Ahh Paree

9/28/2009

Paris is wonderful. I am so glad that we decided to stop by here. Don, thank you so much for the hotel room. It has been such a treat to stay in a nice place and sprawl out and relax without having to have our guard up 24/7. Last night we had decided to sleep in and that is exactly what we did this morning. We slept until 10:45 and took our time getting ready and out of the hotel. Sleeping that late was probably a good thing for me because Im sure that with all of champagne last night an early wake up call probably would have made me hurt.

Once we got out of the hotel we decided to enjoy a nice brunch at one of the cafes we passed on the way to Museum de Orsay (which is where we were going to start our daily activity). I just love the café scene in Paris. If I lived here, I think I would totally spend a majority of my time and money hanging out at cafes. Katherine and I split a nutella and banana crepe (my favorite crepe of all time) and a ham and cheese omelet that was served with a salad. It’s a good thing that Katherine and I both really enjoy the ham and cheese combo because it ends up being the majority of what we split. I also ordered a bloody mary just to ensure that I was going to be hangover free for the rest of the day. Where ever we go I am trying to eat native foods. So far in Paris I have eaten a quiche, crepe, and bloody mary. I would like to eat a French dinner, have an éclair, and a chocolate croissant.

For our daily activity we decided to take an open top, double decker bus around the city. This ended up being a fantastic idea for numerous reasons. We picked the bus up at the Museum de Orsay, which was fantastic because it was only a 7-minute walk from our hotel. Unfortunately the museum is closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go in. I think that we would have really enjoyed it, seeing that it is the home of more familiar paintings to us like Starry Night. We felt like the Louvre was a must, so I guess well just have to catch Orsay next time around. The bus tour was a pretty reasonable price, 27 euro I think for an all day pass. We rode the bus all over the city and saw everything. It was a beautiful fall day, which was just icing on the cake. It worked out really great because while we wanted to see everything, see is just what we wanted to do. We really had minimal interest in things like going to the top of the Eiffel Tower or touring around Notre Dame. We also learned way more taking this bus than we ever would seeing the sites on our own because the tour came with head phones that you could plus in and hear an explanation of everything we were passing. Wee also enjoyed our ipods on portions of the ride, which was very relaxing. Even better, if we were to go see the sites via subway, we would have had to pay for a subway day pass for about 10 euro and then navigate the subway ourselves, miss out on the beautiful day, and feel all nasty from being in the subway. The biggest bonus was being on the top of the bus provided great views and we had minimal walking, which was a nice change of pace.

There were a couple of interesting things I noticed around Paris. The people in this city dress so chic. Its fun to watch. You can just look at some people and know that they are French sophisticates. I am still not really sure what makes a brasserie a brasserie and not a café or restaurant. There are a lot of cars around here that are made by brands I have never heard of like Peroget. Also a lot of the brands I have heard of don’t have the series number on the back of them. Kellie, there are tons of jack russels everywhere. They are so cute, and the majority of them have Grayson’s body type.

We came back to the hotel around five to chill out and catch up on things. For dinner, we wanted to do a big, nice, all out dinner in Paris because it is after all a major food place. So we got a recommendation from the concierge of a classic French place to go. The place turned out to have a fixed price menu, which everything on it looked appetizing so I was sold. I was thinking about being brave and ordering some escargot in addition to my fixed price meal, but then chickened out and rationalized it that it would be too much food. We ordered some wine with our dinner and sat outside and watched the street. It was so pleasant. My dinner was French onion soup for a first course (it was delicious, I ate the entire bowl), then a beef stew type deal, and crème brulee for dessert. It was totally satisfying and worth the 30 euro fixed price.

At dinner, time flew and the next thing we knew it was 12 and we have to get up early to get to the train station (via subway, which hopefully wont be too much of a pain with our packs on and will go smoothly) and catch out 10:25 train to Brussels, Belgium. We have decided that we would like to make minimal usage of the subway and maximum use of our legs. I am so excited for Brussels. When we get in we are going to check into our hotel type deal (we may or may not have access to a shower, but hey we have a real cheap room to ourselves) then head out to a chocolate factory. For our night activity, we are planning on posting up at the Delirium bar. Delirium is my favorite beer so I am just ecstatic about this. I thoroughly enjoyed Paris, but I am ready to get back on the move. I like the pace we are setting of spending two nights in a city and touring for about a day and a half each place. With longer train rides with less frequent departure timesx and time consuming, necessary activities like laundry that might have to be adjusted, so well just have to roll with the punches.

If you cant see my pictures, try going to this website http://picasaweb.google.com/kshivar310. Also if you want to follow Katherine’s blog it is katherinedoreyineurope.blogspot.com