(This trip was really taken March 2nd- March 11th )

Paris had a lot of those moments. The moments that make you realize how wonderful life is. Those magical moments, where for a few seconds, everything is perfect and you can't believe how blessed you are. And you want to sing and dance and cry and laugh and write a poem about it and tuck the moment up inside a shiny gold locket to wear forever. Those moments.
We got lots of crepes, gelatto, pastries and gyros on this trip. As it should be. We were in Paris! We went to Luxembourg Gardens, the Tuileries, the d'Orsay, the catacombs, the l'Orangerie, and the Eiffel Tower. I loved loved loved our apartment! It had a view of Notre Dame, was located on a street with an adorable restaurant, cute bakery and a police station. Perfectly quaint and safe! The courtyard was breathtaking! Timeless, picturesque and lovely.
There's something exquisite and magical about Paris at dusk. The sunlight turns golden and washes everything it touches in a pixiedust-like, buttery shadow of sunshine. It's something everyone should experience at least once in there lives. It's my favorite time of day! Simply stunning! It touches your soul and warms your heart! (However cliche that may sound, it's true)

A chocolate sink in the Lindt store!!

This one is for the Mad Hatter and March Hare, AKA Sarah and Circe, 1987

Basically the cutest picture ever. EVER.

This is waiting for Bus 72, which stop along the river right below the Trocadero and takes you back to Pont Neuf and beyond. It's a pretty ride along the Seine, and the easiest way to get away from the Eiffel Tower to almost anywhere else in the city. Metro passes cover buses, too, so it's easy to get around, although I think the Metro is easier. Getting to the Eiffel Tower by Metro is a bit convoluted, but we like to get off at Bir-Hakeim and walk because your approach to the Eiffel Tower grounds is pretty and less touristy than starting at Trocadero.

^Taken from my mom's blog. I didn't want to reexplain

metro performance

My mom said... Last time we were here, Trajan told us to check out Butte Chaumont, which is how we found Belleville. I remembered having been taken there by my French teacher, Genevieve, back in 1986. Genevieve spoke Chinese and had lived in Nepal, so she liked to take me for Chinese food.

This is the kind of quality merchandise you can find at the Belleville market. The pajamas say, "Ethan is going to Disneyland!" And there were hundreds of pairs, all with the name Ethan. The produce, on the other hand, was as fresh and delectable as you can find anywhere. All the vendors were handing out slices of oranges from Spain, mangoes, tangerines. We must have stuck out as Americans, because several vendors got our attention by shouting, "Hello! Welcome!" We bought white grapes, some blood oranges and a mango.

^From mom's

This, my friends, is the best croque monsieur I have ever had! We got it at a little patisserie by the market, and it was a third of the price tourists pay in the more famous quarters of the city. It was oozing with bechamel, the bread was thin, the emmental cheese was thick...ooh baby. I might have to go back to that very bakery someday.

^From my mom's post obviously.

Ok, enough about mom's croque monsieur

we hopped back on the metro, bound for the St. Sulpice cathedral.

Just some poetry on a wall. Ya know, the usual

Scott has a picture in his office of me in Spain (Jerez de los Caballeros) that he was trying to recreat in these pictures. Back then, I was wearing short shorts and birkenstocks, and my hair was long and brown.

^From mom's blog

relaxin'

Another dip. My dad was the Big Dipper on this trip! hehehe

Ruby being the statue of The Little Dancer

A costume shop for those weekends where you travel back in time to 1800 for a masquerade ball.

Free loved this glass shop when he came last year. He'd spend hours in it picking out his daily glass product

That's mah dad!

wow!

bells of Notre Dame.

Here's the band I'm about to tell you about

Ile St. Louis. One of those magic moments. The sunset was...beyond words! And there was a little band playing my favorite song ( What a Wonderful World ) on a bridge during the golden light time of day. I was so content. The band ended up being snappy, this guy took a picture and apparently was stealing the spotlight and the lead singer said something snarky to him. We caught up to the camera guy at the end of the bridge and talked to him. He ended up being Australian. After agreeing that the band member was kind of rude, he said "Ehh, life's too short!" So true!!

After that, it was back to our old, familiar haunts for dinner: the gyro places on Rue de la Huchette and the crepe place, Mich Sandwich, on St. Michel Square. I think we ate on the bench in front of our park. Ruby had wanted to get her portrait sketched, and we found the master of the Latin Quarter. Other artists stopped by to look as he worked.

^From mom's blog

Posing

the artist who drew Ruby

I loved this Shakespeare and Company bookstore! It's in Midnight in Paris and has a great little nook upstairs just for children's books. Have I told you I want to be a children's book author and illustrator?

Ruby's street art portrait

A plaque in a metro station commemorating - I think, but I'll have to ask someone whose French is better - the 50th anniversary of a strike by 3,000 city workers against the Nazis in 1944, where they all gathered at the city hall. It was an event that was instrumental in loosening the Nazi hold on the city. The plaque recognizes the courageous, unknown people who helped Paris regain her liberty. There is a painful, yet heroic history associated with WWII for France. France did capitulate to Hitler and spent 4 years under Nazi rule with the French Vichy government in control in name only. Almost every Jew was allowed to be deported from Paris, women and small children first, and almost none came back. (Incidentally, Denmark, on the other hand, has a proud legacy of its citizens hiding, protecting, sheltering and ultimately saving its Jewish population by getting most of them across the water to Sweden.)

When Paris finally defeated the Nazis, Hilter ordered his troops to destroy the city on their way out of town. General Dietrich von Cholitz, commander of the German garrison, defied the order by Hitler to blow up Paris' landmarks and burn Paris to the ground before their liberation. It's hard to imagine what Paris would look like today if that commander hadn't been so thoroughly courageous. I wonder what happened to him!

At any rate, Paris is littered with these monuments and tributes to heroic men and women and the moments that defined them. It is humbling and inspiring to be reminded like this of the history that is part of us.

^ Another plagiarized part, from my mom's blog

This is a text I got while Scott and I were enjoying a little demitasse of the "world's best hot chocolate" at a place called Une Dimanche a Paris on a cobblestoned side street off Rue St. Andre des Artes, that Scott loves. The girls were in the bathroom for a long time, and we were wondering about them, but evidently too caught up in how incredibly chocolaty the hot chocolate was to care. Finally, Golda came back and said she couldn't get Ruby unstuck. I went upstairs prepared to bust down a door, but I only had to jiggle the lock to free the prisoner. Poor Ruby! She even had her phone and the wherewithal to send an SOS. Parenting fail!

Our second museum was the Orangerie, which houses Monet's giant Waterlillies murals, as well as a ton of our favorite Impressionists. I love this museum. It's as cute as its name and the collection, called Walter-Guillaume, is incredible. It was amassed by a couple of art dealers who were contemporaries of artists like Van Gogh, Modigliani, Cezanne, Renoir and Rousseau.

Scott and I love Modigliani.

We took this picture because Don Carlos is in it! ;)

And we took this picture because I have a poster of this Renoir from a visit to the Orangerie in 1986.

The Orangerie is situated at the southwest corner of the Tuileries gardens, so the pleasant ponds were our next stop, where we took in the ambiance in the green chairs provided by the city.

Look! Golda isn't thinking about homework!

Selfie by the older generation...not good!

Ruby fell asleep.

So did Golda.

Coco's favorite corner of the Louvre.

After relaxing in the Tuileries, we got on the metro to soak up the ambiance and eat and explore Canal St. Martin. Another magical moment. Our picnic included French bread, garlic spread-butter-cheese stuff, blood orange juice, chocolate/graham cookies, Spanish oranges, sparkling water, dark chocolate-orange Lindt, and chips. It was soooo good! Sitting on the canal, enjoying the amazing weather, hearing French all around us, staring at the sweeping water in the canal, noticing a big protest marching by on the other side, and talking to each other. I was so content. It was a snapshot of a perfect life.

Place des Voges and Victor Hugo's house.

We met a guy on the grass who was wearing a sailor hat and a navy bathrobe. He'd just had his foot cast taken off, which added to his drunkness (or the pain meds he was taking) He came over and started talking about his cast and all the sudden pulled out an ice cream cone from his robe pocket. He offered it to us. We graciously declined. I was laughing so hard!

Hey! Sound familiar? ;)

This is where we found the necklace that we bought for Coco. She has a collection of these doll necklaces.

Charming little (maybe not SO little...) castle that had a more Nordic looking architecture than French. I loved it!

I can't believe Scott and I get to be the parents of these two lovely young ladies. They were such fun on the trip, we might have to do it again! <Hey, that's what my mom said. I hope so!!

Street of the cat who fishes is the tiniest alley.

This old lady had some spunk!

Rue de Bac

Our metro stop, St. Michel

Paris is different than anywhere else because it doesn't waste a single detail. Every inch oozes decadence, history and charm.

Breakfast: Yop drinkable yogurt. And Look! The apartment had the same mugs we have at home!

Our courtyard had doors that looked like they were once stable doors. This one was adorned with numerous dressage awards from years ago.

"Little Coco."

The Musee d' Orsay!! Sadly, the Van Gough exhibit wasn't on until a few days AFTER we left. Oh well, I loved it anyway! Such amazing artwork!

Walking along Rue Jacob toward St, Michel after the museum...we found this famous adorable bakery

This guy's brother lived in NYC who was an actor and in a few TV shows. His shop was pretty cool and hip and sharply (as Bill would put it)

Posh restaurant across the street from our apartment. We took a picture of the richly decorated interior and sent it to Coco with the caption, "Where we told Coco we had dinner," followed by a picture of us sitting on the ground eating gyros, captioned, "Where we really ate dinner."

Dad laughing about how he asked my mom if they had chairs during the time Notre Dame was built. Um, they built a massive, detailed, stained-glass cathedral....so I think they had the skills to build chairs ;)