The opera house. Paris

We had originally planned on spending the weekend with Charlotte, but since our Belgium snafu, we only had Sunday. We met Charlotte at the train station and the three of us, actually four, Jean had business in Paris and therefore rode the train with us, made our way to the city center. Paris is dead on Sundays. Apparently, all the shops, and many restaurants, are closed. Charlotte took us on a walking tour, pointing out different important sights. We started at the Opera house, admired the amazing Christmas window displays at the La Fayette shopping mall, and walked through the passages of Paris.

Our tour guide and best friend in Paris. Charlotte

We had lunch at Chartier… where we told Charlotte we wanted to try local food, and asked for recommendations. She pointed out a couple of options. One being pig’s foot, the other andouette sausage. Javier ordered the piggy foot and I, the sausage. Well, I can honestly say, that sausage is tied for first place in the ‘worst food I’ve ever eaten’ category. When the plates came out, I thought…wow…someone’s food really smells bad. I thought, Javier ordered the piggy foot, it must be his. NOPE! Once it was in front of me, I realized, omg, it’s mine. There was a young woman sitting next to me and I saw her put her hand up to her mouth, and I thought…geez lady, I know it stinks but really? I took a bite. It was bad. I took another bite, this time with some of the dijon mustard that comes with it, it was still bad.

Pork foot.

Finally I took the dijon mustard from the table and smothered the sausage, it was still bad. How can I describe this??? Now, I know this is a cultural thing, and I don’t want to seem rude, or disrespect anyone’s culture, but it tasted like rotting flesh that has been decaying among barnyard animals. After a few bites, it didn’t get any better, but I started wondering…my palate and brain clearly does not like this flavor, but what does my stomach think? I ate half of the sausage, which is actually quite a bit considering its size. Meanwhile, Javier is dissecting his piggy foot, separating tendons, bones, cartilage, fat, and yes, meat. It was an adventurous meal. At some point, I saw the couple next to us get up to leave. When the woman stood up, I saw that she was pregnant…awe, man…sorry for the stink, lady. I felt bad. I offered Javier a bite, and was quite surprised that Javier, who eats things, nay, enjoys eating things that I don’t like, couldn’t swallow the sausage. Yes folks, he spit it out. He looked at me and said, how can you eat that?!? Hahahaha! Well, it wasn’t easy, let me tell you! Upon seeing this, Charlotte wanted to try a bite to make sure it tasted the way it is supposed to…and it did. I am happy to report that my stomach didn’t seem to mind the stinky barn sausage at all!

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris

We continued our tour past the Louvre, the old stock exchange, walked along Champs Elysses, and concluded our day in Momantre. Van Gough used to live in this neighborhood, and since it is on top of a hill, there is an excellent view of Paris. We went inside the church, Sacred Heart, and were surprised to find machines inside where you put in a couple of euros and it spits out a souvenir coin of the church, Momantre, Paris, etc. They’re all over the place, brightly lit, and look light slot machines. Javier and I now refer to this church as the casino church. 

Brenda and Jean dancing. good times.

We decided that we needed a down day. We joined Jean and Brenda to the store, where we picked up some necessities. We went for a run, and spent the rest of the day doing laundry and planning our future. That evening, after another delicious dinner with Jean and Brenda, we learned that Brenda is a dance instructor. After a few glasses of wine, I asked Brenda to teach us some dances. Before long, the four of us were up and dancing around in their living room. We learned French folk dance, line dancing, and even some Bolivian dances! It was quite a fun night, and felt really good to be with family, even if it’s not our own.

The next day, we were on our own again. We met for a free walking tour, where we learned all kinds of fun facts. Our tour guide was actually not from Paris, or France for that matter. She was a student from Germany.

Our actress tour guide. She’s good.

She was also an actress. We have learned that the actor/actress tour guides are often the best, except for Kor… The tour guide warned us about the gypsies at the beginning of the tour. She wanted to come up with a code word for them. Apparently, she used the word “thief” before, and it didn’t go over too well. She left it up to us to come up with a word. Javier yells, “schnitzel!” So, there was our word. When a group of gypsies would come close, she would say, “There’s a group of schnitzel’s coming our way!” and we would all guard our purses and pockets. We learned that Napoleon was self-crowned. Apparently, he was that awesome. We walked by the French academy of Language, where we learned that the biggest enemy of the French language is…English!!! It’s made up of a bunch of old dudes who sit around and worry about the preservation and bastardization of the French language. She told us that their most recent panic was whether the iPod was male or female. After months of debate and deliberation, and tax payers’ dollars, the decision was made. The iPod, is in fact, male. And all is right with the world. 

The Arc de Triomphe

We learned that Napoleon never actually saw his Arc d’ Triumph. When the architects realized they wouldn’t have it finished in time, they built another, smaller version closer to the Louvre, and he was happy enough with that. We also learned that at the end of the war, Hitler ordered Paris to be destroyed. He sent his man there with this only task. While he was there, he fell in love with the city, and decided that he could not destroy Paris. Instead, he planted bombs in places that would cause fire and explosions, but would not damage any important buildings or structures. He then reported back to Hitler that Paris was indeed burning, just not in the way Hitler had envisioned. 

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Moulin Rouge

After our tour, we walked to the Moulin Rouge. It was not yet dark enough, so we stepped inside a restaurant across the street to grab and snack and wait for the lights to turn on. While we were eating, we saw a car get towed away. Have you seen how they tow cars in France? They park the tow truck next to the doomed car. There is a crane in the back that swings to the side so it is over the car. The guy places two large pieces of…something under the car behind the front tires and in front of the back tires. He then attaches the ends to the crane. The crane lifts the car up, moves it to the back of the truck, and lowers the car.

Toed

The car needs to by just right so for a few minutes, this guy in manually manipulating this car a few inches this way, a few that way…The car is dangling like 10 feet in the air while the guy is pushing it around. Good thing they only drive clown cars in Paris. 

We had been advised by our friends, Steve and Caroline to download Rick Steve’s audioguide of the Louvre. It’s about an hour long, and goes over all the highlights. We decided to give it a try, and boy are we glad we did! After the hour tour, we walked around on our own for another hour or two and felt fully content with our visit to the Louvre.

Louvre

We decided that our favorite was the art from Iran. Specifically the mesopotamia period. Weird huh? That evening we met with one of Javier’s high school friends and his fiance for dinner. We met at Le Procope, the first restaurant in Paris, and tried the duck and rooster. Miguel and his fiance were both very nice and spoke in English so I could be included in the conversation. When the boys would get going and start reminiscing about their younger years, they would switch to Spanish, and there was a lot of laughing. They both kept saying how amazing it was to be sitting with one another, having dinner, in Paris.

Miguel and Miri

Never in a million years did either of them think this would have been a reality when they were teenagers, living in Peru. The night flew by, and we had so much fun. On the way out, we stopped for a picture of Napolean’s hat. Apparently, Napoleon chose to pay for his meal with his hat, and there it sits, on display.

We were trying to get in touch with Steve and Caroline, but it’s nearly impossible when everyone relies on wi-fi for communication. Once we would leave the house, we may not have wi-fi again until we return at night. Sometimes a restaurant has wi-fi, and other times you can “borrow” wi-fi from old faithfuls like McDonalds or Starbucks, but even then, it’s tricky. They had mentioned that they were planning on visiting the cemetery while we were at the Louvre. Since we were looking for things to do in Paris, we decided to give the cemetery a try. We found the grave of Jim Morrison, and my favorite, Chopin. We wandered to the Arc d’Triumph, where it started to rain, and continued to browse the shops in Champs Elysees. Paris had a large Christmas fair, so we wandered through sipping hot chocolate. 

Paris

We headed back a little early to meet Jean and Brenda for dinner. Unfortunately, the train was late…like really late. I think we waited at the station for almost an hour before we could board. When we arrived at the local station, I asked a local girl if she could make a phone call for us. We were too late to take the bus home, and needed Jean and Brenda to pick us up if we were going to make our dinner reservations. The girl was so nice. Again, more kind and helpful people. She gave her phone to Javier to make the call, we thanked her and waited to be picked up. Jean and Brenda picked the restaurant. We had originally planned on meeting in Paris for dinner, but their plans changed and they were no longer planning on traveling to the city for the day, so they settled for a local restaurant. The food was delicious, and the evening was full of fun and laughs. We couldn’t thank them enough for their hospitality. We are truly blessed and fortunate to have been able to stay with them.

JandJandM

We couldn’t decide on what to do for our final day in Paris. We had thrown around the idea of going to Disneyland…we are a little crazy about Disney, you know. In the end, we decided to go for it. As soon as we walked in, it felt like home. Hahaha! We had been to Disneyland many times while we lived in Socal, so as soon as we walked in, it felt familiar. It was not crowded, the weather was pleasant, and we had such a great time. I will say this…there is no place like the original Disneyland. It’s all in the details. At one point, we were waiting for the fireworks to start and I see these kids treating the popcorn stand like a jungle gym. I thought…that would never happen at Disneyland…insurance risk. Not more than 5 minutes later, there’s this loud thud, a mother yelling, a father rushing to climb over the popcorn stand, and a little girl shrieking from having fallen off, probably head first, by the way she was holding her head. 

Smiles

I’m glad we chose to go to Disney. It was like the prefect ending to our great week in Paris!

To see more pictures of Paris, click HERE.