My brother and I arrived into the lovely Paris on Friday afternoon. It was rather interesting to see the difference between the "country" and "city" sides of Paris (seperated by the plane) while we were still in the air. Sidenote: We flew EasyJet...nice and easy, cheap, like a hooker on...wait a minute. No really though, it was my first time flying EasyJet and quite the experience of walking onto the plane and choosing your own spot. I highly recommend it for those quick hops. :)
We took the RER into the city, transfering onto the Metro to our stop "Pasteur." Don't worry, it didn't smell. We arrived at "Hotel Innova," which had a very friendly gentleman working the front desk. It was kind of a shock to have to change our more familiar Spanish to our not so familiar...whatsoever...French. Bonjour. Merci. Wait, there's more? It is a beautiful language, but very different from the Spanish I had been speaking for almost a week prior to my poor attempt at French.
Our room is lovely. Rustic colors fill the room---gold walls, red blankets, random placements of light oak? Our room is right in front of the street, making it quite noisy but once our windows are closed, it's almost soundproof. Oh, did I mention the bed's are terribly comfortable? It was hard to get used to such nice, squishy beds but I've grown quite accustomed to them...kind of like memory foam.
Our first day or so was spent attempting to recover from time changes, going to bed too late, being exhausted from walking, etc. We would be sleeping in at least til 10am, even later another day. This was sort of a bummer, but it was worth it to get the extra rest. We've had some amazing food, expensive but amazing. On our walk into the heart of Paris, we found this hole-in-the-wall patisserie selling the most beautiful quiche. We ordered a sultry and sweet, naturally. The sweet quiche was heavenly, filled with fig, plum, and apricot. It may have been the cheapest meal we bought, and hot damn was that a warm welcome to Paris. We had our share of sheer exhaustion causing us to stop at the first restaurant we found and therefore needing to pay 52 euros for a meal. Yikes! Happily, however, we finally found out how to order tap water which saved us so much money. It really was worthless to pay 4 euros for a small bottle of Evian water that would be consumed in one swig. "Sir, I'll have 20 bottles of Evian, please."
We were in Paris for a total of four days. I’ve enjoyed staying a bit longer in places in order to really get a feel for it. Obviously you won’t be able to navigate yourself around completely as if you‘re a local, but it’s definitely more familiar and comfortable. You start finding restaurants you like, certain areas, parks, etc. On our first night, after eating our quiche at a local music festival, surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke (it seems that EVERYONE smokes here) and groups of friends sharing bottles of wine, we wandered the streets attempting to get back to our hotel/find the Eiffel Tower. Without the masses of people, hence it being holiday for almost every local European, it came down to basic instinct and Martin’s “spider like senses.” After weaving in and out of Paris’ streets to a clearing, we were finally able to view the tower and headed straight for it. It is absolutely beautiful--quite a treat to see it light up for the five “leaving you wanting more” minutes every hour.
Other notable sights visited and must see? Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris. Hôtel de Ville. Boulevarde du Montparnasse. Champs de Mars. Basilique du Sacrè-Coeur. There was a lot of just wandering, as it was and would have been even more expensive to stay in a hotel, eat meals, AND pay the money to enter museums and such. We attempted, actually, on our last night to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower--way the hell up there if I do say so myself--but we were too late for the last ride. We then decided we would at least walk up the stairs to the second stage. Word of advice, don’t carry around your guitar (which was played beautifully by Martin earlier along the river at dawn) if there may be the chance you will go into a building, museum, tourist attraction, etc. We were immediately stopped by the security guard who spoke broken Frenglish to us, while simultaneously checking to see if we could enter. Turns out, we couldn’t. Apparently the guitar was a bomb. Or perhaps the strings could have been used to strangle other happy-go-lucky tourists. Even worse, he could walk around with it, hit a small child in the head causing it to plummet to it’s death. We’ll never know, we just got a firm, “NO.”
On a happier note, I found a delicious crêperie (after hearing about the ones Martin enjoyed earlier, as we spent our afternoon solo for our last day in Paris) off of Rue de Montparnasse. AMAZING. The street was overflowing with crêperies, giving me the option to choose one at my discretion. But how was I to know which one was good, I’m not from Paris. I settled on this quaint little “hole-in-the-wall” one by the name of “La Crêperie Bretonne,” claiming to be a crêperie de famille. I sat out on the street, watching locals come by and say hello, tourists drooling over the customers food…if I didn’t feel like I was in Paris before, I definitely did at this point. I ordered the egg, goat cheese, ham and egg crêpe. Absolutely delicious! Their savory crêpes are made with a buckwheat batter, which I particularly like more. I wish cafés in the states would use that idea, it just makes it so much more---savory! Although I was quite full after finishing, I had my eye on the banana nutella crêpe from the very beginning. There was no leaving this place until I had one. I may have been stuffed like a pig--pregnant with another food baby just like in Barcelona--but it was well worth it. I’m craving another one just thinking about it. I highly recommend this crêperie if you’re looking for satisfaction through quantity AND most of all, quality. They even had crêpes with liquor, flambéed…my goodness. Quite the treat if I do say so myself. Perfection for ending my time in Paris.
We took the RER into the city, transfering onto the Metro to our stop "Pasteur." Don't worry, it didn't smell. We arrived at "Hotel Innova," which had a very friendly gentleman working the front desk. It was kind of a shock to have to change our more familiar Spanish to our not so familiar...whatsoever...French. Bonjour. Merci. Wait, there's more? It is a beautiful language, but very different from the Spanish I had been speaking for almost a week prior to my poor attempt at French.
Our room is lovely. Rustic colors fill the room---gold walls, red blankets, random placements of light oak? Our room is right in front of the street, making it quite noisy but once our windows are closed, it's almost soundproof. Oh, did I mention the bed's are terribly comfortable? It was hard to get used to such nice, squishy beds but I've grown quite accustomed to them...kind of like memory foam.
Our first day or so was spent attempting to recover from time changes, going to bed too late, being exhausted from walking, etc. We would be sleeping in at least til 10am, even later another day. This was sort of a bummer, but it was worth it to get the extra rest. We've had some amazing food, expensive but amazing. On our walk into the heart of Paris, we found this hole-in-the-wall patisserie selling the most beautiful quiche. We ordered a sultry and sweet, naturally. The sweet quiche was heavenly, filled with fig, plum, and apricot. It may have been the cheapest meal we bought, and hot damn was that a warm welcome to Paris. We had our share of sheer exhaustion causing us to stop at the first restaurant we found and therefore needing to pay 52 euros for a meal. Yikes! Happily, however, we finally found out how to order tap water which saved us so much money. It really was worthless to pay 4 euros for a small bottle of Evian water that would be consumed in one swig. "Sir, I'll have 20 bottles of Evian, please."
We were in Paris for a total of four days. I’ve enjoyed staying a bit longer in places in order to really get a feel for it. Obviously you won’t be able to navigate yourself around completely as if you‘re a local, but it’s definitely more familiar and comfortable. You start finding restaurants you like, certain areas, parks, etc. On our first night, after eating our quiche at a local music festival, surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke (it seems that EVERYONE smokes here) and groups of friends sharing bottles of wine, we wandered the streets attempting to get back to our hotel/find the Eiffel Tower. Without the masses of people, hence it being holiday for almost every local European, it came down to basic instinct and Martin’s “spider like senses.” After weaving in and out of Paris’ streets to a clearing, we were finally able to view the tower and headed straight for it. It is absolutely beautiful--quite a treat to see it light up for the five “leaving you wanting more” minutes every hour.
Other notable sights visited and must see? Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris. Hôtel de Ville. Boulevarde du Montparnasse. Champs de Mars. Basilique du Sacrè-Coeur. There was a lot of just wandering, as it was and would have been even more expensive to stay in a hotel, eat meals, AND pay the money to enter museums and such. We attempted, actually, on our last night to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower--way the hell up there if I do say so myself--but we were too late for the last ride. We then decided we would at least walk up the stairs to the second stage. Word of advice, don’t carry around your guitar (which was played beautifully by Martin earlier along the river at dawn) if there may be the chance you will go into a building, museum, tourist attraction, etc. We were immediately stopped by the security guard who spoke broken Frenglish to us, while simultaneously checking to see if we could enter. Turns out, we couldn’t. Apparently the guitar was a bomb. Or perhaps the strings could have been used to strangle other happy-go-lucky tourists. Even worse, he could walk around with it, hit a small child in the head causing it to plummet to it’s death. We’ll never know, we just got a firm, “NO.”
On a happier note, I found a delicious crêperie (after hearing about the ones Martin enjoyed earlier, as we spent our afternoon solo for our last day in Paris) off of Rue de Montparnasse. AMAZING. The street was overflowing with crêperies, giving me the option to choose one at my discretion. But how was I to know which one was good, I’m not from Paris. I settled on this quaint little “hole-in-the-wall” one by the name of “La Crêperie Bretonne,” claiming to be a crêperie de famille. I sat out on the street, watching locals come by and say hello, tourists drooling over the customers food…if I didn’t feel like I was in Paris before, I definitely did at this point. I ordered the egg, goat cheese, ham and egg crêpe. Absolutely delicious! Their savory crêpes are made with a buckwheat batter, which I particularly like more. I wish cafés in the states would use that idea, it just makes it so much more---savory! Although I was quite full after finishing, I had my eye on the banana nutella crêpe from the very beginning. There was no leaving this place until I had one. I may have been stuffed like a pig--pregnant with another food baby just like in Barcelona--but it was well worth it. I’m craving another one just thinking about it. I highly recommend this crêperie if you’re looking for satisfaction through quantity AND most of all, quality. They even had crêpes with liquor, flambéed…my goodness. Quite the treat if I do say so myself. Perfection for ending my time in Paris.
Whose guitar? I have an amazing mental picture of the two of you seranading passing europeans on holiday!
ReplyDelete