Encore Paris - 2018

We had tickets for Friday night, balcony seats.  Buying them last December was the tangible start of our planning for this trip.  But we were caught up in the enthusiasm from all the Facebook posts from others who had come to Paris and ended up getting tickets for a second night.  7th row center! "Tailgating" is at the "island" median in the road.  The French don't seem to know what to make of all of it.... And there was a picnic with music and 70 or so fans.   Emmy wandered the group making friends. One last photo from the concert -- 1000 seat venue!  Having seen him many times before at concert spaces, it was an amazing experience to do it in this small a venue!

These posts are little out of order.  This one talks about September 25th, my (Maxine's) birthday.  While I'll admit that I'm starting to hate getting older, it's pretty big consolation to celebrate in Paris! I had a lovely day starting with a trip to the local outdoor food market on Blvd Raspail.  After lunch, I stopped by an open house for WICE, an organization that offers courses and cultural programs for the English speaking community in Paris, followed by a walk in beautiful weather, and then dinner at a favorite restaurant, Verjus.  This is when I have to confess that I'm a terrible food blogger since I forgot to take photos of all the courses, especially the main course.  But here is what we ate.  Each course had a wine pairing too. First course was 5 canapes, all great flavor combinations in small bites. Grilled peppers with a tarragon and parsley sauce What an American restaurant might describe of chickpeas 2 ways, in a socca (looks li

We ended up taking a couple long walks today.  And it's difficult to imagine how it would be possible to live in Paris if walking were difficult... During our mid=day walk, we made it over to Shakespeare & Co.  We've been there a million times and it's a deep source of nostalgia for me {Tom}.  20 years ago, I was in and picked up some books for a long train ride.  I was short a couple francs and the owner said to me,"you're in here all the time, just pay me the rest next time".  I'd never been there before but his words made me want to become someone who could be a frequent visitor to Paris... Thanks to George Whitman (now deceased) for putting that idea in my head! Later during the walk we came upon a "student demonstration".   They were marching down the street protesting. We're not sure what, but it's nice to know they keep in practice (there's an actual website where you can track the various "manif's" or &

Some random observations after a week and a half here… There’s no doubt that the French have given up expecting Americans to learn English and gone entirely the other way.  For example, four years ago we bought weekly metro passes. I made the request in French and spent the first half the conversation stumbling through to purchase them. This time, just about the entire conversation is in English.  I suspect it’s something about the next generation having embraced English as an expression of being a global citizen. Or maybe it’s that the bulk of the internet is in English. Or that people everywhere have given up hoping English speakers learning their languages. A side benefit of so much English being spoken is that people seem even friendlier. Which is NOT to say that we’ve ever experienced the French as unfriendly to Americans. It’s been a lot more crowded on the streets. We’re not yet ready to rule this as: a)a good economy leading to more visitors to Paris, b)the weather

Warning!  This post will make you hungry.  We didn't actually eat all of this in one day; it's several days of delicious (and, hopefully, beautiful) food. First, Hugo Desnoyer for lunch.  Hugo is a very well known butcher whose tartare won best in Paris (not sure who said so).  Lunch is 16 seats in his butcher shop.  No one was speaking English.  Meat and wine are amazing. Here are some miscellaneous food photos. This is just an average green grocer window we saw. Yes, these are all water bottles. Our dessert from the local bakery one night. The new Beaupassage, an upscale food court just a few blocks from our apartment. And, finally, our dinner at Frenchie's Wine Bar, one of our favorite places from our last trip to Paris.  Sorry, so many of the photos show partially eaten food -- we kept forgetting to take photos before eating! Foie gras with figs Crepes with duck Pate with pickled vegetables and tempura peppers

Wednesday night we had dinner at an old favorite, Juveniles.  http://www.juvenileswinebar.com  It's a casual wine bar with very good food and an easy atmosphere.  To be honest, it helps that the owner, Margaux (named after the wine), speaks great English.  We shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate our stay in Paris.  Tom had what promises to be the first of many foie gras appetizers along with duck for dinner.  I had the menu du jour which was corn soup with mussels and pork and mashed potatoes with a delicious mustard sauce.  Maxine's goal -- become a regular here! We walked home past the Louvre.  All in all it took 20 minutes.  Our apartment really is in a great location. Last night we stayed home for dinner and ate the rest of our cheese with a still-warm baguette.  This was our dessert.

We’re to the point now that everything is unpacked and we understand how the appliances work.  We had to Google English language owners’ manuals. We needed those earlier than we’d thought because it’s been so warm (T shirts and shorts weather) that we’ve run through our “summer” clothes quickly.  It’s one of the challenges of this trip -- arriving in Paris at the end of summer and and leaving in winter. Packing enough so that it feels familiar but not so much that you’re trying to lug around an insane amount of luggage. We’ve now provisioned the apartment.  What does that mean? In addition to shopping at Monoprix (kind of an intown Target) for coffee, paper products, yogurt, etc., we went to the local cheese store and bakery and ended up having a cheese, pate and bread dinner.  We tried sheep's milk camembert (didn't know there was such a thing), a Roquefort, and a goat cheese with orange. The camembert didn't have much flavor, the Roquefort was, well, Roquefort and

We spent some time taking care of tasks to establish life here.  Local supermarket. Metro/bus passes.  Cell phone SIM chips.  Farmer's market... We also (accidentally) timed things to arrive the weekend that is France's "Heritage Days Weekend". They open up for visitors a lot of the goverment buildings that you aren't normally allowed to visit.  Sort of a "here's what your tax dollars buy you thing" Saturday we began by getting SIM chips (from a French Canadian who spoke great English and got everything set up in around 15 minutes -- 4 years ago it took over an hour). From there we walked over to Luxembourg Gardens which is where the French Senat (that's their spelling) buildings are. Sunday after a trip to the Raspail organic market, we went to the National Assembly buildings (the French House of Representatives). Here's Maxine asking one of the guides a question in French... We walked home along the Seine -- it's been amaz

Right now we’re busy getting ready for our trip.  There are a million details closing down a home for three months.  Most are really mundane and not worth mentioning but still time consuming and sometimes a source of worry (what if a pipe bursts while we're gone -- like it did last Christmas).  But, we've done this before and we have a 3 page task list that we work from.  We pride ourselves on being organized. Here's a bridge from our dedication in the last entry to the excitement of getting on the plane:   Where/Why.   France.   Because it’s a beautiful place.   Because we like it.   Because we speak some French.   Because we’re familiar with it.   Because we have very close friends who live in the South of France and whose door is always open to us.   Because the food is amazing.   And the bread and cheese are great.   Because it's relatively easy to do.   Because Paris is a walking city.   Because we're never bored there. Who.   Us.   And Emmy, o