Flagrantly Fragrant French Fromage

One thing sure seemed relatively certain to all four of we traveling foreign foodies, the French folk sure seemed to be serious about their food.  From our first encounter in the grocery market to all the restaurants we visited thereafter, we did not encounter anything that even remotely tasted eh.  Apparently we could not find any bad food in Paris.  And we also discovered right away they were very flagrant about their fragrant fromage, or cheese.

I am lactose intolerant, have been for over a decade now.  Yeah, I can take them lactose enzyme things, but for me, they only work so much.  And cheese, for me, is the absolute worst as far as milk products go.  I have gone without or adapted to many milk products over the years, and actually have found a way to make many cream desserts without the cream.  I'll have to save that for another post actually, but a definite game changer for lactose intolerant folks who love desserts.  Stay tuned.

Ah, where was I?  Oh yes, lactose intolerance and the tons of gourmet cheeses in France.  When I first became aware of my intolerance and started changing my diet, it was initially difficult to stop eating cheese.  But I adapted over time and I haven't really missed it in years.  My other three traveling companions, however, are not so afflicted.  When they first encountered the cheese section at the market I could have sworn I heard chirps of ecstasy.  And then some yodeling.

There was some serious French fromage in that there market cheese section.  There's actually entire French Fromage shops, selling nothing but kaboodles of the pungent stuff.  Hell, back in Amsterdam the market we went to there had a cheese wheel the size of a semi tire.  In France the big wheels of cheese were the size of a semi truck.   You know, like, if there were big rectangular wheels for instance.

So at that first foray into the market, a couple different cheeses made it into the basket.  Not my basket, but
somebody's.  There was other stuff in my basket, like meat and chocolates.  And the good Doctor always made sure we had a baguette of true French bread.  Every day.  Wine and French Bread.  Did not go home without it.


The second afternoon of our stay somebody noticed that the fridge was starting to smell a little frommagy.  Like all of us.  It wasn't hard.  It seems the blue cheese my lovely wife bought, the stuff that was growing new mold on the already blue mold, was affecting everything else in the fridge with it's odorous vintage.  The only thing saving us all from a full on bio assault was the three inch thick metal casing surrounding the cold air inside the fridge.  But once that door was opened, you had to duck.

Everything inside the fridge smelled of fromage.  Peaches, chocolate, wine.  Now, cheese and wine typically go pretty good together, but not out of the same bottle.  Ah yes, here we have a nice bottle of vintage Bordeaux.  A classic varietal, with subtle notes of cheddar and jack.

Cheesy chocolate?  No thanks.  Something had to be done.  We could toss in on a neighbor's porch...

That does remind me of a high school senior prank an old school chum and I pulled one day.  On our own.  We took a first period cooking class together, and one morning the class was about different kinds of cheese.  One of them happened to be Limburger, a cheese with a particularity heightened brand of odor.  My chum and I took a bit of that cheese along with us to our next class, which we took together, creative writing.  There we wrote a funny little sonnet by sticking small amounts of Limburger cheese underneath about ten desks.  By mid afternoon the doors and windows of that room were all open and about ten desks were out in the plaza, having been recently cleaned.  Class was being held in the library.  We never got caught.

On our way out that day, as always, we took down the garbage.  That day we also dropped off the cheese.  It was actually growing.  The blue was begetting more blue and it was getting cheesier all the time.  I don't know what's going to happen to it now that it's been sent to a landfill somewhere around Paris.  Hopefully a nice French rat, like Ratatouille, or a nice French skunk, like PePe Le Pew, will find it and eat it before it frommages up the entire country.

The day after my lovely wife's birthday had to be a mellow one.  Are you kidding?  Was once a time we never slept through entire weekends, now and then.  Staying up past nine is a big event anymore, 1:00 AM?  Way big doings, that's for sure.  And for sure, everyone needed to sleep in.

So, rather than do the Louvre, which would be an all day affair and was on the ESS for that particular day, we all opted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, which would only be a half a day at best.  We decided to lateral the Louvre a couple days out.

The d' Orsay houses French art from 1848-1914, which covered the most important part of art history for us, Impressionism.  As a matter of fact, the d' Orsay houses one of the largest collections of Impressionist art in the world.   Universe even.

As always, we strolled down to the museum.  Our apartment was in a wonderful location, with no large historical venue more than a couple miles away. We would typically start our daily adventures with a stroll, or city hike, and then see what fortunes the day might bring along before deciding how to return.

On the way to the d' Orsay, which is across the Seine from the Louvre, we accidentally happened upon the Pont des Arts, or bridge between the museums. This bridge is moderately famous because of all the locks that have been placed on the chain link fence.  And I quote from somewhere,

 

"Some years ago, a new fad started when love-struck sweethearts began locking padlocks onto the chain link fence of the Pont des Arts, which crosses from the left bank to the Louvre museum. The love padlocks, called cadenas d’amour, multiplied until there were thousands of love tokens on the bridge, each engraved with a message of love. After locking the love padlock onto the fence, lovers toss the keys into the Seine river – a sign of their eternal devotion."

Both us traveling couples became high school sweethearts once again, forty some years of ups and downs erased in a couple youthful heartbeats.  Fortunately a couple young enterprising vendors made it easy for we star struck lovers to join in the fun.  One young man sold locks, quite reasonable as a matter of fact (a couple euros) and a young lady would engrave the lock for a fee.  If you didn't want to pay (or wait) for engraving, the lock seller also had a Sharpee with which to inscribe the lock.

Both we couples bought a lock, one couple had their lock engraved.  The other couple wrote their initials on their lock with a Sharpee.  For our part, my lovely wife and I placed our lock on the chain link fence together and then kissed, our left legs rising in unison at the knee.  Then we tossed the key in the river and Cha Cha Cha'd across the bridge.  We all felt like high school kids again, which is actually where both couples first met and began dating, so many wonderful years ago.  Jeez, dare I say decades?

There was a French accordion master playing a few wonderful versions of old French standards, which  added a nice, romantic touch to the ambiance.   Then there was an old gypsy hag in a bundle of haphazardly thrown together shawls, bandanas and pup tents who was limping along like she was dragging a two hundred pound wooden canary beneath her shroud.  Her head was usually down and she muttered about for change as she dragged her cannon leg along.

"Eggs for the poor," she muttered.  Only it sounded different in French.

What struck me though about Hag-zilla was that every now and then she would lift her head up and her clear, sharp eyes would dart about, deftly surveying her surroundings.  And then in an instant her head was down and she was back to muttering form.  I tossed the accordion master some change.  I stayed as far away from Hag-zilla as possible, she scared the hell out of me.

Once we were through with our high school sweetheart regression, hand in hand we strolled over the bridge and into the Musee d'Orsay.

The d' Orsay is not quite as well known as the Louvre, so there was not nearly as much of a crowd. There was still, however, a good fifty person line waiting to get in.  Happily our little traveling party with our Paris Museum Pass's walked right in through another entrance, NO waiting at all.

Since we had worked up quite an appetite rekindling our high school romance(s) along the way, and since we figured we'd need a little sustenance before engaging the Impressionists, we decided to engage the dining room.  And boy howdy were we happy we did!

Everything in that room was a work of art.  From the ceiling and fifteen layers of guilded crown molding to

what they put on the plates, it was all a work of art.

Here's some fabulous Pate de Foie Gras, served on a plate with several different types of peas and some sort of art nouveau cracker.

I mean, how can you not like ground up fowl organ meat when it looks like that?  Yum.

After our sumptuous dining excursion we delved right on in for a few hours of incredible culture.

If you really wanted to see everything in the museum, you should probably allow all day.  The place might not be the football stadium(s) that are the Louvre, but it's still pretty darn big.  We all focused on our favorite period, which was good, because after a few hours we got to hear the final cattle call of the day, "The museum is closing in fifteen minutes.  Get the hell out."  Or something like that.  What do I know?  I don't speak French.

On the way out, my lovely wife entered the absolutely PACKED gift shop.  It was closing time and it was sardine time.  I motioned that I would mosey outside and catch her there.  Where there was air.  I'm not much of a sardine guy.  Anchovies either.

I stepped outside, the entrance square was alive with the hustle and bustle of happy tourists at play.  A dozen different languages  in the background chitter chatter.  People watching in Europe, it does not get better.  As I scanned the late afternoon arty exit ambiance, I noticed a small crowd gathering and sitting on the long steps of the square, which rose up from a pedestrian thoroughfare.  I wandered over and discovered a solo male violinist in his thirties holding court, playing real good.  For change.  He sounded like a symphony player, or at least first chair in a high school band.  His audience grew as he quite melodically sashayed through some Paganini, Puccini and Pet Shop Boys.

Then there was this tall, almost homeless looking man who had set up camp within close proximity of the violinist.  Mr. Mimic, who looked like a cross between Gerard Depardieu and Marty Feldman, would spy an unsuspecting approaching human and then mimic their walk and demeanor in a rather humorous and sardonic fashion.  In some instances he was not very kind.  Funny, but not very kind to many of the the innocent passersby.  Some of the victims played back, some ignored him, several fled.  The audience all laughed.  Although he was quite vigorous in his comical assaults, he was also quite gracious, sincerely adopting a "Wai" gratitude pose when gifted with change.

The rest of the party soon joined me, and before long there were about eighty people enjoying both shows.  We watched another ten minutes or so and then walked over to the metro since we had become seasoned metro commuters.  When we exited at the Bourse, we accidentally discovered an even closer market, like only three blocks from the apartment.  Instead of ten.  Viola!  We picked up the usual stuff, including baguette, returned to the apartment, ate, drank and sang more sailing songs into the heart of the night.  

Sunday morning we actually returned to the ESS, or Excel Spread Sheet.  Sunday had always been the 2nd most important day of the trip, flea market day.  My lovely wife loves flea markets, and Paris hosts the MOTHER of all flea markets, the Puces St. Ouen (pronounced "Huh?"), which hosts over 2,000 vendors.

From Rick Steves: "Paris' sprawling flea markets are over-sized garage sales.  They started in the Middle Ages, when middlemen sold old, flea-infested clothes and discarded possessions of the wealthy at bargain prices to eager peasants.  Buyers were allowed to rummage through piles of aristocratic garbage."

The Puces St. Ouen lies on the outskirts of Paris, definitely not within strolling distance.  So we took the metro out, making a couple underground changes along the way.  Once we arrived top side we followed the crowd and eventually entered acres and acres and blocks and miles and oodles of vendors.  This really wasn't a parking lot where pick-ups drove up and folks plopped their wares on the asphalt.  Most of the vendors had their own stalls, some were pop-up tents, some were within huge warehouses.  Certain areas specialized in certain items, so if you were looking for something specific you could narrow down your search area.  You know, like down to a square mile.

We soon discovered there was the typical every day flea market cheap stuff and then there were fourteen thousand Louis the Whatever chairs that were all for sale in excess of thousands of dollars.  A lot of stuff was BIG, and none of it seemed to be whispering a sweet take me home sonnet.

We wandered and strolled and got lost, finding ourselves once again on a nondescript corner somewhere in and around the madcap mayhem that is the Puces St Ouen.  There was but another charming sidewalk brasserie and we plopped ourselves right on down.

This brasserie was owned and operated by a very gracious and entertaining gentleman who also happened to be our waiter.  He spoke decent enough English, substantially better than any of our French.  We found out his parents first opened the place after WWII and it had pretty much been his life for sixty years.

There was an eight by ten black and white of him as a kid waiting tables.  It was on the wall, along with many other old photos of life back when on the block.  An entire life spent in one building, really.  I found him a fascinating story and individual.

By the way, did I mention you pretty much get French Fries with everything?  Burger?  Fries.  Steak?  Fries.  Ice cream?  Fries.  I ate a lot of fries while I was in France.  Basic, thick cut fries.  Everywhere.  I think they standardized them just like they did the baguette of bread.  They seemed to be French institutions.

Sometimes they served mayo as a condiment with the fries, sometimes not.  They definitely don't serve ketchup with them, and don't ask.  My lovely sister-in-law was politely accosted by our waiter when she asked for some.  He then proceeded to ask her, quite humorously, if she wanted ketchup with her salad.  And then with her ice cream.

After we had been sitting for a few minutes, outside of course, some classic French accordion music began inside.  Soon it was joined by a most lovely, alluring female voice.  I could see the gentleman playing the accordion through the open door, but I could not see the singer.

The simple background music set a most delightful ambiance.  We were sitting outside in a brasserie on a lovely afternoon in Paris, listening to a wonderful version of "C'est Magnifique".

When the music stopped, an utterly charming seventies something Chanteuse in a leopard print mini-skirt came by our table with a hat.  I gave her a ten for the table, for which she responded with an enchanting smile.  For being seventies something, that girl looked great and sounded like Lady Gaga on steroids.

After lunch we once again embarked, searching for the prefect antique to bring home.  But alas, the antique angels were not apparently with my lovely wife that day.  She really didn't find anything that sang to her.  Not like the candle Abra she found our last day in Amsterdam.  And boy howdy did that ever NOT fire my rockets when faced with the challenge of getting it home.  In a suitcase.

 

Actually, that little puppy can break down and just about fit in a shoe box.  Really.

And now a news bulletin:  The night before in Paris, unbeknownst to most of the real world, there was some Muslim rioting in the streets over the Israel-Gaza affair.  My lovely sister in law discovered this factoid online on the Huffington Post that morning and we took note.

Then, as we were wandering along in the amazing maze of vendors and antiques, we noticed there was a large group of young men starting to coagulate under an overpass, by a corner, not very far away.  Like, right over there not far away!  You know, like fifty feet.  When I say large group, I'm not talking ten to fifteen.  No, there were at least a hundred young men and they were being joined by more and more young men every minute.  With the riots in mind from the night before and the intersection not looking like a likely scenario for a soccer match, and not quite wanting to get involved in a potentially heightened foreign affair, we decided it was time to go.  Like, anywhere but there.  The thing was, like, we were lost again and had to figure out where the train station was.

I found the route, (not covered by the Moon Map Guide-there's a separate map for the flea market) which unfortunately took us kitty corner across from the impending insurgency.  And as we walked, I noticed a couple cop cars blazing into the scene, four coppers to each small sedan.  It didn't look like they were armed.  Maybe they were going to just going to flail and kick.  Or they carried some magic sauce somewhere.

Our pace quickened, and now we were in the thick of the less expensive side of things, the cheap stuff you see at all the flea markets over here.  Made in China.  The Dollar Store.  And the walkway was thick with young, foreign speaking potential agitators.  It was a long, hard football field and more of zigging and zagging, but we wound our way through the crowd and got to the metro and eventually home.

The next day, a Monday, was going to be our assault on the Louvre.  We had to, we were running out of time.  Our companions were departing in two days, we in three.  And we still had Versailles to see.

After another festive night of wine, fromage and sailing songs, we left the next morning with our standard stroll from the apartment.  Actually at a decent hour this time.  The Louvre was still packed, but we entered via the pass line and this time had to wait behind four or five other people.  Sheesh.

Once inside, the place looked even bigger than it did from the outside.  One of the main reasons to hit the Louvre is to see the Mona Lisa, which seems to be a mass favorite amongst all speaking peoples.  And according to Rick Steves, the room in which she is housed can get quite crowded at times, with lines and everything.  We decided to immediately make a beeline to the Mona Lisa and get that smirking, docile little wench out of the way.

We looked at the museum map, Mona appeared to be about a mile from where we entered.  Not in a straight line either. We just had to go down a couple corridors, make a right, then pass through a couple interconnected rooms  Then walk down a wide hallway and make a left.  Now that we were at the stairs we went up to the 2nd floor, made a right and walked down a corridor.  From there it was another right, or left, another hall, another room, hell, who cares at this point?  We finally found her, somehow.

Mona is actually a tiny little painting setting by herself on a HUGE wall.  Meh.  But she was a must see, kinda like the Eiffel Tower.  Even though we made a wounded bee line to the masterpiece, there was still quite a crowd.  I couldn't imagine what the room would have been like in an other hour.

With Mona out of the way, what next?   Our companions had a couple things they really wanted to see, and my lovely wife really wanted to see some Etruscan things.  Not crusty things like I first thought.  Really really old things.  Like the oldest things ever.  Older than most crusty things even.

To get to the Etruscan scene, I think we had to cross the river Rhine and then come back via Spain.  Over the Alps.  Something like that.  It took us about an hour to find the exhibit, getting lost a couple dozen times along the way.  Fortunately there's priceless art all along the way, so it wasn't like we were missing out on too much.  Just 7/8 of the rest of the stuff in the place.  The Louvre is huge, massive.  You can take a guided tour, but that would still only hit the high points.  If you really want to explore the whole museum, allow at least three days.  And bring some extra food and water just in case.  And a flash light.  You never know.

I think we randomly stumbled upon a couple Reuban's along the way, saw a couple French Dips too.  Tuna Salad anyone? 

Sorry.

After a few hours we were through.  Even though we hadn't really been on a wildly urgent art museum kick, we were still getting a little culture burn.  Besides, it was brasserie time.  We hooked up with our companions and off we went in search of that afternoons repast.

Amazingly we didn't have to travel very far.  There's just about one on every corner.  Our waiter there didn't speak a lot of English and at first seemed annoyed we Americans had arrived within his sphere.  But then he broke the ice by playfully tossing cloth napkins on everybody's lap.  It was another enjoyable French meal, and again we had fries.

From there we wandered over to a neighborhood recommended by Rick Steve's and, even though we never really found it, we had a nice afternoon stroll nonetheless.  That night we did the usual, actually earning the disdain from one of our neighbors for the second time.

"Louder please," I believe was the sardonic response to our apparently ever elevating decibel level.  She had an almost vulgar French accent.  Gutteral baby.  Probably enhanced by French wine.  Probably a lot of it.  We sang the last few tunes quietly and retired early.  We had to be ready for the next day, our March on Versailles. 

There's Serious World Class Art, and Then There's Paris

The day after our on-off bus soiree was my lovely wife's birthday, the main reason we were in Paris.  We had all decided that night was going to be the main dinner event of the trip.  But where?  There's only something like twelve thousand restaurants in the city, most of them fabulous, what to do, what to do?

In perusing our individual laminated map within the Moon Map Guide Paris (we were staying in the Louvre district) I noticed there were several nice restaurants within walking distance of our apartment.  One of them, Le Grand Colbert, looked like it would fit the bill quite nicely.

You may be familiar with the restaurant.  If was featured in "Something's Gotta Give", that hilarious romantic comedy for over fifty somethings with Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves and of course Jack Nicholson.  If it was good enough for them it certainly should be good enough for my lovely wife.  When presented with the idea she excitedly said, "What the hell."

I made reservations the night before and the soonest we could get in was 10 PM.  How decidedly European.  With that time in the bag we were definitely gonna need a nap!

Everyone pretty much slept in the morning of my lovely wife' 60ths birthday.  It could have been the fabulous French wine from the night before, it could have been the sailing songs.  I was up at a reasonable hour, like 8ish, and made some coffee.  Then I drank some coffee, a lot of it, and realized that by sleeping in my traveling comrades were totally screwing up the Excel spread sheet (ESS), the one I had spent hours and hours detailing and compiling.

So far, one day, so good.  We were on track.  An all day bus tour to get acquainted with the city, simple.  On her birthday, according to the ESS, we were supposed to go on a historic Paris walk, including Notre Dame, during the morning.  The walk would end at the Louvre, where I figured we could spend the afternoon.  Stroll back to the apartment, nap, then go out and have a fabulous French dinner.  That was reasonable, it wasn't too far out of line.  But in order to accommodate this, it would require us to get out and moving by at least 10:00 AM, but better around 9:00.  Or maybe even 8:00.

I had another sip of coffee and rolled.  It was vacation.  We were in Paris.  It was my lovely wife's birthday, of all the days of the year she should be able to do what she wants it should be her birthday.  If she wants to sleep in, so be it.  What the hell?

I think we all got moving around 11:00 that morning and strolled the other way than we had previously gone, down towards the Louvre.  We walked past and through the Royal Palace along the way, apparently we were staying in a fairly classy neighborhood.  It was a nice enough building and grounds, but then we arrived and stood in awe of the spectacle that is the Louvre.

This ain't just a museum, it's like a couple of football stadiums filled with art.  Endless, priceless art.

The main entrance is through that glass pyramid right there. Then you have the three story building with side wings seemingly a mile long that is a "U" around that entire square above.  There's priceless art in every room.  Then, of course, a large part of the museum exists underneath that square right there.  Yeah, I discovered route finding in avalanche territory in the Sierras, a weekend course I did a few decades back, was a hell of a lot easier than route finding in the Louvre.  But that was to be discovered another day.

We had decided prior to leaving that we were going very "light" that day as far as culture was concerned.  The Louvre would take some time to visit, like forever.  Another museum, the Musee de L'Orangerie, which sat at the far end of the Louvre gardens, would only take a couple hours. 

The Louvre is no doubt Paris's most famous art museum, partly because the Mona Lisa is exhibited there.  But the Louvre only covers the ancient world to 1850 as far as eons are concerned.  Naturally, if one is in Paris, one must really visit the Louvre, if only to say one did so.  But for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art enthusiasts, such as our entire traveling party, the Musee de Orsay and L'Orangerie museums housed the stuff we really wanted to see; Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Degas, Etc.

We meandered around the Louvre square for a few minutes, marveling at the impressive structure.  Then we walked past the pyramid, off the square and out into the gardens.  It was another lovely, sweltering, summer day in Paris.  There were many benches and chairs in the shade under the trees, and many of them were being used by both Parisians and tourists.

How can you tell the difference?

Pretty easy, actually.  Tourists looked like metro commandos.  Cargo shorts, back packs, CAMERAS, hats.  Walking into walls with their not so smart phones.  Of course, those were the subtle indicators.  Favorite sport team baseball hats, t-shirts and tennis shoes were the more obvious. 

We always typically try to blend.  I don't usually wear sneakers anymore anyway, 'cept around the old homestead here.  And I'd NEVER wear anything with verbiage that would indicate I was American.  Not while I'm strolling in a foreign country.  I want the terrorist to hear me telling them to "F#@k Off!" in a steady, even voice to learn I'm American, not be able to shoot me from a thousand meters away. 

As far as the Parisians go, they're usually NOT taking pictures.  Nor are many wearing back packs.  And they were all pretty trim.  If a person was heavy set, male or female, that was another good tourist indicator.  Try as we might to blend, the locals saw us coming a mile away.  Of course it could have been the American accent of our banter and laughter, which accompanied us pretty much everywhere we went.

After strolling along the main thoroughfare of the immense park and gardens for what may have seemed like hours, we decided it was time to stop for refreshment at a basic outdoor French brasserie.  I say basic because they are everywhere.  All are individually charming, all serve some sort of spectacular specialty, all serve beer and wine.  Essentially the definition of a "Brasserie" is an informal French cafe.  Shoot howdy, what more could any wayfaring traveler desire?

Oh, and yeah.  They all had a toilette.  One who is wandering the streets of Paris soon discovers toilette's are hard to come by.  The simple solution; stop at a brasserie, they're like on every other corner.  Yeah, you do have to buy something, like a glass of French wine.  So what's your point?

An interesting tidbit about most of the sidewalk brasseries, typically all the chairs faced the street.  Patrons were obviously encouraged to enjoy the fabulous and lively pedestrian parade that is always apparent in Paris.  From a morning coffee through an evening glass of wine, the city air is charged with a delicious, effervescent energy, a sumptuous treat that needs to be savored and surveyed. 

Most of our party had been up for an hour and a half, so of course it was necessary to stop, rest and repast. 
We did all that, and then proceeded a much shorter distance to the Musee de L'Orangerie.  While the musee hosts a number of fabulous Impressionist works, if you're a Claude Monet Water Lilly fan you may never leave the place.

As Rick Steve's says, "Like Beethoven going deaf, a nearly blind Claude Monet (1840-1926) wrote his final symphonies on a monumental scale.  Even as he struggled with cataracts, he planned a series of HUGE six-foot-tall canvases of water lilies to hang in special rooms at the L'Orangerie."

Fortunately there was not a long regular line at the lesser known L'Orangerie, and we were within the air conditioned lobby within minutes.  Lines, at other venues we soon learned, could take HOURS.  HOURS!  Once up at the cashier we purchased four-six day museum passes.  As Rick Steve's also says, "In Paris there are two classes of sightseers-those with a Paris Museum Pass and those who stand in line." 

If you're going to go to more than one museum, you really do need to purchase a pass.  They sell two, four and six day passes, which do pay for themselves just through admission.  Simply tally up which places you want to see, how many days that will take and proceed from there.  Of course, you may even think you want to draft up an Excel spread sheet, but why bother?  It'll just get blown to shreds the first or second day anyway.

Just about every major historical attraction is covered by the pass.  While the modest euro savings is nice, probably the major most important benefit of the pass is you get to enter the venues via a pass line, of which there generally wasn't.  We walked right in every place after that-except Versailles, but that's another story-while others without a pass waited in line for hours.  Hours.

The first thing we did after obtaining our passes was wander into this room-Monet's Opus-

There's another room just like it.  Four incredible six foot high sixty foot long murals.  One can, essentially, walk around the room, become immersed in the cool, inviting water and swim with his lilies.  Or just sit on the shore underneath the willows, enjoying a cool, tranquil day, gazing upon the incredible beauty of a few dabs of oil paint and utter genius.

Once back out in the sweltering sun, we contemplated our next move.  We were so far off the ESS there was no going back.  We decided to hit the Musee Rodin, which was just across the Seine River and a few blocks west.  Or east.  Who cared?  Either direction was still Paris.

Surrounded by a ten foot high plaster wall, the museum and gardens were a definite worthwhile visit.  Although without AC that building was incredibly warm. One could say dang hot since many people were sweating inside.  Fortunately there were scattered works throughout the shady gardens where we could linger a little longer.

While at the Rodin I first learned of Robert Mapplethorpe, a New York photographer, whose works were also on exhibit at the museum.  Bob came to prominence in the 1980's, and like Rodin showed keen interest in the human body.  But Bob, I think, was a little more enamored with the male physique.  Sometimes ragingly so, if you know what I mean.  Right in your face, if you know what I mean.  I'm certain I blushed.  I found I'd much rather look at the pornography conveyed in all the pastry shop windows.  Pastry porn.  That I could not get enough of.

Both museums were fairly quick visits, and we found ourselves back on the street in little over an hour.  Now late afternoon, we contemplated our way home.  Even though we had our great Moon map guide, knew where we where and where we needed to go, it was still a few miles back to the ranch.  It was still pretty hot and I don't think anybody felt like walking.  After trying to flag down a couple occupied cabs, we figured out the occupied ones had a red light lit on top while unoccupied and ready for fare had a green light.  Made sense, but it still didn't help us find an unoccupied cab.

We did find a cab stand sign, where ostensibly cabbies lined up for waiting fares.  We waited there for about fifteen minutes, still no cab.  Then, much to our chagrin, a supposed handicapped looking old dude in a rumpled old suit limped his calculating French way kinda right in front of us.  So what should the good Doc and I do?

We had two very lovely ladies who were very tired, they needed a cab bad.  But apparently so did the supposed handicapped French guy.  I say "supposed" because the old dude kind of varied his limp from time to time as he wormed his way over, making sure we saw him.  I mean, the Doc and I could have gone over and kicked him in the knee, but what if he really was handicapped?  I shudder at the headlines.  

"American doctor and American writer beat up an elderly handicapped French man today so that they could get a taxi..."

Actually, with the current way of the world, that's probably already happened.  What's wrong with people anyway?

So we didn't kick the old dude and we all waited another ten minutes or so and still no cab.  It was then that someone suggested the metro.  There was a metro stop about four feet away from where we were standing.  It was the chivalrous thing to do.  Besides, we could potentially be waiting the rest of the day for that elusive cab.  Let the handicapped charlatan have the fare, we were off on another adventure.

We walked down the steps, right into the bowels of the city's subway system.  European metro systems, like their train systems, are generally fabulous.  I'd ridden the metro in Madrid some years back with an old friend who was very experienced and adept at travel.  His system, get a map of the city and a map of the metro system at the airport after you land.  We traveled all over the city of Madrid for a week for about $20 each.  It takes a little while to get your bearings, especially when chasing through pedestrian tunnels changing trains, but it's a great and inexpensive way to get around large foreign cities.

In Paris it was also entertaining at times.  Sometimes a couple musicians would pop in your car at a stop and start playing.  Could be a saxophone, clarinet, guitar, accordion, or pink translucent recorder.  You never knew.  You might get to hear the entire song or not, depending on where you got off.  When they ended they'd pass a hat, hop off at the next stop, hop on the next train and do it again.  As long as you don't actually exit the system and go up for air, you can ride around the metro underground all day and night for the price of one ticket. 

Once in a while you'd find an old French accordion master playing "Pigalle" or another French classic for change in one of the underground pedestrian tunnels.  I found the music nostalgically charming, probably from charmingly nostalgic old movies like "Rosemary's Baby." 

We found a metro pocket map and a ticket vending machine and were through the gates in minutes.  Along with about six hundred other people since we decided to hit the metro for the first time during rush hour.  Our first leg was easy, a couple stops up the line to a major changing station, one we would soon get fairly well acquainted with. 

We wound our way through the very well signed labyrinth to the tunnel that would eventually take us to our stop, the Bourse.  Still not quite comfortable with the map, directions and still trying to figure out which way was up, a very nice French gentlemen in a quite classy business suit perceived our confusion and asked in very good English if we needed any help.

To which we replied, "Yes."

After a quick "where ya going" we learned we were on the wrong side of the tunnel.  The side we were on would take us in the opposite direction of the Bourse.  Right line, wrong side.  Not too bad though, there were about four lines that all intersected at this particular station so at least we had found the correct line.

After saying, "Merci", we wrapped around, up and over to the other side, all the while enveloped in a wild rush hour crowd.  Once there, and talking amongst one another, a younger man, somewhat shabbily dressed, approached us and asked us in not so good English where we were going.  On high alert for something skinny, we listened as he informed us we were on the wrong side and needed to be back where we started.  That was all.  He surely looked like he was in for a scam, or pick pocket, but he merely sent us back the other way. 

We stopped in the tunnel, consulted the metro map and concluded the stranger in the business suit was correct.  The map corroborated this.  Why were we listening to a derelict anyway?

We wondered what his scam might be.  We didn't see a henchman.  Nobody was pick-pocketed, nobody was hurt. 

Actually, he probably had no idea where he was.  Or maybe he was mentally ill.  Or got his jollies telling people to go somewhere else.  What's wrong with people, anyway?

We stuffed ourselves along with every other person in France on to the next train and in several stops we were off at the Bourse.  Score one for the gentleman in the suit!

We knew our way home from there, and within ten minutes our feets were up and some heads went down.  We had a dinner to do that night!

Around nine pm the pre-party started and actual French champagne was uncorked.  The festivities had begun!

From the apartment it was a short, leisurely ten minute walk to our world class dining arena.  We were a couple minutes early but were ushered right in to our waiting table. It was ten pm.  The place was buzzing.  Every table was full and waiters were fluttering around like bees on a buttermilk biscuit.  While there were certainly quite a few romantic booths, a party such as ours was destined to be seated at a table in the middle of the floor.  It was quietly noisy, with enchanting French banter intermingling with quiet, sustained American laughter.

The dining room was gorgeous, the service spectacular.  Although I can't remember what everyone had, the meal was incredible, especially for foodies. Subtle sauce flavors, perfectly crisp tenders.  And of course, my lovely wife had to have some actual French snails.  Fresh from France.  And everything.

I'm personally not much of a snail guy.  The flavor's moderately palatable, it's really something stomach churning about the endlessly chewable texture.  OK, maybe where they come from is part of it, their relatives and all.  And the flavor too.  Yeah, I'm not much of a snail guy.  I'll do Tootsie Rolls, but I won't do snails. 

The good doctor also had a plate of snails for an appetizer, while I think my lovely sister-in-law and I both had some Pate de Foie Gras, or ground up duck liver.  Yeah, I won't eat snails but I will eat fowl organs. 

Two hours later, after a final course of coffee and actual French Crepes Suzette, we were out the door.  Our wonderful traveling companions paid the bill, mostly as a birthday gift for my lovely wife and minutely because they said I did so much planning.  You know, on the ESS we were no longer attached to and the one I had so much fun planning, knowing pretty much full well it would be blown out the window at some time anyway.  It was quite generous, thanks again guys!

Once out the door, all of us, mostly reformed smokers, lit up some tobacco.  The good doctor and I sparked up a couple small Cuban Cohiba's we had purchased earlier in the day.  The lovely ladies lit a couple long American Salem's one of them had purchased earlier in the week. We then strolled and smoked our way home through the now much quieter neighborhood, our stomachs in ecstasy with all the flavors and textures they were absorbing.

Here is my lovely sister-in-law, a disarmingly charming French chanteuse if I've ever seen one, looking dazzling in front of our apartment in the early morning hours of Paris. 

 

Bon Jour, Arrivederci, Por Favor, Where the Hell Am I?

I have been lost in foreign cities before, like Amsterdam.  But when you're lost in Amsterdam, you're usually not very concerned at all.  It doesn't matter who and where you are after a half hour in Amsterdam.

When the four of us intrepid European Wayfaring Wanderers first arrived in Amsterdam back in 2007 and got all our big fat suitcases unpacked, we went out for a little exploration.  We didn't have to explore too far, there was one of those magical cafes, appropriately named the Majik, about six cars down in the below shot, which was taken from the front steps of our rental house.  Nice location.

 

After hanging out there for an hour or so, by general consensus it appeared to be time to go out and explore some more.  Not thinking we would be further venturing forth, we left our Moon Map Guide Amsterdam at the house, about six cars up in the above photo.   You know, an extreme hundred feet or so.  

By the way, if you've never utilized one of the Moon Map Guides, check 'em out.  In my humble opinion they are the best dang locational medium out there when exploring any new city.  Smart phone maps be damned!  I saw tourists walking into walls all over Paris while they were holding their "smart" phone in front of them like a locational divining rod.  In the Moon guide, Paris is divided in ten sections, with the detailed street maps on heavy laminated stock.  Very easy to comprehend.  Metro locations, notable restaurants, shops ETC are all noted. That link above will take you to their site.

Which brings me to another point.  If you've never clicked on any of the hyperlinks included within this blog, you're missing out on a large part of the equation.  Many times they links are to relevant sites, such as the one above.  Many times they are a link to a relevant song, usually from You Tube.  Lots of good stuff in there, for instance: Get lost music.

So we left the Majik (in Amsterdam) and walked down our street a few blocks until we found a boulevard that felt exciting and appealing, you know, lots of stuff going on.  We hung a right, over the canal, and strolled, soaking up the teeming, electric and fabulous Amsterdam atmosphere.  We walked several blocks, probably about twelve, and, in the lead, I stumbled upon a large courtyard ringed by restaurants.  There were probably sixty tables about that were serviced by four different restaurants.  It was a lovely, tree shaded courtyard, filled with afternoon drinkers and diners.  But what struck me more about the courtyard was what was happening above the tables.

Ranging from ten to twenty feet above the tables, a middle aged fifty something grey haired man in astounding shape was doing aerial gymnastic acrobatics on ropes and cables that were taut between the trees.  He was incredibly graceful, very agile, and not shyly dressed in not much more than a leather loin cloth.  And when he did the splits above your table, well, you get the picture.  Or maybe not-can't blame you.  A picture would have been fabulous, but remember, we left our house without a dang thing except adventure in our hearts.

Entertained, bemused and just a little bit hungry, we sat down for some Amsterdam ambiance and a bite to eat.  An hour later we were on our way back to the house, after tipping, of course, our afternoon entertainment when he dropped by for a split.  Our first venture out, even though enhanced by some cafe medium, was easy.  We just did an "L", had memorized our street and knew it was just over the only canal we had seen that day.  No problem.

Our first gambit out on the streets of Paris was a little bit different.  We did leave the apartment with a basic fold out city map our apartment manager had given us, but that was all.  It pretty much just showed main city streets, not the detailed dynamics of specific blocks.

After making a left out of our apartment door, we walked the block to the end of our Rue and made a right, strolling past the Elvis museum.  Yes, Elvis.  On a tiny little side rue in the middle of Paris.  Go figure.   We strolled along another long block and then we made a left on a larger thoroughfare, right at the Bourse, Paris's stock exchange.

By the way, that may look like a parking lot to you in the above shot.  It's actually business as usual at one of Paris's very lively intersections, where about four or five lanes all merge into one.  Or sometimes they merge into a circle.  What fun!

Not quite as big as the NYSE, The Bourse was nevertheless another ornate Parisian landmark with a small amount of gold leaf, like maybe on the tip of a spear.  The Bourse would soon be a major landmark for us as well as becoming our "home" metro stop, once we got into the metro swing of things.  The Bourse was currently closed for the month(s) of July and August.  I wonder what American hedge fund traders would do if the NYSE closed for two months every year?

From the Bourse we made another left, off in the direction of Le Opera Garnier, about six blocks down and another one of Paris's fabulous and ornate centuries old buildings.  That one had a lot of gold leaf.  Apparently French sopranos have historically fared better than French stock brokers.

The city streets were alive with electricity along the way, or maybe that was just me cruising on no sleep.  The sidewalks teemed with Parisians and tourists, while the streets were packed with bustling sedans and double decker buses carrying scads of camera toting tourists.  The streets were definitely busier than the sidewalks, but not by much.  Everything got more crowded as we approached the Opera square, where no less than seven rues (streets) intersected.  Ah Chi Mama!  Talk about honking wild hordes and crazy European drivers!

All along the way were shops and sidewalk cafes, or brassieres, where you could get a bite along with a glass or two of your favorite beverage.  But we were on a mission.  The first thing we really needed to do was to find an exchange station and convert some dollars to Euros, then find some groceries. 

Credit cards generally work great in Europe.  Call your carrier ahead of time though so they know where you are.  Most CC companies will charge another 3% on all foreign purchases, which isn't bad considering what they try to do to you when converting cash.  But there would be times we would want to use cash, especially for smaller purchases and cabs, so some Euros were imperative.

We finally found a Travelex office just off the square.   I walked up to the window that was manned by a lovely young female creature who spoke little English.  I flipped her $400, and she was going to flip me about E260 back.  WTF?  I wigged.  I mean, the exchange rate then was $1.353 per Euro, so we were already taking a bath.  Based on that, without any commission, I should have been receiving around  E296  for $400.

I was willing to pay a few cents per dollar for commission, but not nineteen!  I told her I wanted my four bills back, that I was going elsewhere, and then she started to wig and started to speak (in French) to her manager.  One thing led to another and she finally gave me E285, which was a little more than the E280 I figured was a fair deal.  Then my bro in law the super ER Doc did the same thing, so she made out a little better by having two $400 customers at once.  We did go to a Western Union office later in the trip and their initial exchange was where we ended up at Travelex, without any bickering or bartering.  Just in case you wanted to know.  BUT, we also quickly learned you can barter at these places.

With Euros in hand, Paris was at our fingertips.  We were pulled in a hundred different directions by all the sights and sounds, but the primary goal then was to hit a grocery store for provisions.  Eventually I found a French tourism office just off a main drag where one of the staffers spoke fairly decent English.  I got a grocery store location, and after saying , "Arrivederci," I ambled out the door and found my traveling comrades.

My newly rehearsed phrase was that day was, "Parlez-vous Anglais"?  (Do you speak English?)  If that didn't get a bite I had to move on because there were only about four other French words I knew.  I found a little Espanol rolling around my tongue tip that day, and I have absolutely no idea how "Arrivederci "got in there.  I've never even been to Germany.  I don't know how these multi linguists do it.  I had snippets of about eight words in four languages short circuiting my cranium like scrambled eggs on rye.  An entire language?  Now you're talking a cruise ship buffet on the largest onion roll in the universe.  In my brain.

Off we went in the direction of the grocery store, which was also heading back in the general direction of the apartment.  Only on a different street.  Which ran about four blocks behind the Bourse, running at diagonally perpendicular laterals to the original triangular point of embarkation at the apartment.  Or something like that.  But we did not know that then.  I had innocently isosceles'd a parallel triangular direction (or dimension) and thought it was our own, leading our intrepid party astray.

Initially it did not matter.  We were in Paris, and actually enjoying a Rick Steve's recommended Montmarte walk.  Bedazzled by the sites, sounds and big city fabulous European energy, we almost walked past the very nondescript MonoPrix market.  The only indication there was a grocery store in the vicinity was viewing a gentleman walking by with a canvas grocery bag that was filled with, well, groceries.  We traced his steps back and then entered a two glass door store.  There were incidentals on the very small double garage sized first floor, but then about ten wide steps down found us in French Grocery Nirvana.

Sigh.  Foreign grocery stores are an extremely simple source of pleasure for four wayfaring foodies.  We got a couple hand baskets and off we strolled down the short but amply stocked aisles.  Many things weren't familiar, which is half the fun.  It's definitely a good way to learn the French words for food items too.   

A baguette later, and maybe some bottled water, juice, wine, cheese, cold cut meats, coffee, fruits, Louis Maille mustard, mayo, chocolates and pastries we were on our way.  Did I forget anything?  By the way, a large jar of Maille mustard, about twice the size of what you see on grocery store shelves here was less than half the price you pay here.  1.8 Euro there.  And what a refined, wonderful Dijon mustard it is.  We may have been converted into mustard snobs.  Is it French Dijon?  No?  Why no thank you then.

We packed up my day pack with three liters of water and several other incidentals.  We also ended up with two large canvas bags purchased from the store.  As yet unhampered by our new weight, off we went in the perceived direction of the apartment. It only took us about fifteen minutes to get to the Opera Garnier from the apartment, and the grocery store was about half the distance back.  Ten minutes tops, right?

Forty minutes later we were sweating and discovered we were wandering in circles.  We were starting to feel the strain of our new addled weight, my back under the pack was solidly sweat soaked.  We were beginning to wonder where we were.  Or where we were going.  Paris, right?

On Montmarte, a boisterously busy street, we ambled into a Starbucks for our only native purchase experience of the excursion, iced coffee.  It was necessary.  Several doors down was the Hardrock Paris, I was sure we had seen that before.  Or was that the day before?  This is 2014, right?

Caffeinated and rejuvenated, we undertook the next phase of getting home.  Or the next phase of figuring out where home was.  Or the next phase of figuring out what century it was and what planet we were on.  Boy were we ever getting confused.  What the heck was in that coffee, anyway?

The good Doc had his smart phone out like a locational divining rod, and we could see the little beeping dot, indicating where our bastion of shelter lay.  But the smart phone map did not contain all the streets of the domain either, and with multi story stone buildings all about it was tough to get our bearings.

I figured the hell with it.  Our combined bags of groceries now surely weighed about 476 pounds after carrying them around for an hour.  I can admit defeat.  We were all getting tired.  Let's grab a cab and get the fu*k home.

I accosted several cabbies through their open windows, "Parlez-vous Anglais?"

One of them finally did, and rather than let four wayfaring wanderers into his cab for the three block ride to their apartment, he showed me the beeping locational icon on his smart fuc*ing map.

BUT, somehow that was all we needed.  Between that fix and the good doctor's divining rod we honed in on a three block radius, wound around and finally found the Elvis museum, knowing we were right around the corner.

Once ensconced back in our little slice of heaven and changed out of sweaty clothes, out came the wine, baguette, meats and cheese.  Then we sat around the huge glass dining table, ate, drank and sang French sailing songs.  We were loud enough to get a grumpy, middle aged Parisian housewife (whose balcony shared our apartment's courtyard) to yell at us to be quiet.  Yeah, we were having fun!

We turned in by ten, a little hoarse from all those sea shanty's, but much the better for wear.  The next day we were going on the Le Open on/off double decker bus tour to get a good view of the city.  Somewhere in  our ramblings, while we were lost, we ran across one of their bus stop signs along the Montmarte.  I only hoped we could find our way back since we were essentially lost at the time we found it.

The next morning we arose at a reasonable hour and got the Starbucks coffee going.  OK, we bought two American things while we were there.

Armed with a couple bottles of water AND the Moon Map Guide Paris, which the ever wise good doctor brought, we were off.  We were not going to get lost again!

We walked out just like the day before, left'd and then right'd past the Elvis museum and eventually we got to the Bourse.  We walked right past the dormant stock exchange another four not quite so ordinary blocks and we were once again on Montmarte.  We found one of the "L'Open" Bus stop signs and waited.

One came along within ten minutes or so, and then we all got an all day wristband  for E31 each.  Yeah, a little pricey, but a fantastic way to get orientated to the city, which, witness the day before, was rather necessary for us.

When we were telling folks we were gong to Paris in July, everyone told us it would be hot.  But everything we read on line and elsewhere stated the temperatures would generally be in the high seventies to low eighties.  Once in a while it could get into the nineties, but not that often.  Compared to the high nineties low hundreds we were leaving, we figured the weather would be fabulous.

It turned out to be in the low nineties our first couple days on the streets, and pretty darn humid.  It was hot.  Fortunately, besides a pair of clay colored khakis, a pair of levis and a nice pair of slacks, I also brought along a nice, formalish pair of navy blue snappy cargo shorts.  My lovely wife bought them for me.  They were the only pair of cargo anything I could wear that allowed her to be seen with me.   Cargo shorts and pants are, apparently, not of the current highest fashion standards.  Highly practical, not so very fashionable.   Especially in Paris.  I ended up wearing those shorts five of eight days in Paris.  It's a good thing they were snappy. 

Both our lovely female travelers were wearing sun dresses, and the good doctor was in khaki.  That first day in the city, on the upper deck of the double decker bus, we four intrepid travelers sweated with impunity underneath the humid, ninety something, sweltering Paris summer sky. 

We got off at one of our first stops, a train station.  I was in a frenetic search for le toilette, while our lovely female traveling companions purchased a couple of lovely French sun bonnets.

The excellent aspect of the ON/Off bus tour is just that.  When you land at a spot where you'd like to spend some time, you just hop off and spend some time.  You can return to the same stop to pick up another bus or pick one up at another stop after you've strolled for a while.  One is usually along in 10-15 minutes.

After the train stop we were back on the hot and humid express.  We rolled past Notre Dame, but did not stop since it was on the Excel spread sheet for a thorough review the next day.

After a lovely ride along the sights, sounds and scenes of the Seine, the picturesque river that runs through the city, we hopped off along the Champs- Elysees for a little cafe time.

After lunch we strolled along the Champs-Elysees down to the Arc de Triomph, which is a pretty busy darn intersection, with no less than 12 streets colliding right thar.  Honk, honk.  Beep, beep.

We found the appropriate stop for our bus based on their map, waited for five minutes and then were off to the Eiffel Tower. The quintessential Paris landmark, the Eiffel Tower is not without it's crowds.  There were scads of people everywhere, especially on it.  We chose not to make that trek, all the way to the top.  Lots of Euros and long lines. Plus, we'd already been higher than that numerous times.  Like in Amsterdam, for instance.

There were also quite a few hawkers selling Eiffel Tower replicas.  Everywhere.  You could get five key chain sized Eiffels for one euro.  Or a ten incher for around ten euro.  A euro an inch.  And they were everywhere.

So I semi got to chatting with a non-English speaking hawker, "Parlez-vous Espanol?" and ended up getting two ten inch towers for ten euro, or five euros each.  It was unheard of!  Even in the shops they were over a euro per inch.  I had unwittingly made the foreign deal of the century, saving us all a grand total of about six euros.   

Sweltered and just about sight-seeing'd out, we rolled on the Le Open back to Le Opera, which was, based on their maps, the closest stop to our apartment.  Le Open has four different routes, all accessed by the wristband.  If you didn't get off the bus at all, it would take you about five hours to complete all four routes.  But if you stop, and I mean, you HAVE to stop once in a while, it would certainly take longer than one day.  That's probably why they sell two and three day passes for a fraction of the initial purchase price.  You just can not do it all in one day.

As we approached our stop by the Opera, we all ambled down the stairs from the upper deck to be near the doors so we could disembark.  Imagine our surprise when the driver just rolled past our stop.  A little concerned, I approached the driver who was talking on his phone and asked, "Parlez-vous what the hell??"

He brushed me off and said the next stop was only a minute away.  And about four more blocks past the six blocks we'd already gone since we wanted to get off.  That's ten extra blocks of walking for two very tired  lovely women who just wanted to get off their feet.  That was the only rude French man or woman we encountered on our stay, and I repaid him by leaving two empty plastic water bottles on his bus.  Not extreme, I know, but I had to do something other than poop in the corner.

Ten extra blocks?  Hell, we were troopers, we could buck-up and handle it with a sardonic joke and a smile.  And maybe a little song.  It was all an adventure, and we were in Paris

Once on the street, we started to walk back towards Le Opera singing "Val-deri, Val-dera" when we quite accidentally and maybe more magically stumbled on to a MonoPrix grocery store.  We decided what the hell, rather than return to our tried and true grocery environs we'd venture into something new.  We raided the store and armed with a baguette, wine, meats, cheese, chocolates and pastries we ventured back out onto the street to begin the trek home and finish our song.

"Val-dera, with my knapsack on my (sweaty) back."

Instead of simply capitulating to a long march on a tried and true route and inspired that we found a market right after suffering a ten block setback, I consulted the Moon Map Guide Paris.  Once I had two intersecting street names I found our location immediately.  Then, much to my happy surprise, I discovered that we were actually about six blocks closer to our apartment than if we had been dropped off at our original desired stop.  Ha!  Even in his endeavor to be rude the French bus driver actually did us a favor.

We were in Paris, and it appeared we were on a roll, "beneath the clear blue sky."

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Paris

The other day, a week or so ago, my lovely wife and I found ourselves transported, as if by magic, or a Boeing 787, to Paris, France.  Imagine our surprise.

Actually, as the story goes, back in February my lovely wife was lamenting about turning 60 this year.

And so I ask, "What would make it better dear?"

And she says, "Paris."

I suppose Paris might make any birthday just a little bit better.  Unless you're a big fan of Uganda.  Then Uganda would be better.

But if I asked my lovely wife, "What would make it better dear?"

And then she said, "Uganda", then I would have thought she was beginning to lose her mind.  Too soon.  Paris made much better sense.

Who can afford to go to Paris?  Certainly not us.  We thought about it a bit, and then the next day my brother in law the ER Doc sent me an email about something silly.   Or stocks.  Maybe both.  And then he ended it by asking, "When are we going to Paris?"

Let me back up a bit.  Back in 2007 or so, my lovely wife was an Escrow Goddess on the Central Coast of California.  She went to a benefit auction one night put on by the real estate industry. She won the bid for a week at a home on a canal in Amsterdam, which was owned by a local realtor.  Since we had an entire three bedroom house at our disposal for a week, my lovely wife asked her lovely sister, who lives in Florida with her husband the ER Doc, if they would like to join us.  So we spent a lovely week in Amsterdam with them and found that we really travel well together.  We all enjoy a good mix of exploration and relaxation, and everybody's a trooper.  That helps, cause even the best laid plans can go awry.  My lovely wife and I also went out to visit them a couple years back when they first moved from Tennessee to Florida.  You can read all about that here: Florida, Ann Curry and the Big's Midlife Crisis.

While in Amsterdam, exploring the museums and cafes, we decided, apparently, that our next European gambit would be to Paris.  I, quite frankly, did not recall that conversation.  It must have happened on a cafe afternoon.

And then that very same weekend a friend of ours, a few years younger than us, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.  Fortunately our friend is doing well at the moment, for which we are very thankful.  She is a bright shining star and the world is a much better place with her in it.  But her event brought it all home.  Shit howdy, this sort of thing could happen to us at any moment as well.  We're of that certain age, you know...old.  What if?

So, we sold my old rusty trombone and some lawn furniture and started to make plans.  I'm an avid travel researcher and generally use a number of sites to search for the best deals for our destination.  Our closest international airport is at the California state capital, Sacramento.  As an airport, it's great.  As an international airport, it lacks a bit.  You always have to go somewhere else before you get to go where you really want to go.  Unless you're going to Uganda.  So, for the flight out, we were going to go from Sacramento to Chicago to Montreal to Paris on United.  It was the best deal out there.

We could have driven to San Francisco, about three hours away, to their fabulous international airport.  And for several hundred dollars more per ticket we could have flown direct to Paris.  Hmmm, let's see.  Drive for 2 hours more each way and spend another $800 bucks?  Maybe we could spend that on some souvenirs instead.  Considering drive time the overall travel time would end up being about the same.

With flight booked, it was then time to look for a place to stay.  Again I searched through a plethora of travel sites and wasn't really finding anything that truly fired my rockets as far as hotels go.  And there were no deals, not in July.  So then I started to look into renting an apartment for a week.

Obviously price was a concern, as was the location.  And my only other major had to have was two bathrooms.  I mean, we're all aging folks.  There is no time, let alone vacation time, that four adults our age should share one bathroom.  I mean, I peel paint some mornings.  Who wants to follow that act?

Armed with our must haves, I started in with Vrbo.com and Airbnb.com.   Both are really great sites when looking for vacation rentals all over the planet, but I wasn't finding anything that tripped my trigger.  Or fit the bill.  The two bath thing I discovered was not that easy to find within our price range.  And then I stumbled upon Rentavilla.com.  They had a plethora of Paris apartments and I found one therein with two baths in a great location within our price range.

Rentavilla's site is very easy to navigate and their on-line follow-up is timely and thorough.  We booked the apartment for $390 per night, which was less than the $200 each per night MINIMUM we were looking at for a hotel in a decent location.  Plus tax.  Less party down room.  Yeah, the apartment saved a lot of dough.  You can also spend a lot more for an apartment, but we weren't planning on spending a lot of time in the apartment, ya know?

Once the airlines and accommodations were taken care of it was research time to figure out what the heck to do while we were there.  Paris is a very big world class city with a shit house howdy bunch of new and old stuff to see and do.  Of course there were the obvious; like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomph and Notre Dame.  Some cheese.  Wine.  Pastry.  You know, a little foreign decadence.  But what else?

My lovely wife went out and  purchased Rick Steves' "Paris 2014" travel guide, which I found to be a fantastic resource.  If you aren't familiar with his travel style and work, do check him out.  He has a "back door" travel philosophy which is smart and usually saves money.  Good website too. 

Like Amsterdam, Paris has a gob smacking ton of museums.  Besides the Louvre, Paris hosts the Orsay, the Orangerie, the Rodin, and a Picasso to name a few.  Plus some more.  We found out later you could spend two or three days ALONE at the Louvre and still probably not see all of it.

Another nice aspect of the Steves' travel book was the various walks he recommended.  These walks would take you to various spots in the city which contained a myriad of shops and sights.  We managed to take a couple of them, found his descriptions to be quite accurate and enjoyed them immensely.

Being somewhat compulsive, sometimes obsessively so, I actually made up an Excel spread sheet for what we could do while we were there.  I looked at the list of MUST do's and had to pare that down.  I mean exploring is great, but it is a vacation.  A little down time is necessary as well, especially at our afternoon nap time age.  I intermingled museums in the morning with casual walks in the afternoon, bringing some down time recreation into the incredible barrage of world famous art saturation we would be experiencing.  I also noted Steves' optimum and not so optimum visit times for museums and locations and plugged all that into the equation.

And while I researched, I started to think about getting from the airport to the apartment.  I certainly did not want to replicate our arrival in Amsterdam seven years earlier.

Since my brother in law the ER Doc and my lovely sister in law lived in Tennessee at the time, on the opposite side of the country, we met at the Rembrandt restaurant at Schipol, Amsterdam's airport.  They got in about an hour before us and were having an on vacation glass of wine for breakfast when we hooked up.  We then rolled our old people fifty pound big fat suitcases around the airport for a while until we found the train station.

We rolled and wandered, trying to figure out schedules and platform locations and finally landed on the wrong platform.  We discovered this when we saw our train leave about four platforms away.  There was no way to catch it, are you kidding?   Four fifty somethings, including two lovely females, dashing down the lane with  fifty pounders in tow?  It was easily a hundred yards away with several turns and twists.  And a lot of people in between.  One of them (or us) would have surely died.  So we rolled back around at a reasonable pace and were on the correct platform when the next train to town took off thirty minutes later.

After a reasonably enjoyable twenty minute ride to the main train station in town, we then, per the apartment owner's instructions, looked for the correct bus to take us to the closest stop to the house.  Another thirty minutes of  figuring and finagling, gesturing and wrangling and we lugged our Big Fat Luggage (BFL) up the narrow steps of the bus.  And then chug chug chugged along until we got to the correct stop.  And then we lugged our BFL back down the way too narrow bus steps and proceeded to roll along the crowded streets of Amsterdam looking for the correct street.  And so on.  And so forth.  It was a massive pain in the patoot.

We finally got there, a quarter mile later.  Otherwise I probably wouldn't be here.  I'd still be on the streets of Amsterdam.  Lost, but probably happy.

At any rate, we're all now seven years older.  Like, we wanna do that again?  You wanna blow another hole in my what?

So, as I was doing my research, I stumbled upon another fantabulous site, Ihatetaxis.com.  This site was developed by a couple of Canadian brothers, as their website says, who were tired of the assault and barrage of taxi drivers and would be taxi drivers when they first arrived at an international airport, like Des Moines for instance.  Even more so when they arrived at an international airport in a real foreign country, like Kansas, where language could really be a barrier. 

Now I don't know about you, but I have been assaulted by would be taxi drivers and have ended up paying way too much for a cab ride into town in several foreign countries and island nations.  I've also ended up
in the back of a jeep for a long ride in the jungle looking for zebras and melons.  Or shiny things.   Maybe both.  Maybe this is a flashback.  Boy am I getting confused.   

I love this site!  First of all, Ihatetaxis.com posts the going taxi rates at an incredible amount of domestic and international airports.  From Algeria to Zambia with many places in between. So you KNOW what the taxis should be charging.  Then they also have contracted with a number of drivers and agencies all over the universe to offer airport transfer services, both private and shared.

I ended up booking a private transfer through them from De Gaulle airport directly to our apartment.  The price was about $20 more than a cab ride would have been without any traffic.  If there was any traffic heading into the city, which there usually is on a week day morning, then a cab ride could easily eclipse the transfer cost.  Boom.  Done.  That was sure gonna be better than lugging our BFL a mile or two around the streets of Paris, arduously seeking our sanctum.  Or sanity.

We left the 15th, with the hopes of arriving at Charles De Gaulle airport around 10:00 AM on the 16th.  The paramount concern of this whole excursion was that my lovely wife BE in Paris on the 18th, her birthday, so that she can now forever say, "I was in Paris on my 60th birthday."  Nothing more, nothing less.  Everything else was butter.

The morning of the 15th came early.  Really early.  I mean, why the hell go to bed kinda early.  At 3:15 AM our son's fabulous girlfriend came by for the ride to the airport.  She graciously offered at dinner one night and how could we refuse?  Besides, she paid it forward.  When next my son and her are off to some exotic location, the old man here will most certainly reciprocate.

Our flight to Chicago left at 6:05 AM, and we figured a 4:30 arrival time would be sufficient.  It's an hour ride to the airport from the old homestead here, so we needed to charge out of here around 3:30.  Fully caffeinated, we hit the road.

Even though amazingly there are a number of humans up at that ridiculous hour, we breezed through check in and security.  The United flight to Chicago was uneventful, I might have even slept a couple hours.  The next hitch to Montreal was short and uneventful, except, of course, for the Sky Mall magazine.  You know, that fabulous catalog that contains a ton of far fetched notions and faldoral that nobody in their right mind needs.  Especially at their prices.  Nevertheless, it's always entertaining for me.

I mean, there's butt enhancing briefs in there.  For men!  There's raincoats for your dog.  Birdhouses for your cat.  There's a motorized gondola to turn your back yard swimming pool into an enchanting Venetian canal.  Seriously.  Even I can't make this crap up.  I'm gonna keep it as a point of reference for crazy.

We had a three hour layover in Montreal, departing there around 9:30 PM EST.  We had a casual dinner at the airport, looked around for a few folks to say "Eh" to and then began boarding about 8:30 PM EST.

The 787 Dreamliner is a wide body jet, seating ten folks across almost all the way down the plane.  Naturally there's the first class, but even those sat six across.  We were fortunate, getting an aisle seat and then the middle seat on one of the sides.  The window seat was occupied by this petite, lovely little twenty something female creature who huddled up next to the window and slept almost the entire flight.  This allowed me, the old middle guy, to stretch and belch pretty much at my leisure.

We had our usual materials to keep us busy, books, newspapers, crosswords and the Sky Mall Mag.  But did I mention we flipped over to Air Canada at Montreal, and that they have now become our favorite airline?   They have also been voted the best North American airline for five years in a row.  I think I know why.

Even though the rows sat ten across, and there were about sixty rows on the plane, the leg room was very accommodating.  And then their entertainment system was off the hook.  There was a nine inch screen on the back of everybody's seat, with hundreds of hours of movies, TV shows and music.  It was there I first heard Philemon Cimon, a decidedly French musician.  You can check out his sound here: Soleil Blanc.  I have no idea what he's singing, but the melody sure is snappy and sweet.

Try though I might, I have serious difficulty sleeping unless I am prone.  Or deathly tired.  I might have dozed off for an hour or two, but definitely no more than that.  No sense arriving in Europe with all my bells intact.  I watched a couple old movies set in Europe, "The Ipcress File" and "How To Steal A Million."  My lovely wife, on the other hand, can sleep just about any time and any place.  I think she dozed about half the way there.

Air Canada also served a fairly decent meal on the flight.  Food is kind of fun when everything, including individual peas, are all prepackaged.  It gives all us fliers lots of stuff to do even if we aren't really hungry.

It was about half way over the Atlantic that I realized by flipping over to Air Canada in mid stream I may have put our well plotted meeting spot with our fellow travelers from Florida in jeopardy.  Holy Cream of Corn Soup Batman, we had a problem, and it probably was not going to be very funny!

I don't know if any of you have ever flown into CDG in France, but it's a big dang airport.  It has three terminals, and I think Terminal One is bigger than the entire airport.  In doing my pre-flight research, I learned that Delta, our fellow travelers airline, flew into Terminal Two.  United, our carrier, flew into Terminal One.  Of course I neglected to learn that we would be switching to Air Canada in Montreal, which also flew into Terminal Two, which notice was clearly stated on our itinerary.

Oops.

Since our fellow travelers would be arriving an hour earlier than us, I instructed them to make their way to Terminal One.  Remember, I'm compulsive, obsessively so?  This was where our driver would be meeting me, the contact.  I figured our fellow travelers had to be there too. 

Upon arrival at CDG, which was right on time by the way, we fired up my lovely wife's smart phone.  She had made all the proper arrangements with her carrier to handle the foreign situation.  Good thing too.  While wading through the very informal and easy customs process, I contacted the local property manager.  She informed me that our apartment would be ready at 12:30 PM instead of 5:00 PM, which, of course, made us quite happy.  My lovely wife then contacted our fellow travelers, and informed them we were actually at Terminal Two, the one they just spent the last hour leaving.

We told them to sit tight until we made contact with our driver.  Once we rolled through customs, I was a little dismayed.  There was no driver waiting with my name on a sign.  Dang!  I've always wanted to roll into an international city with a driver waiting for me with my name on a sign,.  You know, a guy in suit and sunglasses holding the sign, which, of course, says, "Bond".

A little concerned, I called the company on the voucher I had printed from Ihatetaxis.com.  I learned our driver had been hung up in traffic but was then at the airport and minutes away from us.  This turned out to be true, and within a minute a fine gentleman was walking up with my name misspelled on a sign.  I laughed, he apologized.  Two very trivial hiccups in a very BIG foreign connection.  We were in the car in a minute.

Then it was time to explain to the nice driver that our fellow travelers had left Terminal Two upon my stupid  instruction and labored for the last hour to get to Terminal One.  The driver, a very congenial fellow and a navigation expert of CDG, instructed our fellow travelers to go to a specific gate on a specific level and that we would be there in five minutes to collect them. 

When we arrived at the specific gate and specific level, they were no where to be found.  Undeterred and wildly buzzing like a screaming banshee from lack of sleep, I hopped out of the car and entered the crowded foreign jabbering labyrinth.

"I got this," I said to my lovely wife and the driver, or maybe to myself.

A glance or two around and within seconds I honed in on the two of them.  I was apparently experiencing that ephemeral lack of sleep time space continuum thing where the crowd slows down and your awareness slides up and you can observe vast segments of your encompassing surroundings within seconds.  Or maybe that was the cookie.  Or a flashback.  Maybe both.

I saw them beyond the crowd, just inside the gate and politely seeking guidance from half English speaking information officers.  I snuck up behind them and  grabbed them both in an all encompassing bear hug.  Within minutes we were all in the car with our big fat luggage and on our way.  It had taken our fellow travelers an hour carrying their big fat luggage to get to Terminal 1.  It took our driver five minutes to fetch 'em.

Oops.  Travel stories.

While jovial visitation began in the back, I strapped in at shotgun for the lively ride into Paris.  Car movement and traffic on the way to and in Paris is truly an art form.  It is, apparently, a very artistic town!  There appeared to be no real rules of the road as far as I could see.  They did stop at red lights for the most part, and moved forward on green.  Other than that, just about everything went.

Lots of two wheelers, mostly smaller motorcycles and scooters.  Lots of 'em.  Lots of cars, mostly smaller sedans.  But a number of Mercedes, vans, trucks and buses.  And they all want to be at the same place at the same time.  If there was grid lock, which there was quite often, the bikes scooted around and wound through the idling cars.  Hell, even our driver, in a van, did an almost complete lateral across three lanes to get around a stall.  It was insane!!

It took about an hour to get to our Rue, or street, arriving there around 11:30 AM.  I called the property manager to say we had arrived, and she said she'd be there in about an hour to let us in, which she was.

While we waited, we explored the block, more or less.  Two doors down on one side was a bar, and several doors down on the other side was another bar.  At the end of the street, about three blocks down was a brassiere, or bistro, essentially a bar with food.  We had landed, apparently, right smack dab in the middle of the Bar-muda Triangle.  Sorry.


We hung out in the 200 year old apartment's small courtyard, about the size of a single car garage.  We entered the courtyard through these two massive twelve foot high doors, which were open at the time.  I learned later they were closed around 6:00 PM and were accessed via an electronic punched in code.  The doors were about three feet wide and three inches thick.  Most all the outer doors we saw around the city were similar to this.  They opened wide enough for a vehicle to enter the courtyard, essentially. And they were strong enough to stave off  a battering ram attack by a wild horde of insurgents, or a small car.  Or some ducks.

Once the PM arrived, we entered the stair well through a keyed glass door. Then it was a three story hike up the stairs to our apartment.  Two hundred year old buildings usually don't have elevators.  At least the stairs were wide and we would only be carting our big fat luggage up once.

The apartment looked very much like the photos Rent a villa had posted on their site, Bourse.  Sometimes one can wonder at what they are seeing and ordering online, but this was all coming to a good conclusion.  The only negative part was the second bathroom, the one our fellow travelers graciously took, was kind of upstairs.  I say kind of because it was just off a loft, which was accessible by a wide stepped ladder, of sorts.  But it was a lovely bathroom, with a sink, toilet, bidet and bathtub.

Look, this was an old, refurbished building.  In Europe.  You should have seen the house we rented in Amsterdam.  It was a lovely three story building (with a basement) right on one of the city's lovely canals.  And the building was also leaning.  It was about a foot off on the top, and just about every tourist boat that floated by on the canal stopped and everyone took pictures.  We waved.  They thought we were Dutch.  We played the part.

The house was three stories and it had, essentially, one room per story.  Our fellow travelers slept in the basement, where a bathroom was located.  The first story contained the kitchen and dining area, the second story was a family/living room, and the 3rd story was our bedroom, and another bath.  And the stairs, the stairs to get from one floor to the next?  Ever been on a tug boat?

Narrow, winding stairs about a foot and a half wide, almost impossible to get a fully loaded large suitcase up.  Seriously.  It was a challenge, as you can see.

Paris, except for the loft, which also contained a sofa and TV, was fortunately all on one story.  Both bedrooms, our bath and the kitchen dining area were all on the main level.  No tug boat stairs.  Just tree house stairs for our fellow travelers to hit the bidet, a standard in most French bathrooms.

There was a large glass dining room table in the large dining room, with tall, ten foot high double windows opening out into a small courtyard.  There were about twelve other apartments facing the courtyard, some with balconies and some with windows.  For certain, this had the makings for some very lively interaction.

We unpacked our massive suitcases, and armed with a little bit of locational knowledge from our property manager, we ventured out into the bustling city to find a grocery store.   We knew it was going to be an early night for all us weary travelers, so we wanted to get some goodies, dine in and get a good nights rest.

The secret to managing Europe's time zone change for me is not to nap and blaze through the first day, hitting the sack around 9-10 PM Europe time.  I'll be delirious by then, but then I'm usually good for the duration of the stay.  It does, however, take me about a week to get back to normal when I return to reality and PST.

I took the city map with us that our property manager left, but the more complete and detailed Moon Paris Map Guide the Doc brought was left at the apartment.  That was a mistake, and this would prove to be one of those travel times that all traveling companions be fabulous troopers.