Paris

We got to Paris late last night because our good ol' Eurolines bus was piloted by three ridiculous Russians who were somewhat ill prepared and got us boarded by police twice in Germany, the second time which happened because they stopped us at a gas station and left to renew the license plates on foot. Long story short, we got into Paris a good two hours after we were supposed to, around midnight.

Our hotel room was really awesome (all of the hotels on this trip have been actually) and we were happy to sleep in. When we decided to head out we realized that the road into the middle of Paris was one of the main arteries for tourists so as we got closer and closer the foot traffic grew more and more intense. Every few feet as you walk around you see a couple people peddling various sizes of Eiffel tower statues. We wandered around into the park behind the tower and took photos from pretty much every point possible. It is a really interesting place to people watch since pretty much every kind of person in the world goes to see the Eiffel tower and they're all mashed into one big crowd. After a short while we had seen enough and walked over to the area of town that I had visited on tour in 2004 and stopped into a grocery store to pick up a baguette, meat, cheese, and fruit for lunch. It was enjoyable to look around a Parisian grocery store and see all the differences between it and others I've seen on this trip.







After lunch we decided to go up the hill to Montmartre (which is where Amelie lived) so we walked up a lot of hills and stairs, finally making it to the overlook of the city. It was really amazing to see but there were way too many people around there so we went back down the hill to a cafe for some coffee and then back to the hotel for a couple hours.





I looked up some suggestions for dinner and found a place a couple stops down on the Metro called Chex Germaine that was highly rated for it's traditional french food and friendly atmosphere. We found the restaurant tucked away down a small street in a neighborhood that didn't seem to have any reason to attract tourist type visitors to begin with. The place was tiny with only 7 or 8 tables half of which were for two. The fellow that greeted us was a middle aged man dressed very casually. I couldn't tell whether he just worked there or was the owner, but either way he was very friendly and helpful despite our inability to speak french. He said his english was just as bad as our french but he spoke english just fine, and kind of tried to make us say the french names of everything in the way a teacher would make you do it. Not pretentious at all.

The way the Chex Germaine works is you pay a flat 16.50 and get to pick from a list an appetizer, entree, and desert. We didn't really know what any of the names of the dishes meant or what was in them, so it was kind of fun because I asked him to pick for us and he was totally into it. For starters Amy got carrot's rapees and I got leeks in a vinaigrette. I had never tasted leeks before and really enjoyed them a lot. It reminded me a lot of artichoke hearts. Amy really liked the carrots rapees as well.



For Entrees I got salmon and mushrooms in a creamy mustard sauce on rice which was really great and Amy got leg of lamb with beans which was also delicious. We traded half way through so we would get to try everything.



Desert was so good I almost ate it all before I remembered to take a photo. I got a tiramisu with raspberry sauce, and Amy got a chocolate mousse/cake type desert which was very rich. We really enjoyed it all so much and were in a really good mood after for having the courage to go out of our way and experience something off the beaten path.



After dinner we hopped on the metro and made our way to Notre Dame cathedral. Like everywhere else in Paris it was totally crowded but well worth it since is so beautiful and well known. We walked along the river and enjoyed people watching. Everywhere you look on a nice warm night in Paris you can see groups of people sitting on all the bridges and along the river drinking wine and having a great time with each other. It kind of made me sad because we can't do that at home, but the more I thought about it, I have a feeling that americans wouldn't be able to handle public drinking as well as the parisians.







We stumbled on the Louvre which despite being closed still had a thousand people all taking photos of the famous glass pyramids and the ornate buildings and sculptures.







At that point we were too tired to continue walking all the way back to the hotel which was a few kilometers away, so we headed to the metro and got back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Even though Paris is horribly crowded and touristy during the spring, I really enjoyed seeing so much history and beautiful architecture.

Tomorrow we head to Belgium.