La Vie Parisien

A week later, Paris time.

We landed in Paris Wednesday evening, July 22. Three fulls day and lots to do. Our hotel was near the Bastille (no prison there anymore), which is at the eastern end of the tourist downtown, though well within the downtown area. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked around the area a bit, trying to find a good dinner choice.

I should first mention that there is a kosher McDonalds in the Tel Aviv airport. If it wasn't 8 am when we were there, it would have been Big Macs for everyone (in Paris, it's called a "Royale with Cheese" - thank you Quentin T.).

We walked around our area, and decided to have something to drink and a snack. We stopped at the Red Lime (No idea why it's called that) and had some coffee/hot chocolate and a caprese salad under an awning as the rain came down. When the rain stopped, we self-toured the area, finding Rue de Rivoli (a main east-west drag in Paris that abuts most of the big tourist sites), before settling on a Parisien bistro for dinner. I had some salmon tartare (the most delicious lox in a long time) and frites (ketchup, not mayo) and Seren had veggie lasagna. Two glasses of wine too and we were happy campers. To bed though we went, but not before being caught in the rain. We spent $10 on a cheap umbrella that might as well say "tourist" in bright neon lights. It probably won't make it home, but it's a fun memory umbrella.

We woke up Thursday and started our day at the Basille street market. Seren bought a cute black dress, I bought cheese bread. Oh my God good. From there, we walke dto the Marais - the Jewish/gay area that is home to lots of shops. We found it when first we walked towards a Korean restaurant that had a Judaica shop across the street. From there, we found a bakery with omigod apple streudel.

We took our streudel and went to the Louvre. Mona Lisa was there, as well Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David (my favorite Louvre artist). We also saw the Venus de Milo (still no arms), Nike, a really cool painting of David and Goliath painted from two sides and framed in a back-to-back frame so that you can see both sides of it. We also saw IM Pei's Pyramid, a painting that looks like my uncle (which I have to email to my family), and the Egyptian stuff. The Louvre was a zoo except for the Egyptian and other not-as-popular things. We also sped through those rooms. In that sense, it reminded me a lot of the Met, where I have always sped through the Egyptian stuff (too much pepper in my paprikash).

After art-ing it all up, we stopped for some apple streudel in the Tuileries. Beautiful day for a beautiful garden with omigod food. From there, we walked to the Orangerie, which I didn't even know existed. It is home to Monet's Water Lillies and the water lillies are housed in two oval rooms, where you are surrounded by the Lillies in 360 degrees. Wonderful presentation. On the basement floor there is some Impressionist work, but not much. Ironically, much of the Renoir was absent, instead being shown in an art show in the Modern Art Museum of Seoul (we didn't go).

Next, on to the Musee D'Orsay for some real Impressionism. And we saw it all, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh, and everyone else. I love D'Orsay and we walked through most of it.

Next stop, after it stopped raining (Paris was like Miami - it rained for a little bit every afternoon), we met my parents for dinner next the Arc de Triomphe. Dinner was delicious with some fantastic grilled bass. I love French food. We also briefed and debriefed on our respective trips. And we made plans to meet with David Darmon, our omnipresent French friend, the following day.

From there, to bed. Th0ough our cab drove by the Eiffel Tower (from across the river) and we got to see it all lit up.

Friday morning, we woke up and raced to the Marais to buy two things. First, food for a Saturday lunch picnic. Second, we bought falafel at what is considered the best falafel place in the world. The falafel was delicious and had a decidedly French twist in the sauces, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Next stop, we booked it across downtown Paris to the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't realize how long Paris is, but along the way Seren used the nicest public bathroom in all of Paris -- at the 5 star Hotel Regina across the street from Louvre. It was bathroom in style.

The Champs-Elysee was ready for the finish of the Tour de France but we just marched on. When we got to the AdT, there were my parents and David waiting. It was good to see David and this time we got to take pictures (we saw him in Morocco, but our camera's battery died and he lost his camera after taking pictures). Seren and I climbed to the top of the AdT for wonderful views of Paris. I had never been up there and enjoyed seeing Paris from that vantage.

From there, we went to the Eiffel Tower. I was in Paris about 15 years ago and it snowed. Therefore, the ET was closed. This time, to the second floor we went and had a gorgeous view of Paris. Lunch followed with my parents and David. Another French bistro, and my global tour of world beers continued. Kronenberg 1664 - the French Budweiser. I mean that with all connotations it may come with.

After lunch, Seren & I went to the Rodin Museum to pose as our favorite Impressionist statues. Seren does a wonderful Thinker (no pic of Seren, too difficult to do pictures on this thing).

Following Rodin, we went home, showered and got ready for Shabbat dinner at the house of one of our classmates. She lives in the 19th arrondisement, which is due north from where we were staying. We took the Metro to Danube and found her street - L'Egalite (near Liberate and Fraternite) and had a delicious Moroccan shabbat dinner. Because of the Jewish season, we didn't have any meat with dinner, but the main course was gefilte fish-like balls. And lots of salads, like we had in Morocco. Coincidentally, our classmate - Pascale - 's mother is a cousin to our hostess in Fes, Morocco. Mom is from Meknes, which is the city in which we were pickpocketed, about any hour from Fes. Dad is from, I forget. Dessert was wonderful French baked goods. Seren had an omigod chocolate mousse cake; I had very good apple tart.

We walked home from dinner, through the Tunisian Jewish community as apparent from all the kosher Tunisian restaurants (closed for Shabbat). Next time, we'll check them out. Lamb, here we come.

We woke up Saturday morning and went to services around the corner from our hotel. It was a very diverse congregation - from modern orthodox to rightwing fur-cap orthodox. Seren sat in the nose-bleed section. I sat third row and did gelilah (not going to explain, sorry) as well as opened the ark after services. We found the synagogue in a funny way. We were walking Thursday morning and saw someone who looked distinctively Jewish - long beard and baseball cap). We approached him and said "s'licha" ("excuse me" in Hebrew). In a broken-French conversation, he pointed our the synagogue and invited us for dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday. We declined Friday night and said we didn't know what our plans would be for Sat. He was wonderfully polite and I felt bad for declining (I really want to pay him forward somehow). On Thursday, our lunch plans for Saturday could have been meeting with my parents or picnicing or this or that or otherwise, just up in the air.

Anyway, after services, there was a little snack/kiddush with strict gender separation. Our Thursday man was there and invited me over for lunch (with Seren), but I declined, feeling badly for that. After kiddush, we met David at our hotel and brought the food we had bought on Friday to the Place les Vosges (the Gramercy Park of Paris) and had a wonderful picnic of turkey bacon and salami sandwiches, with a bottle of French wine and eggplant cavier. After lunch, we walked around the area, then saw the islands of Paris (including Notre Dame) and generally our area. David was a terrific tour guide as usual. Seren and I walked along the Paris Plage (the "beach" set up along the River Seine. You can't swim in the Seine, but you can lay out. No French women were doing what would be expected of a French woman. Oh well).

We returned to our hotel to start packing. Our evening plans were to meet Seren's korean friend who was landing in Paris at 9pm, another friend of Craig's from Nice who lived in Paris and David. The plan was to meet David at 10pm near a canal that is the site of a big scene in Amelie (which I don't remember).

At 10pm, David was there. Seren's friend wasn't and the other Nicoise person was unreachable. The threesome had dinner on the canal, with delicious fish and Seren had almost omigod pasta. With drinks. And canals. And walks, laughs and pictures. We wished David a fond goodbye. We'll see him again soon. We better.

We woke up early Sunday morning for an 8am flight to Helsinki to Seoul.

Just a quick note for those who care. Shabbat starts in Paris at 920pm and ends close to 1030.
Love,
Craig