Read Day 1 of Paris here if you haven’t.

Where did we leave off?  Chris and I stayed the night at Le Meridien Etoile in Paris, a very nice hotel (stated rate was 499 euros a night, I kid you not) not too far from the Arch de Triumphe.  The symphony was being sponsored to stay in the hotel, but we were on our own after the first night.  I had done some research and we decided to rent an apartment for the rest of the time.  I found one in the Bastille neighborhood for a reasonable rate, so our plan for the day was to relax (Chris was exhausted after 4 cities in 4 days), move, and just walk around a bit.

First came breakfast (true to form, I took tons of pictures of my food.) The hotel had a breakfast buffet and we had free tickets for it.  I believe it was approximately 30 euros otherwise, which, without alcohol is so not worth it.  It was worth free however.

The sausages and eggs were my favorite parts.  We had to beg for coffee (weird, do the French not guzzle coffee or espresso like we Americans?) but enjoyed our breakfast well enough.  We were meeting Omry, our host, at 2 pm, but we decided the best thing to do was to leave the hotel, take the metro to the new area, and then find a cafe to hang out in.

Rick Steves suggested we buy a “carnet” (ten-pack) of metro tickets, so we did that.  (Well, we bought two).  We took Line 1 from the hotel stop to our new stop, St Paul.  We found a lovely restaurant nearby and had some wine.  Yes, it was around 1 pm.  We were on vacation!

The apartment was fairly easy to find, and we buzzed up for Omry.  Carrying a suitcase up to the 5th floor—and keep in mind, that’s the 5th floor in France, which is actually the 6th floor—that was the hardest part.  Oh, and I mean hardest part of life.  I think all the workouts I’ve done over the past three years were building up to this:  carrying a large suitcase up 5 flights of narrow, curved, slightly slanted downwards stairs. I don’t know how we made it, but we did.  Omry was there, the apartment was GREAT, and after chatting with him about a few things, it was ours for the rest of the week.  Here’s the link to it if you are interested—we would absolutely recommend it, though the kitchen is VERY small and the plumbing isn’t great, it is a terrific location and was all we needed for the week.

He also left us a basket of fruit and a bottle of wine.  We were instructed to let the neighbors know we were friends of his if anyone asked—he had moved in with his girlfriend not too long ago and figured he’d make some money renting the apartment out.

A very Parisian view from the window!

After meeting Omry and dumping off our stuff, we headed out in search of lunch.  We used Rick Steves’ guide to find a nearby restaurant…that was closed as it was after lunch (the trick is, if you want food in the off-meal hours, you must find a brasserie, not a restaurant), so we found a brasserie he recommended called Royal Turenne and ate there.

This was the biggest pepper shaker we’d ever seen.

I had a salad with duck foie gras.  WOW this stuff was amazing.

We had originally thought we were meeting up with some friends after lunch so we headed back to our apartment to do so.  It turned out they weren’t able to so after doing a few things online (the apartment had wi-fi) we headed out again to walk around and ultimately eat dinner.  We headed towards the river, which was only a few blocks away, but due to the turns and twists of Paris’s streets we ended up much further away than we anticipated and ultimately had to consult a map several times.  As easy at the metro system was to navigate, the streets were the opposite—I was continually getting lost or ending in a different place than I thought we would.  The streets were not laid out in a grid or planned in any way, which is why they are so challenging.

Looking up from the courtyard of our apartment building.

Me taking a picture of Chris taking a picture.

We got thirsty from our travels and popped into a convenience mart for water.  The water wasn’t cold, but the Perrier was.

Is there anything more French than drinking a can of Perrier down by the River Seine?  I think not.

We wandered around a bit and then decided to figure out where we were and find somewhere for dinner.

We were near the Pompidou Center—how weird is this building?

We finally panicked and decided to eat at an Italian restaurant that was really crowded.  It wasn’t great, but it was fine.  I had the lasagna and enjoyed it—Chris had a veal parmesan type thing and thought was kind of “meh”.  But the wine was good and cheap 🙂

After eating we went back to our apartment to hang out…and drink more wine.  Basically it was a really good wine drinking day for us!

I ended up going through the guidebook a bit more after all that and planning out a rough guideline for the itinerary for the week (finally!  before we got there it was too overwhelming but after wandering and riding the metro it all made sense).  (From henceforth I shall refer to Rick Steves’ Paris guidebook simply as the guidebook, as it was awesome and helped SO much with our sightseeing.)

rough plan (this was Saturday, so)–

Sunday: Laundry, “Historic Paris Walk” from the guidebook which includes Notre Dame, Left Bank Walk

Monday: L’Orangerie, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower

Tuesday: D’Orsay Museum, Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb, Rodin Museum

Wednesday: Versailles

Thursday: Montmartre Walk which includes Sacre-Couer, anything else we thought of.

More to come!  I don’t know if you are enjoying reading about my trip or just sitting there angry at me, but I love looking back at vacation posts, so I’m forging ahead 🙂

I’m sick, tired, jetlagged, and suffering from serious wine and cheese withdrawal.  Yes, I’m home from Paris!  I just uploaded over 500 pictures from my camera to my computer and weeded through them to find some decent ones to share with the world.  That’s you (and my facebook friends, of course.)

I flew to Paris all by myself.  I’d never flown so far alone—I’ve been flying alone for various reasons since high school, but never an international flight.  I felt very mature and worldly.  And I look awesome.  My seat mate offered to take this picture.  You know you’re a blogger when you feel like you should post awful pictures of yourself because they help tell the story.

It is a long way from St Louis to Paris.  (Not as long as it is from Paris to St Louis, but that’s a different story.)  I knew I needed to sleep as much as possible on the plane because I was arriving in Paris at 9 am and then needed to stay awake as much as possible.  The plan was to take the train to the hotel and meet Chris there in the afternoon after the orchestra arrived (around 3:30 or 4 pm). 

I arrived in Paris basically on time, collected my suitcase, went through passport control, and went to find the train station.  The hotel had given me information on how to get to the hotel:  take the RER to the metro and then the hotel was within 100 yards.  I was terrified of this but figured since we were planning to take the metro all week I should go ahead and figure out the system. 

A friend had given me this map of the metro and train systems in advance and I’d been studying it. 

It ended up being easy enough—the hard part was lugging my suitcase through the stations.  The most annoying part was waiting in line for the ticket.  Later I found out I could have used cash in the machine—you can’t use American credit cards in the machines, but I didn’t realize you COULD use cash and I already had euros.  Basically I waited in line for 30 minutes for no real reason.  Oh well!

I chatted with a woman on the RER who was on a long layover and just taking the train into the city for a few hours.  It turned out that she had a sister that played the cello, went to the University of Akron, and studied with somebody in the Cleveland Orchestra.  Oh, and she used to play the viola. 

Anyway, I managed my transfer to the metro without too much trouble.  I got off at the correct stop, and walked upstairs.  I wasn’t sure where the hotel was exactly, but luckily I was able to see it from the station!  We were staying at Le Meridien Etoile for the first night (the symphony hotel) and then moving to an apartment for the rest of the week.

I’m remembering how terrified and thrilled I was upon arrival.  I had read David Lebowitz’s "The Sweet Life in Paris" and had some ideas of the culture and what to do and what not to do, and was concerned about saying "Bonjour, Madame" to everybody and terrified they would think I was a rude American.  Within a few hours I no longer cared and realized that they absolutely thought I was a rude American and were delighted and amused by my inability to speak French, my complete failure at doing almost everything, and it was completely okay.  But I hadn’t gotten to that point yet, and I was almost too tired to do anything at all. 

I attempted to check into the hotel but the room wasn’t ready yet.  I stored my bag and headed out in search of lunch.

I found some cafe nearby and decided it would do. I got a Kir Royale in honor of my arrival.  I just sat there, looking around, in disbelief that I had finally arrived!

My table was next to a post office box.  I watched several people mail letters.  In a foreign country, sometimes it’s the little day to day differences that are most fascinating.

I don’t even know what I ordered.  I hadn’t finished the Rick Steves book that would bring us such joy and knowledge all week, so I didn’t even know that entrees are appetizers and plats are entrees (which is just SO weird—why do we say entree which is a french word but use it for the wrong course??)—all I knew is, I liked shrimp and salmon so that worked well enough.  After I ate, the waiter asked if I liked it and seemed surprised that I did. (Note that I had my own bread basket.  Everywhere we ate we got a huge bread basket and if you finished it, they would continue to refill it without even asking.  If you wanted water though, you had to beg for it.)

I went back to the hotel after lunch and YES! my room was ready.

 

Time for a short nap.  I figured by the time I woke up Chris would be there.  I slept for about two hours—no sign of Chris.  Finally the phone rang, and it was Chris!  The hotel had gotten confused and he had been trying to figure out what was going on for 20 minutes—evidently they told him the room wasn’t ready yet, so he was wondering where on earth I was, I had been told he could just pick up the key to the room when he arrived and I didn’t need to meet him.  Oh well.  We were both finally in Europe together!  I showered and then we headed out in search of more food.

Croque Mademoiselle.  A very classic french lunch—ham and cheese sandwich with egg.  Croque Monsieur is similar but without the egg.

I was struck right away by how at ease Chris already was in a foreign country.  What was crazy and strange to me was already old hat to him, even though he had just arrived in Paris.  I also appreciated the fact that he just refused to attempt French, figuring he would butcher the language, and just would speak English to everybody, hoping they could understand.  Most often this was the case!

It was funny to me how comfortable he was though—he had been so worried about going to London alone, and then here he was one week later, acting like a world traveler.  It was reassuring, and one of the things we talked about all week was other cities we hope to visit together in the future.  (I want to go back to Rome, and to London, most of all!)

Chris had the Croque Monsieur.  Oh, and I had a Coca-cola Light.  It’s like Diet Coke, but better.  I don’t know if it’s actually better or if it just tastes better because you only get it on vacation in Europe or Mexico, and I don’t care.

I look really weird without eye makeup on, huh?  Whatever.  I may look rough, but I was SO happy!

After our snack it was time to get ready for the concert.  Chris and the SLSO were playing at the Salle Pleyel and I had a ticket for the show.

The Salle Pleyel is the home of the Orchestra du Paris.

My ticket was for behind the orchestra.  I thought this would be a fun and unique way to experience the concert, since we don’t have that option at home.  I ran into some people I knew in the lobby including my friend Valentina.

I look a little better after putting on nicer clothes and some makeup, but those are pretty pronounced eye bags…

Anyway, the concert was wonderful—I loved sitting behind the orchestra as I could see parts of the orchestra better (i.e. I could really watch Chris play) than sitting in front, and the sound was great.  Christian Tezlaff’s Beethoven was gorgeous and daring, and the rest of the concert was enjoyable as well.  The audience seemed to love it all too.  One of the coolest things was that we clapped enough for Tezlaff to play an encore but without a standing ovation.  It was one of those times where we all started clapping together for him to come back, but we never stood up.  I guess standing ovations are an American thing but I sure clapped for a long time.

After the concert there was a reception for the orchestra upstairs.  There was champagne and some treats, including macaroons!

After the reception Chris and I went to a brasserie (again, this was before I knew the difference between a restaurant, a cafe, and a brasserie…and there is a difference) and had wine and cheese.  Serious cheese—this was good stuff!

Then we went back to the hotel and I think I fell asleep approximately 15 seconds after getting into bed.  Chris was now done with the tour and it was time for us to go off on our own and do whatever we wanted for the rest of the week!

 

To be continued…

(a souvenir Chris bought me in England—the Olympic mascot!)