Paris, je t'aime

I've broken my trip into a few different segments for you - the first one is Paris, of course! Since we spent another day in Paris before I flew home, we'll start and end with that. So now that you know what's going on, here we go.

I was supposed to land in Paris around 9am on Saturday morning. Thanks to a mechanical problem on our plane in Dallas, we were delayed about 5 hours. Thank you, American Airlines for taking away almost half a day of touring time around Paris. Lucky for me, though I sat next to a really nice lady on the plane and in true Zundel fashion, decided that we needed to be friends once we got off the plane. (of course I did)

After checking in to our hotels, we met under the Eiffel Tower so that we could go get dinner. I haven't been to Paris in almost 10 years, so it looked a little different. With less stars, I guess. And since I'd been to the top, I didn't need to go again. Still pretty though, regardless.

After Renee and I met up, we walked down to the cute little Christmas village on the Seine where I bought a beignet. It tasted a little like the cigarette the lady was smoking when she handed it to me. Awesome.

We ended up going to the the Marais district for dinner - which was delicious, by the way. And I don't know where we went, so you'll just have to try your luck and find it yourself.

Since Renee doesn't really know me and especially doesn't know about the blog, I just felt it appropriate to hide her identity. Is that weird? Oh well. We had a great time though and even though we only hung out together for one evening, I'm glad we met and will hopefully be friends in the future - since we both live in SF!

Kristine and I met up on Sunday afternoon after she got into town. And after I had a little mishap involving the metro stairs. For your enjoyment, I will paste in the email that went out to some friends that day:

...remember that one time that I fell down the stairs (head first) in a Paris metro station - in a skirt??? I didn't even realize that my knee was gushing blood until a few transfers later - no wonder a little girl was staring at my knee intently. And since it is Sunday, the pharmacy wasn't open by my hotel. Way to go, Zundel. Then a security guard for the hotel got to bandage up my hairy leg since the man at the concierge panicked when he saw my blood. Ah, good times, no? Its always nice when you're lying on the ground at the bottom of the stairs and people are talking to you in French (probably telling you that your knee is gushing blood and seeing if you need help) but you have no idea what they are saying to you. Oh, I'm having a wonderful time in France!! Wish you were all here with me.

So I got all bandaged up by some very nice non-English speakers before Kristine picked me up. The first thing on our list to do was the Musée de l'Orangerie at the Tuilleries - there is a permanent Monet exhibit - his water lillies! Look how huge they are - pretty amazing!

A few years ago, I read a biography of Marie Curie, if you recall, and so when I got to Paris, I asked around to find out if there was a museum dedicated to her life and work. A few people told me that there was no such thing, but luckily I had a spidey sense about it and looked it up online! Very unfortunately, it was closed the week between Christmas and New Years, so I couldn't go in. Just being there made me feel a little better about the situation.

Right down the block from the Radium institute is the Panthéon. You can read more about it if you'd like by clicking here.

Next on the list of things to do during the day: eat a crepe. Mine of course was with nutella and bananas. Oh deliciousness.

And then to get our daily museum in, we went to the Musée Jacquemart-André which is basically the Biltmore House of Paris. Sort of. I learned on this trip that audio tours make a world of difference when you're in a foreign country going through a museum. Or possibly in any country. Anyway - if you'd like to take a little online tour, click here. The pictures are quite amazing, so don't miss out on that.

After our lovely museum/house tour, we went to the Galeries Lafayette to see the holiday window displays. The store in and of itself was quite a show.

Here are a few of the windows that we saw:

We wandered around town for a while before deciding that we wanted to eat dinner, so Kristine took me to her favorite Italian restaurant in town - and this happened to be my view during dinner. Can you see it?

Afterwards, we got some Berthillon ice cream even though it felt like it was 20 degrees outside. Hey - if you want to wait for the perfect time, it might as well be August, right? The next day, we go on to Geneva! Stay tuned!

PS - If you'd like to see the rest of my pictures from my first few days in Paris, click here.