Author: Rudy

We returned our bikes and then stopped at a small outdoor kiosk to get some lunch. I ordered a ham and cheese baguette; Sue ordered a crepe with chocolate. We shared a big beer. Then we headed back up to the Palace Gardens. We paid our entry fees and meandered around the gardens, which cover about 800 hectares all landscaped in the classic French Garden style. There are lots of statues, several fountains, 200,000 trees arranged in a big maze so you can’t see how long the lineup is for the women’s toilets (3 for men, 3 for women). And at least one ice cream stand.

Fourteen is about halfway through the four weeks here — so it’s all downhill from here on.

By now it’s completely automatic — I get up in the morning, wash my face, have a cup of coffee, and then head downstairs and out the door to the corner bakery to pick up a fresh baguette — and sometimes an additional pastry or two. And tonight it occurs to me that this is EXACTLY what I always said I wanted to do: to live in a little apartment somewhere in Greece or Portugal (or Paris) and the only thing on my daily agenda was to go down to the neighbourhood bakery and pick up a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine for the day. And maybe read the paper. And that’s what we are doing. Except not reading the ‘paper’ — now it’s our various bookmarked sites on the interweb. And I’m not so much into wine — even though it’s France I really should be drinking good wine — but I’m enjoying some European beers.

Today after breakfast I ‘walked’ Sue down to the big Paris shopping area, to the Galleries Lafayette. It really isn’t very far from our place, about a 15 minute walk. And although I was more than willing to go back to ‘pick her up’ at an agreed time later, Sue thought she could manage to find her way back home okay. And she (almost) did. Well, she DID have to stop and ask someone just around the corner from our place how to get to our street, and the man was (so un-French! well, actually not. Everywhere we’ve had encounters with the ‘French’ they’ve been helpful, kind, friendly.) happy to show her the way.

I stayed home and organized a bunch of stuff on my computer and did a few ‘killer’ sudokus.

Before supper I went down to the fancy wine store around the corner and bought a couple of ‘real’ French beers. The couple who run the shop are super friendly and happy to speak English. “Ah, deez are bode beer-r-rs fr-r-rom dee nor-r-rd of Frahntz. Eets ver-r-ry goud.” I think to myself, They better be, they are 6.50 Euros apiece! So on the way home I stop at the little market across the street from our place where every night I see the owner out in front of his shop, having beers with a few buddies. I go in to look at his selection of beers and choose a couple more that look French. I go to the checkout to pay and ask him what kind of beer he likes. “What? Beers? Oh, Heineken!” (Well, at least he didn’t say Coors light!)

Back home Sue has supper ready. What would that woman do without a kitchen? Shopping and cooking — is there anything finer? And by shopping I don’t mean ‘buying’ — no, I think she actually came home without any shopping bags.

After supper I do my best to quickly write my blog before the beer(s) kick in. We’ve got an evening movie on the agenda for tonight — we’ll see how that goes…

Oh yeah, here’s a photo (have you noticed that there have been fewer photos on this site ever since Ed Peters ‘schpotted’ me about my photo galleries!). Well, here’s the ONLY photo for today:

Another beautiful morning here in Paris. On Sundays they close the Rue de Martyrs street  to vehicles from 10 to 2, so this morning the streets were full of families shopping for bargains. I went to the bakery to get some ‘scheintz’ and there were TWO lineups — one going into the bakery and and another outside the bakery, where a young boy stood at a table and sold baguettes as fast as he could make change. After breakfast Sue and I went out again, just to look at the action on the street. It was a bit cooler today, and there were some sprinkles of rain off and on, but really it was a nice day for walking outside. In the afternoon Sue called her sister and I visited with Ed Peters on Skype for a while. I found my ESPN NFL Sunday show on the internet and watched that for a while too. At around 6:45 we left for the same NFL pub that we went to last Sunday night. It’s about a mile from our place, and we took our umbrellas because it was raining lightly. When we got to the pub (Belushi’s) there was only one couch left, at the back of the room. But they have a big screen and it was just fine for watching football. We ordered a big platter to share and a pitcher of beer and then watched my Giants lose yet again, this time to the Chiefs. So the Giants are 0-4 and the Chiefs are 4-0. Well, at least the Vikings, playing the Steelers in London, managed their first win. It was close to 10:30 by the time some of the overtime games were done. We walked home (no rain) and I watched a few of the late afternoon games on the computer — mostly the Broncos, who handled the Eagles easily. It’s now 1:42am, and there is still one more (Sunday evening) game on tap — but I’m shutting ‘er down for the night.

Not a lot of action here on another lazy Saturday. Got fresh baking from the corner bakery to go with the scrambled eggs Sue made. I worked on a web project all morning while Sue played on her ipad. It was almost noon before we finally went out (another fine sunny day here) to check out the big flea market just around the corner from our place.

Everything seemed to be going a bit slower on this Saturday — maybe that’s because too many people were out partying way too late last night. As we were walking along Rue Martyr street, a one-way going north, we saw a long line of traffic, led by a big city bus, all waiting because a small van had stopped ahead of them and was blocking traffic. The driver of the little minivan had stopped to pick up some flea market furniture — and was having trouble fitting the table and chair into his car. So went to help him while the line of traffic backed up even more, and the bus driver was gesturing and honking and complaining. No panic! We’ll just make sure that we load our items properly and that we can close the back hatch, and then we’ll drive on.

Eventually we made our way up to Blvd. de Rochechouart, the big road just north of our street. Here both sides of the street and the center boulevard we lined with little booths selling ‘junk’. And it was mostly junk. It reminded me of Thursday morning garage sales on Granite Park. Far too many people, buying junk that the MCC Thrift Store wouldn’t even bother pricing, so that they can sell it at THEIR garage sale next summer! Rue de Steinkerque, the little street going up to the big white church, is famous for selling discount name-brand designer clothing. Boxes and boxes of it. By the time we were there most of the boxes had been gone through several times and there were slim pickin’s for the mom’s looking for bargains.

We went home and had lunch and a Skype with Alex and Max. Read a bit.

Went out for supper at the little restaurant across the street at the Hotel Amour. We were lucky to get a table (there was hardly anybody in there when we walked in, but I guess we must be a real draw because by the time we had read through the menu the place was packed). After supper we went back to the apartment and watched another one of the collection of DVDs here. Tonight’s movie was “Two Days in Paris” (2007), and it was quite funny and quite good (and in English).

Went to bed late (after 1:30) but there was still plenty of action on the street outside our window.

Another slow day here in Pahree! Got some fresh pastry and a baguette for breakfast. Sue made some strong Starbucks coffee. We idled around, reading and computing until it was Lunchtime. The sun was shining so once again I wore shorts when we went out for our late-afternoon walk. We decided NOT to make a big expedition today — just an easy walk around the neighbourhood. So we went back to the Sacré-CÅ“ur, the big white church that sits atop the hill behind our place here in Montmartre. We’d been there in the first day or two that we were here, but we thought it was worth a visit. Last time it had started to rain before we could climb the 300 stairs up to the top of the dome of the Sacré-CÅ“ur.

Sacre bleu! It’s quite a few stairs up to the church itself, as if that wasn’t enough. We’d just barely caught our breath when we got to the little side entrance where the ticket machine was. We had 2 options: Climb the dome for 6 Euros or Climb the dome and visit the Crypt below the church for 8 Euros. We picked option 1, figuring that if we didn’t survive the climb we might get free (permanent) entry to the Crypt.

The view from the top was great — although it was quite foggy (or smoggy) as we looked out across the city.

After we got back down we meandered our way back down the hill. At a small ‘fromage’ shop near our place we stopped to buy some local Roquefort Bleu cheese. And that’s what we had with crackers and olives for our ‘happy hour’. We did a couple of loads of laundry before I went out to pick up a pizza from one of the little restaurants next door. And so we had our (somewhat irregular) Friday Night Pizza Night. Dinner and a movie. And instead of the usual ‘French’ DVD movie, tonight we opted for the original “Great Gatsby” with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow — rented from iTunes.

Sue has been completely absorbed in the life of Ernest Hemingway — she read “A Paris Wife” (a book ABOUT Hemingway’s first wife, fiction based on facts) and that led her to her current book, Ernest’s Hemingway’s posthumous memoir, “A Moveable Feast”. In that book Hemingway says: Il n’y a que deux endroits au monde où l’on puisse vivre heureux: chez soi et à Paris. (There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.)

After another VERY lazy morning at home, we finally ventured out at around 4pm. We once again headed down to central Paris. The plan was to walk down to the Musée d’Orsay on the left bank, and if we were too tired after visiting the museum we could take the metro back.

We arrived at the museum and got in line to buy tickets. Yeah, on a late Thursday afternoon at the end of September there is still a winding lineup at a museum! We bought the ‘complete’ ticket which got us into the regular displays as well as the special exhibitions (more on that later).

The museum building itself is right along the Seine River. It was once a big train station, but in 1986 it was converted into a museum. So it’s a big open space with lots of little ‘rooms’ on either side, each one a little gallery for a specific artist or art style. We spent the next few hours slowly wandering around the various ‘rooms’. We saw lots of famous paintings and sculptures, by lots of famous artists; van Gogh, Renoir, Monet. It was kind of cool seeing something you’ve often seen in pictures ‘for real’. You go, “Oh yeah, I know that picture!” It’s usually quite a bit smaller than what you thought it would be, and you stand there in front of it and wonder how long you should stand there in front of it. I’m sure Marylou Driedger would have lots of things to say about many of the things we saw and would not have been at all satisfied by how quickly we managed to make our way around the big hall.

When we got to the end (well, actually, back to the beginning) of our tour there was still that ‘special exhibition’ for us to visit. And if we thought we hadn’t seen enough pictures and statues of naked people for one day, we were in for a bit of a treat! This is a case where if I’d known even just a little bit of French I probably would have saved myself a bit of money. The exhibition was called “Masculin / Masculin. L’homme nu dans l’art de 1800 à nos jours“, which, when I put that into my handy-dandy translator on the computer, means “Male / Male. The naked in the art from 1800 to the present day.” So there we were, along with lots of (mostly) little old ladies, circling around in a maze of all manner of naked men displays. Yeah, you can look it up online (since I won’t be posting any pictures here!) — that’s what we saw! When I taught junior high I would have given these ‘artists’ detentions for doodling up some of these works of art! But when you hang the thing up in a frame and shine a little spotlight on it people stand in line and pay money to see this.

After we’d made our escape from the museum we took a long walk along Boulevard St. Germain. We were looking for the “Les Deux Magots” café, where Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein spent many a glorious afternoon drinking coffee and hobnobbing with their famous friends back in the day. Wow! Sue’s just read one book about Ernest Hemingway and now we are full-fledged groupies! Unfortunately the café was ‘closed due to an exception’ so we had to settle for a photo.

But wait! Right next to the café is the Café de Flore, ANOTHER café (those Parisians and their cafés!) and it too was a favorite hangout for Hemingway. And although it is completely packed, we are lucky enough to get a little table after only waiting a short while. So we sit down and order, just like Ernest and Gertrude, and watch people (many of whom are walking back and forth, hoping for an open table just like we did) while we slowly sip our beer and coffee.

We decided that after such a refreshing break we could easily walk all the way back home — so we did. We again made a pit stop once we got close to our place, picking up more groceries for supper. While Sue did her magic in the kitchen I called my folks on the phone. It was quite a bit after nine when we had a lovely stir-fry for supper. Sue called her mom. Then we got comfy on the couch and did our best to stay awake through tonight’s DVD movie feature, Amélie. It’s a 2001 romantic comedy that takes place in Montmartre, right where we are staying! We’d seen it years ago, but neither of us could remember what it was about. That probably didn’t change after tonight’s viewing either.

We’re living pretty happy here.

As you may have guessed from the title, nothing exciting happened today. I say ‘happened’ but I really mean we didn’t DO anything exciting. We got up before 9, which means we’re probably adjusted to Paris time. I went to the bakery as usual. I made some bad coffee (too little coffee for the amount of water I added) so we dumped it and had a couple of ‘Nespresso’ coffees instead. Sue finished her book. I did a bit of computer work. We had lunch. At around mid-afternoon we went out for a walk. It had been sunny all morning, but right when we went out it got cloudy and it looked like it had drizzled rain for a bit. My feet were still quite sore from the last few days of walking, so we opted not to go too far. I wanted to go buy some more Nespresso coffee refills so we sort of looked for one of their boutique shops. Along the way Sue stopped to look at purses and sweaters. We got close to the big ‘Opera’ square and that’s when I spotted the Apple store. We went in — it was very nice — but I didn’t see any of those new iPhone 5Cs.

Well, since we got a photo of me in front of the Apple store, might as well take a photo of the building right across the street from there (just another very impressive landmark in Paris — the Palais Garnier Opera House). It turned out the coffee refill shop was for ‘members only’ so we didn’t buy anything there. We meandered around and then headed back home. We went to the grocery store to pick up some more things and then went home for happy hour.

Just before 9:00 we went out for dinner — today the choice was up to me and we went to the ‘other’ corner — to ‘Bistro Smiley’. It was a lovely evening as we sat outside on the sidewalk — Sue had sea bass and I had duck. We sat out there for quite a while. When we got home we put on another of Peter’s DVD movies, “Dans Paris”. It was pretty weird and pretty boring. But we had (another!) lovely coffee with our ‘Three Chocolates’ ice cream. And that was Day Nine in Paris.

This morning I woke up a bit before 8:00. I was surprised when I arrived at the corner bakery to pick up our breakfast — they were closed! Open every morning at 7am EXCEPT MARTES. Okay, I’ll make a note of that. That meant I had to go another block to find the next ‘patisserie’. Yeah, I could have bought our baguette at one of the several little mini-markets along the way, but once you get used to having FRESH bread that’s what you expect, and you’ll walk the extra block. Now I know that it might be tempting to have one of those new trendy allergies to wheat, water, or wine, but give Sue a minute or two in a little French bakery or at the neighbourhood wine shop and she’s feeling fit as a fiddle. So we again enjoyed a lovely pastry with our mug of coffee and platter of fresh fruit at breakfast.

After breakfast I had to haul out the washing machine manual for the new automatic washer in the kitchen so we could do a load of laundry. We’d already expected a European washer might take several hours to wash a single load, but after a bit of research we pushed enough buttons to get ours to whine like a Concorde jet taking off for only about an hour and a half. Sue hung up the wash on the racks in the spare bedroom and then made us lunch. Then it was time for today’s walk.

We considered taking the metro down to the Luxembourg Gardens but ultimately decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and walk there, with an option to take the metro back if we got too tired. So that’s what we did. It was warm and sunny and by the time we arrived at the bridge at the Seine River we were both pretty sure we wouldn’t be needing the extra jacket we each were carrying on this walk. But we still had a ways to go.

Once in the park we found a bench in the shade of big elm trees and took off our shoes and socks to cool off our poor feet. We sat there for about an hour. Then we took a walk around the park. There were lots of people there today — many of them sunning themselves in the warm afternoon sun.

After we left the park we decided to take advantage of where we were and wander by the Notre Dame Cathedral again — hoping that perhaps the lineup to tour the inside of the church would be reasonable during the week. We were there last Sunday but opted to forego the church tour because the wait would be too long. And so that’s what we did. The line was shorter and it moved quite quickly. Once inside the sanctuary, we did a quick ‘once around’ stopping to take a couple of photos of the large stained glass ‘rose’ windows that allow light in on three sides of the building.

We left and started the long hike back home. By the time we made a little grocery stop just around the corner from our place our feet were aching and we were too tired to think about going out for dinner tonight. We picked up a few things and went home. After a bit of a happy hour Sue got busy in the kitchen while I showered. We enjoyed a nice pasta with chorizo meal and then settled down to watch tonight’s feature presentation: “The Atomizer”. A bit of a weird movie but Sue filled me in on the parts I’d snoozed through. By 11pm we were yawning and ready to shut ‘er down.

A week ago Tim took us to the airport for the beginning of this month-long adventure. It’s been a great first week here in Paris.

After watching another couple of NFL games on my computer last night, I started watching the ‘evening’ game but soon gave up. I was too tired. It was already after 2:00am and I just didn’t care all that much about the Bears or the Steelers.

At 10:30 this morning I finally woke up. I made coffee and by lunch time it was time for breakfast! The day was warm and sunny and too good to waste — especially since at least 2 out Sue’s 5 weather apps are forecasting rain for later in the week. So we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower today. Not only that, but since the tower is quite far away and we would probably be doing a lot of walking once we got there, we decided to take the Metro there, then, if we were not too tired later, walk back home.

We took the Metro from the nearby Pigale station. We had to switch lines once, and then got off at the Bir-Hakeim station. From the station we could already see the tower. We walked across the street and up to the North leg of the tower and got in line to buy tickets — entrance tickets and an elevator ride to the top (14.50 Euros each). The line-up for the ticket booth took 45 minutes. The line-up for the elevator took another 45 minutes. We took some photos from the second level and then a few more from the very top. A great view. I exercised extreme restraint and only took about 50 photos. Here are some:

From the Eiffel Tower we wandered towards the Champ de Mars, the large expanse of lawns next to the tower. We stopped at a corner café and had a large beer and a ‘croque-monsieur’ (a French specialty, basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich). It was getting close to 5:00pm, but the western sun was shining brightly and there’s nothing that’s much better than sitting at a busy street corner, drinking a big cold glass of beer, and watching beautiful people walking by!

And, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, although pretty much EVERY corner in Paris boasts a historically significant building or a museum or a statue or a fountain worthy of at least a photograph if not a paragraph in some idiot’s travel blog, Paris is a “people-watcher’s paradise”. Seriously! The women here are gorgeous! Almost all of them. Not just the French women (although especially them), but even the women tourists are better than average! They dress nice, they walk nice, the look fantastic. And there are WAY fewer overweight people here than at home (side note: most of them smoke, which may or may not help them to keep slim — just speculation on our part, though). And the men? Nothing special! Okay, maybe I have turned my head a few times when one of those French ‘gay boys’ with the pants that are tight all the way down to the ankles walked by, but mostly the men are old and frumpy-looking with messed-up comb-overs and bagged-out old suit jackets. But the women? Ooh-la-la!

Too bad they mostly speak French, a language that completely befuddles us. When it’s time to pay our cheque I just hold out a palm full of coins and hope the waiter or the clerk can figure it out. Of course, we could get with the times and have one of them fancy new iPhones with google translate on them — but THAT reminds me of another thing I’ve noticed on this trip. Of the 7,181,090,312 people currently on this earth, Apple must have sold 7,181,090,300 iPhones! No, that’s not right either — I was figuring that Sue and Rudy are about the only 2 people who do NOT have an iPhone, but then I remembered that quite a few people here have MORE THAN ONE! On the Metro, the guy in front of us is texting on one and facebooking and listening to music on the other one! So that cancels out us NOT having a phone. Maybe he “LIKED” himself from one phone to the other! But I digress.

Suitably refreshed we continued our walk. We visited ‘Les Invalides’, a large facade with a glistening gold-covered dome, which is now an army museum and the burial place for Napoleon Bonaparte. We took a few photos of the cannons inside and the finely trimmed trees in the front garden.

From there we walked across the Pont Alexandre III bridge — our guidebooks regard it as the most beautiful of all the bridges that span the Seine River. And on the other side we passed a couple of palaces: the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. Click. Click. Ho-hum.

And then it’s just a hop, skip, and 3km walk back to our apartment. Once we hit Rue des Martyrs we can already look up the slope of the road and see the white dome of the Sacré-CÅ“ur church up on the hill behind Montmartre.

Along the way I visit my first McDonalds, but only to take a look and compare it to the McDonalds back home. I took a photo of the chocolate display case and hurried back out!

We got home and had a little ‘happy hour’ and a shower before heading out for supper. Tonight we again went to one of the little cafes just around the corner — and I had a bacon-cheeseburger and Sue had smoked salmon. Both good. Back at the apartment, we watched a French (with subtitles) DVD, “My Best Friend”. Good too.

And that’s the end of week one! C’était une bonne semaine. (Okay, I cheated, and ‘googled’ that!)

Woke up VERY late today (probably because I was up until after 3am last night, downloading the latest Elton John album (The Diving Board). When I finally got up I made coffee and sat on the couch for a while. Sue eventually made her appearance as well, and then it was time to think about breakfast. I noticed that the little convenience store across the street was closed today — I guess that’s how they do it in civilized countries — most shops are closed here on a Sunday, except those that are not closed. I went to the corner bakery — not sure if they would be open, but they were, and they were doing a roaring business today. So I brought home some pastries and another baguette. We listened to some great music on my ipod and had our breakfast.

A lazy afternoon followed the morning’s frenzy of activity! Sue read and diddled around on her ipad. I made some new cool Paris banners for the website, but didn’t post them (yet) — we’ll leave that excitement for another day! Sue made me a sandwich for lunch (she had porridge) and then we did nothing for a while again until it was around 6pm. Time to start thinking about the 12noon NFL games happening back home. I googled around for a nearby NFL bar — and we decided to venture out for the evening. We walked the 1.5kms (back along the way we first came here when we arrived on the train last Monday) and found the Belushi’s Bar which advertised that it was showing NFL games inside. Went in. Only soccer on all the TVs. I asked and the guy at the bar invited us to go downstairs. We did, and discovered a big screen, a bar, and a bunch of leather couches and chairs. And no other people! We sat down and waited for the 7 o’clock kick-off. Eventually a few more crazy NFL fans found their way here and by the end of the first game it was full! We even bet on the outcome of the first (9) games, a free beer going to those who could pick 7 winners. Well, NOT US! My Giants were demolished by the lowly Panthers, and the Vikings lost in the last couple of minutes to the surprising Bengels. And the burger we had was sans cheese and not very cooked! But the beer was drinkable and the place probably warrants a revisit a week from today.

We walked home at around 11pm and had a chocolate bar for night snack. Maybe a movie too, we’ll see.