Paris for Thanksgiving

Ahhh, Paree!

I didn't expect to be as impressed by Paris as I am.  What a beautiful, practical, friendly, and interesting city.  Yes, I said friendly.  As an American I feel like I am constantly told that the French hate us and go out of their way to be rude to us when we go to their country.  Luckily for my first visit to France I found the exact opposite to be true.  People were wonderful - every person that I talked to (except 1) was very nice and showed no disrespect to me.  Several of them laughed when I couldn't find the affirmative to a question such as, "would you like a bag for this?"  Every time I somehow managed to forget which of the many languages I don't know I should use, so instead of a simple "yes" (since most people understood English perfectly well), I would stammer: "Da!, uh, ah, Si!, no, uh, yeah!, arggg! I mean oui!"  I laughed too.  But somehow never got comfortable with "oui."

We spent 3 and a half days in Paris.  Oddly enough, this summer while we were traveling through the Balkans, we met a wonderful Parisian couple, Elaine and Cedric.  And luckily, they invited us to stay at their flat in Paris over Thanksgiving weekend.  Such lovely hosts!  Their flat is less than a block away from the metro system and several blocks away from two train stations - so getting there from the airport was a breeze, and getting to anywhere in the city was even easier.  They fed us traditional French food - which means lots of cheese, wine, bread, and heavy flavorful foods.  For our thanksgiving feast we had duck, mash (yummy greens), and these wonderful cheesy potatoes that I need to get the recipe for.  Fabulous!  Elaine and Cedric's friend, Stefan, joined us for Thanksgiving - he had lived in the US for many years and missed the Thanksgiving tradition.

Of course we visited some of the expected sites:

 Notre Dame

Before we went inside the sun was shining.

After spending about half an hour inside, we came outside to graupel - ice pellets.

(Elaine and Cedric didn't believe that was a real word)

The gargoyles and chimeras were really cool.

From the tower of Notre Dame we caught our first site of...

 the Eiffel Tower

One of my favorite parts of the trip - we rode the elevators to the top.

Amazing views of the city from above.  Breathtaking.  Literally.  It's way up there.

 

Musee d'Orsay

 Turns out Jeff and I aren't really art gallery people.  

We enjoyed some of the paintings, but without an art history background, we weren't drawn in.

And I guess we didn't take any pictures here, 

but we did get pictures of the outside of the Louvre:

the Louvre

Being the art-not-lovers that we are, we got there too late to enter the museum itself,

but enjoyed looking at the range of architecture outside.

Sainte-Chappelle 

 They are cleaning all the stained glass, so we didn't get the full effect.

Still, it was quite beautiful and magical.

We also saw a couple of less-well-known sites:

a wonderful playground behind Notre Dame

Watch this video - you will not be disappointed!

the Musee de l'Orangerie

 This is where a set of Monet's Waterlillies is displayed as if you were in the middle of the garden.

I was determined to see these - they grow more interesting the longer you look at them.

the Sewer Museum

Yes, that's me, standing by a river of shit.

Fascinating, but disconcerting.  We were told not to touch anything down there.

For a stinky museum it was actually quite informative and interesting.

Yup, that's right, we went from the highest heights in Paris (the Eiffel Tower) to the lowest lows, pee-yew!

Many thanks to our wonderful hosts for a wonderful visit!  We hope to return the favor - although I don't know if we want to go into the Sofia sewers...