Last day in Europe

11/6/2012

3 weeks. 4 adults. 5 cities. Along the way, 10 castles, 10 museums, 2 operas, 2 musicals, and more train and metro rides than I'd ever care to ride on. While staying in 4 star hotels and spacious (more importantly, centrally located) vacation rentals. 

Oh, and did I mention the 100 kg worth of food, clothing & souvenirs we brought back home? It was probably more than that when you add on our carry-ons, but I gotta subtract something for our original luggage weight :T.

All this for the princely sum of $2224 per person. 

That's less than a month's rent in some parts of the US.

Logistics is always a nightmare, especially when you're in a country where you don't speak the language. For example, in Paris, the metro directs you by giving you the name of the end station, which makes you think you're getting on the correct train. Only to find out that it forks at the end, so you'll have to get off and get on the correct train. It hasn't happened to us yet (thank God), but I'll spend a good hour researching to ensure that doesn't happen and that we'll actually be taking the right train, or metro, or flight, etc.

Our flight was at 12:25pm but online, people said it could take anywhere from 28-45 minute to get to Charles de Gaulle from Paris, so we played it safe by leaving early. We walked the trek yesterday from our apartment to the RER station; we tend to do that in most cities, just to scope out escalators and elevators the day before so we’re not rushing like mad the day of. The route wasn’t too bad, as the RER station is right across the street from our apartment. 

That is, it’s not too bad until you have heavy luggage you need to lug around. 

And two of them are broken (the wheels gave out on Dad’s and Angel’s). 

What was a five-minute walk yesterday turned out to be a half-hour walk today. It was pretty gross, how much we were sweating underneath our layers of clothing in the end—hey, it was pretty damn cold when we left the apartment! 

Les Halles is undergoing massive construction right now, so thank God the route we took had working escalators! It was the most direct route as well, which is a nice sigh of relief. The picture of what it’ll look like when it’s done looks really nice (eco-friendly), but it won’t be completed until late 2013. Right now, it’s just a really large piece of land that’s all dug up, with construction crew and cranes and trucks strewn all over the place.

Carnet tickets don’t work for the RER if you are going outside zone 1 (on the other hand, if you are just traveling in zone 1, then you can ride both the RER and metro). We bought single one-way fares from the ticket machines—it’s 9.25 euros per person from Paris to CDG. Yikes, that’s expensive. Charles de Gaulle is zone 5. You need to take the train that goes to Aeroport Charles de Gaulle—any train starting with the letter “E” goes there. Do NOT take the train going in the same direction, but ending at Migny—you’ll be screwed, as you’ve landed yourself in Parisian suburbia.

The train was completely packed; we had nowhere to sit. For most of the ride over, it just kept getting more and more packed. But towards the end, at the Parc Exposition, the whole train emptied out. I guess there was a conference going on there? Mom and Dad got out first, at the Terminal 1 stop. It’s actually the stop for Terminal 3, and they’ll have to take the free shuttle to Terminal 1 from there. 

We rode to the next stop, the last one, Terminal 2. Terminal 3 is actually in the middle of Terminal 1 and 2. Confusing, hunh? I’ll never get their numbering system.

Terminal 2 is the largest, and it subdivides into 2A, 2B, 2C… down to 2G. After we got off the train, we had to go up two flights of escalators to get to the main terminal, and then we walked down, down, down… we got to the very end of Terminal 2, where 2A was supposed to be. British Airways is supposedly located in 2A so naturally, that’s where I thought to check-in.

I was wrong.

They moved. Not only did they move, but they moved to 2C DOWNSTAIRS. There’s a specific elevator you need to take in order to get to that part of the airport. And the signs indicating this genius move was only posted in the opposite direction; you can't see the signs if you're walking in the direction we were walking in. 

It wasn't until we turned around in confusion–after having arrived at 2A and not being able to locate British Airways–that we saw the signs. ARGH! The luggage I had was the one with the broken wheel, so I was sweating bullets trying to move it along properly. We had to walk back to 2C >.< and go down the elevators. 

As I was checking in, handing over our passports and what not, one of the workers came up to Angel, who was behind me. She asked Angel if our carry-ons could fit in the carry-on luggage bin. I started to have a panic attack. I did not want to be stuck with a ridiculous surcharge fee if we could not fit the carry-ons into that damn bin. 

Angel had no choice but to put the luggage in the bin... but just as she was doing so, the lady turned around to talk to a coworker. When she turned back, Angel was pretending to take it out of the bin (she never quite got to putting it in in the first place). Angel said angelically that it fit. So the lady stuck a tag on both of our carry-ons declaring that they were inspected and cleared for carry-on baggage. Whew.

I had measured our carry-ons beforehand and the size was perfectly within the allowance. I swear the bin is deliberately undersized so they can charge more fees on passengers.

When going through security here, Angel got her first pat-down. EVER. I get patted down every time for some reason (Angel says cuz I look like a terrorist… moi?), but Angel, Angel... 

I was laughing at her the entire time. Although to be fair, I think the Parisian security workers are quite industriously bored. They patted down just about everyone… even their own workers! My God. And they're quite slow at it, too. If you ever find yourself at Charles de Gaulle, allow time for that, as they don’t care that they’re holding up the line. They seriously patted almost every person down. Geesh.

The flight from Paris to London was short and smooth. Europeans like to travel lightly, so many of them didn’t even have carry-ons; only a jacket or small purse. That was good for us, as our carry-ons were pretty big (again, in my defense, I did measure them and they were well within British Airway’s allowance for carry-on size). 

At Heathrow, we had to go through security yet again, and they have two different check points. One has the workers checking all the carry-ons, making sure that they fit in the carry-on bins (really?!). We lost one of the "cleared for carry-on" tags, as the sticker wasn’t too sticky, so we were panicking…  a worker pulled a guy aside and demanded that he put his carry-on in the bin to see if it would fit or not. We took that opportunity to rush past that security check point—the worker was preoccupied with the poor man (his carry-on luggage was smaller than ours!). We went up the escalators to the real security checkpoint, where you have to put everything on the conveyor belt and you have to step through the scanner.

The worker moving our baggage along was not Chinese, but he knew how to speak it! He spoke quite well for a non-Chinese guy, actually. He said to me, “Ni hen piao liang.” When I told Angel that (she went first in front of me), she rolled her eyes and said something to the tune of "the guy must be blind." This is also the brat that calls me a pig... and a toad, fyi, and calls our mother a witch~

Our flight was delayed by an hour because of a problem with the cargo door; they couldn’t keep it open to properly load the luggage. When it finally came time to board, Angel and I were first in line, but they announced that boarding was by groups—and this being our luck, they started with the back rows first. 

However, I noticed a bunch of people rushing past me who were not in the group they had just called out. Why bother announcing boarding groups if you’re not going to enforce it?! Grrr… so naturally, I rushed in as well, and the British Airways flight attendants didn’t care. 

I had the heavy carry-on (British Airways allows carry-on to be 40 pounds max). The plan was that Angel and I would lift it together to the overhead compartment, but Angel got stuck somewhere behind me, so I had to lift it all by myself. Obviously, it was too heavy to lift; I had a horrible cold and was tired from lifting all the luggage earlier in the day. There I was, teetering with the luggage over my head, not quite able to make it into the compartment. A nice flight attendant came over to help me with it, thank God. Angel came later, and we lifted hers together. 

Poor baby had the unfortunate luck to sit next to a really big lady. We think it was the lady's first time flying. She was so obnoxious. Her arm took up a quarter of Angel’s seat! She kept inadvertently pressing Angel’s menu buttons. Angel would be watching a movie and all of a sudden, the volume would go up or down because the lady had accidentally pressed it. The lady had accidentally turned on her light button, and for the good part of six hours, she was trying to go to sleep with her light shining on her. She couldn’t figure out how to turn it off, so she kept pressing Angel’s buttons. Angel finally angrily pointed to the lady’s own set of buttons, but she couldn’t get the hint. The funny part was that her husband had accidentally turned on his own light button, and somehow figured how to turn his off. But he didn’t help his wife turn hers off. 

It made for a miserable plane ride for Angel. I was on one side, hacking and coughing the entire time (I was getting feverish at that point) and the obnoxious lady on her other side, leaning toward her and heck, staring at Angel. It was freakish how Angel would turn and there she was, staring at Angel. *shudder* Later on, the lady polished off half of her sandwich… and offered the other half to Angel. WTF?!

At long last, we landed at SFO. I tried to get the carry-on out of the overhead by my own, but I was struggling so the girl next to me was kind enough to help. It was still very heavy, and hit me on my cheek and mouth as it was coming down. Ouch. 

I had called customs before we left for Europe, asking if foie gras was ok. On their website, they had it as a “maybe.” WTF? They should be clear on that! What if one worker allows it, and another doesn’t? The worker I talked to said they go through months of training to know what is definitely allowable and what isn’t… then shouldn’t it be somewhere in your “months of training” to figure out the maybes? That makes a huge difference in the lives of the millions of travelers walking through SFO every year, ya think?

We were nervous the whole time, because we were carrying foie gras with us. Do we declare it? Do we check the box “carrying animal products”? In the end, we decided to be truthful and checked “yes.” We even wrote it down on the other side, on the list side, as “canned foie gras.” Somehow, somewhere… it was a miracle we went through customs and no questions were asked. I wore no bling, walked behind Angel… and we walked right through customs. It was a breeze.

Mom and Dad were delayed, as United somehow managed to misdirect their luggage. AGAIN. Brilliant people, no? After their incompetency and their rudeness, Mom said she’s never flying United again. She really wants to fly British, so I’ll need to somehow find a way to conjure up cheap seats for them next time for British. Here’s hoping I can J And here's a toast to end our journey:

To a prosperous year! 

To the new chandelier...!

Paris Day 6 - Paris vu Hollywood

11/21/2012

I'm over the picture limit for Blogger so until I figure out how to add more pictures onto the blog, I'm afraid I can only entertain you with words for the time being. Apologies!

Update: I've uploaded the pictures onto Google+ using the album names Paris Day 5, 6, 7. Currently looking for a way to link Google+ to Blogger... why can't they ever make it easy on us non-techy folks?!

11/5/2012

Dad went to the Louvre today. He bought the ticket to go in because he liked it so much yesterday. Really, one day at the Louvre is never enough, as there is a treasure trove full of artifacts and art to feast your eyes on. Especially if you did what we did yesterday, cramming in two of the biggest museums in one day (Louvre and D’Orsay), plus L'Orangerie.

Mom, Angel and I went to the temporary Paris vu Hollywood exhibit going on at the Hotel de Ville. It examines the history of using Paris as a background for Hollywood cinema. There are a lot of films over the last century that feature Paris, and they played clips of some of the most famous ones. Sabrina, Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, Gigi, An American in Paris were some of the ones we’ve seen before. Many of the clips featured Gene Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, the eternal “Miss Paris.” 

There was clothing on display from the movies, including ones Audrey Hepburn wore designed by Givenchy. There was a bill from Givenchy for the production of Sabrina, totaling over $5000. There was also a critics’ review on display from an advance prescreening of Sabrina. Most were raving reviews, such  as “Hepburn is the best thing since Uranium.” 

One I identified with was: “She should have ended up with David instead.” Right?! I always thought so! Holden’s so much hotter than Bogart!

There were scripts, movie set design drawings, production explanations, director’s notes (including one by an American director, jotting down French slang translations).

It was a really worthwhile exhibit…  especially as it was free J Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. I would’ve loved a picture of the critics’ review. The exhibit has made us want to go home and have a Paris cinema night.

We went home afterwards so I could do online check-in at precisely the 24 hour mark. Angel went to Collet to buy us croque monsieur, croissant jambon, and crepe jambon. Our last time before we leave ;(

In the afternoon, Angel took the last metro ticket we had (leftover from the carnet ticket pack we bought on the first day) and went to Aux Armes de Niel to buy us chocolate almond croissants. That’s how much we love their croissants! 

We met at LeNotre to use off my voucher, but it was closed. AGAIN! WTF!!! The sign said clearly that the tea salon would be open every day from 3-5pm and the restaurant every day except Sunday at 7pm. There was an instructor in there, teaching pastry to students and he was nice enough to come out and tell us that LeNotre was closed today and would open at 11am tomorrow. ARRRRRGH! It was so frustrating, as we had gone there yesterday as well, only to find it was closed! 

We walked to the Motte-Piquet location—which was open—only the cashier Ivana refused to accept a US dollar denomination voucher. I was about to cry. I kept apologizing to Mom and Angel for making them walk all this way for nothing. 

There was a Carrefour City next to LeNotre and we went in, where my mood lifted slightly. The Lindt pistachio noir bar was the cheapest we’ve seen so far, at 2.69 euro, so we bought a bunch.

We went to Pierre Herme to buy the white truffle macarons. Pistachio’s out this time, but Angel was able to settle for the truffle one instead. It is weird, because Herme’s flavors for winter are plain or very summer-y. Rose, violet, passionfruit… in winter?! Those are summer flavors! Or it’s plain single origin chocolate, which I’ve found to be relatively dull tasting. A blend is usually better… you get a much more complex flavor profile. 

We then went around to all the grocery stores in our area, buying up last minute goodies. The Monoprix on Ave de l’Opera is the only one with the Eiffel Tower salt shakers. Mom’s been eyeing them the whole trip (she saw it on the first day), so we bought a Rose Himalayan salt shaker for her there. Pistachio extract is also cheapest at this Monoprix, at 2.16 euro a bottle. Raisin custard snails are cheapest here as well (0.90 each, buy 2 get the 3^rd free).

Cheapest chocolate prices:

Carrefour rue du seine caramelized almond cote d’or is 2.70 euro. They also had the cheapest foie gras prices 3.93 euro for 200 grams, their own brand is 3.98 euro. Chestnut paste is also cheapest here at 2.39 euro for 500 grams.

G20 rue saint Antoine praline noir cote d’or is 2.69 euro

Monoprix ave de l’opera lindt pistachio noir is 2.80 (and is next cheapest for all cote d’or chocolates)

Franprix 1.25 euro for 6 carres amandes

Paris Day 5 - Free Museum Day (Louvre, L'Orangerie, Musee D'Orsay)

11/4/2012

Free museum day! I timed our whole trip just so we would be in Paris for the first Sunday of the month. Yup, especially for this day. When you total up the admission costs for 4 adults to the individual museums, it could easily total 100 euros per person. That is, depending on how many museums you can make it to in one day... and how many museums you are actually interested in going to. I knew I wanted to take our parents to the Louvre, L'Orangerie, D'Orsay and Rodin. There are several others I would've liked to add to the list, like climbing up the Notre Dame or Arc de Triomphe, but we agreed it would be a waste of time when there's hundreds of years of art to be seen. Maybe next time...

A list of free Paris museums and their schedules:

http://en.parisinfo.com/guide-paris/money/free-admission-and-good-deals/guide/free-admission-and-good-deals-in-museums-and-monuments_free-every-day-all-year-round

We got up at 7am today to go to the Louvre. We left at 7:45 and got there around 8. It’s actually a five minute walk from our apartment to the back entrance of the Louvre, but we spent some time taking pictures—FINALLY! No random people in the pictures!!!—so by the time we got in line, it was 8am.

I'm still in awe we got a shot with no strangers in it!

Yes, there was already a line, but it was probably only 20-30 people ahead of us. By the time the museum opened, the line was snaking out the back of the Louvre.

Immediately, we went to the Winged Victory:

Then up to Mona Lisa, as they are in the same wing (Denon).

We took in the sights of the paintings on the Mona Lisa floor before leaving for the Richelieu wing to see the Venus de Milo. They are the three biggest attractions.

Pickpocket! Call the police!

Then Angel said, "we’re done." Fini.

But it’s Dad’s first time here, and I really like the Louvre, so for the first time, majority won. Usually Angel wins, hands down, from sheer temper alone. :P

The Cour Marly has some beautiful sculptures that Angel and I somehow missed out on last time... oh wait, she was rushing me out of the Louvre last time. I remember now!

We all really liked the horse sculptures. A baby IM Pei pyramid shelters these formerly outdoor sculptures, as they are showing signs of wear and tear from being outdoors. The practice of sheltering outdoor sculptures dates back to the 1870s. I had no idea it was that early in time; I thought people only recently became more concerned with preservation.

Poor baby's tired... and we're only on our first museum of the day!

You probably can't see the sculpture in the back too well, but it's a boy lassoing a turtle. Pretty much sums up Angel and me. She's a tyrant!

We went to the Napolean III apartments, where we saw an interactive video about how to make porcelain. Damn, it’s labor intensive! Over 15 craftsmen’s expertise go into making a single vase, and that doesn’t include the workers needed to prep and make the raw materials.

We also saw Saint Mary Magdalene’s wooden sculpture by a Dutch craftsman. There is a locked cabinet in her hair, which we thought was pretty cool. There were a lot of small holes on her feet. I wondered aloud what that was, and Angel replied, “Either termites or woodpeckers. Take your pick.”

Saint Mary Magdalene

Something we didn’t see last time was Michelangelo’s The Captive Slave. We all thought the sculpture looked more like a man leisurely bathing himself… not a slave. And definitely not a captive one. 

The Captive Slave

Apparently he made another sculpture similar to The Captive Slave, which he called "The Dying Slave." Both sculptures were meant to hold up Pope Julius II's tomb, but due to a shortage of money, the pope ordered him to use the remaining money to finish the Sistine Chapel instead. Wise choice, I'd say.

There is a vast collection of sculptures in the Louvre, ranging from the Grecians in 100AD, to Romans, Italians, Spanish. The artists have somehow over the years divined a mathematical formula of the proportions of what a prime male specimen ought to look like:

There are signs all over the place forbidding flash photography and touching the art. That's why it is so maddening to see so many god damn Chinese tourists touching the sculptures as if this was their own backyard. The signs forbidding you to touch the art are picture signs, with a red slash through a hand—not language signs. 

Apparently it’s not only English they don’t understand. 

They were petting the sculptures like monkeys at a zoo; they’ll wander by and touch the sculptures and then pose with them in obnoxious poses… ugh I wanted to tell them to stop being so rude! AND there were so many flashes going off!!! I don’t understand why the Louvre workers aren’t more Nazi-like and crack down on it, but there were so many flashes going off and nobody was reprimanded. No wonder the paintings have to be touched up so often.

Look at this little monster:

Look a little closer... *Shudder* Positively wicked.

Afterwards, we went to L’Orangerie, where we saw Monet’s famous Les Nympheas. It covers six entire walls. Mom and Dad really liked it. I was going to take a picture of them next to it, but the signs clearly say you can’t take pictures. That’s not what I remember from last time, as I have a picture of me next to it. I swear I would’ve obeyed the signs had I seen it, but I don’t think there was a sign last time.

Always eating :P Waiting in line to get into L'Orangerie.

We went to Musee D’Orsay after that, a short walk across the bridge. Everywhere we went today, there was a line. But at D’Orsay, it was really quite charming. The line was winding like crazy, but there was no rope cordoning off one portion of the line from the other. Yet, everybody respected the invisible markers and wound around the line like clockwork. I guess if you try cutting, people will yell at you anyway?

Musee D'Orsay

D’Orsay is housed in a converted train building from the Victorian era and it is absolutely beautiful inside. There’s lots of light streaming down and it gives the sculptures a hazy glow. It’s a big Impressionists museum, with many paintings from Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Matisse, Toulouse, etc. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the museum, so the best I got was a sneaky shot from the second floor... hey, it was a gray area.

Van Gogh’s A Starry Night was on display, which we missed out on last time as it was on loan to another museum. As we entered the particular room it was housed in, Mom’s eye was immediately drawn to the painting, even though it was in a line of similarly-sized paintings and there was nothing shouting, “This is Van Gogh!” It wasn’t very prominently displayed, let’s just say. But Mom found her way there immediately and she really liked the painting. It wasn’t until Angel reached her side that Mom found out it was a really famous painting.

By this point, Angel was reaching her point of “that’s all the museum I can handle in one day.” But then she found the brochure advertising their temporary exhibit, L’Impressionisme. It’s a curated collection of art and clothing from the time period. I asked a worker how much it cost, but this being the 1^st Sunday of the month, she said it was free. There was a long line to get into the exhibit as well, and as you reach the front, they hand you a ticket for admittance. Which is weird, because it was already free and nobody was checking the tickets.

The dresses on display were very detailed, from the 1870s. They had very small waists back then. The fans and hats were really elaborate. It was sad because we weren’t allowed to take pictures. There were a lot of paintings by Renoir in there, as well as Monet and others to complement the dresses. It was really cool because you could see the juxtaposition of art and real life and they do a wonderful job of attaching stories to each part of the exhibit. Some of the artists actually bought dresses for their models because they wanted dresses to emphasize a certain feel to their paintings. Some artists would get attached to certain dresses and one painter in particular painted the same dress on at least two different women. 

There was a painting of a ball scene in Paris, and the primary female in the painting wore something very much like the white ballgown in My Fair Lady. I wondered if the costume designer ever saw this painting? When it was first painted, someone criticized, “One tailcoat is ugly. Two even uglier. A bunch together makes this the ugliest painting I’ve ever seen.” I thought the painting was very nicely done, but I think Impressionists were the leisurely bourgeois class and favored realistic, pastoral or country settings much more so than fancy balls.

On the top floor of D'Orsay is a restaurant, where there is a Victorian clock still in working order. You can see Sacre Coeur outside! It's a breathtaking view, although sadly, my picture can't do it justice as I was too far away.

See Sacre Coeur on the right?

I wanted to go to Rodin (our last museum of the day) to get shots of Mom and Dad with The Thinker. I had already planned it in our schedule and they all knew we were shooting to go to four museums today.

Rodin sculpture outside the L'Orangerie

But it was 3pm and they were tuckered out from a day of museums. Mom doesn’t even like museums very much in the first place, and Dad doesn’t like walking. He said there are a bunch of Rodins in the Stanford Canton museum, and The Thinker is one of them, as well as the Gates of Hell. How many freakin' copies did Rodin make of these two sculptures?! Since Dad already saw them at Stanford, he didn't want to walk the 20 minutes to see the “real” versions.

And Mom doesn’t even know what The Thinker is, so she didn’t care if we missed it.

Somehow, while I was fascinated and reading one exhibit or another, Angel managed to weasel the thought into Mom’s head that if we skipped Rodin, we could go to Angelina instead. Mom was super-excited by this idea. *sigh* Angel, Angel… what a little rat.

Angelina is famous for their hot chocolate and mont blanc. Before we came to Europe, Mom read an article that a Taiwanese woman living in Paris wrote about Angelina, and Mom has really wanted to go ever since (not that she drinks hot chocolate).

So we left our free day of museums behind, walked directly across the Tuileries and Angelina’s was only half a block away on our right side. There was a line there as well, so we got in line. Unfortunately, the line moved really slowly and the lady behind us was smoking. After thinking about it, Mom decided she doesn't drink hot chocolate, and isn't all too crazy about a chestnut dessert either, and no matter how famous a restaurant is, it ain't worth getting cancer over. As we could not stand the smell of the lady's cigarette, we left.

Plus, I make a better hot chocolate any day. Yes, Angelina's hot chocolate is good, but when you're making it for yourself, you can dump in all the rich, expensive dark chocolate you want and not have to care about the food costs. Same reason why you never order truffle anything at a restaurant-you'll just have to return it to the kitchen because there's no way they can make it taste all truffle-y and sell it to you at a reasonable price. While you can dump in a whole bottle of truffle oil for one portion of mac n cheese that you're making just for yourself.

Dad returned to the apartment and we went to Laduree so Angel could show Mom their stuff. Oh my god, there was a line there too! 

We then went to LeNotre to use off my voucher. Only to find out that it was closed! After trudging down the whole length of the Tuileries! Ugh. The hours were completely wrong; it said it was opened tous les jours from 3-6pm. Well, it was 5pm and not a soul in the place! The lights weren’t even on! WTF does tous les jours mean to the French, if not “every day”? How does anyone ever know the real opening hours, if the times posted are all wrong?

So we walked by the Place de la Concorde, shortcut through the Place de Madeleine to go to Monoprix… and it turned out that they were closed as well! Grrr. We walked to Rue Montorgueil only to find out that Marche U and Franprix were closed too. Thank God we bought waaaay too much food yesterday, or we would’ve been screwed for dinner tonight.

Sunday is apparently still a day of rest in this part of the world. We encountered it in Vienna and I think Munich is like that as well. In Paris, supermarkets and most stores are closed. Restaurants are open, as well as museums. But that’s it. Nothing else.  Booo!!!! We walked all around Paris and all the supermarkets were closed! ;( Some are even closed on Monday as well, as a “bridge” to start the week. Good God, how many days of rest do they need?

We like to buy food at the supermarket and come back and cook in our cozy apartment. Especially as it is freezing ass cold outside.

That way, we can all shower first, feel refreshed and clean, then eat in the comforts of our pjs and warmth. We can drink wine, eat at leisure without having to worry about rude French waiters... or having to wait an hour for the bill to arrive. And we definitely won't be eating any overpriced, not-so-tasty tiny-ass portioned entrees. Oh yeah, we learned our lesson well enough last time: no restaurants this time around.

Our dinner was a delicious composition of Bordeaux wine; puff pastry tart with cream sauce, mushrooms, peas and bay scallops; Quiche Lorraine with jambon and chunks of emmenthal cheese, and Cote D’or chocolates. A perfect meal for the end of the day J

Paris Day 4 - Notre Dame, Bastille, Musee de l'armee

Hotel de Ville

11/3/2012

We ate breakfast at our apartment with the croissants we bought last night. It was a leisurely morning. Angel’s Puma shoes that she brought to Europe (the only pair she brought) got soaked through and through yesterday because of the pouring rain.

We were at the Eiffel Tower. I was walking fast, Mom was walking fast after me, and Angel tried to keep up… but landed in a large puddle instead. She threw quite the tantrum and complained I was walking too fast (then she complained later on that I was walking too slow *sigh*). Anyway, she tried to blow dry them last night and let it sit overnight… but they did not dry out by this morning. So she wore my Skechers, and I wore my new Primark boots. Thank God I bought a size up; the one in my size was just right and I was afraid if I walked too long, it would start hurting. Angel was walking like a penguin in my shoes because it was too big for her.

Angel's wearing my shoes - she looks like she's about to fall backward!

We went down Rue Rivoli, where Angel went into every McDonald’s she saw, hoping they’d have a mango-flavored macaron. They had it at Versailles but was sold out, and it is cheaper to buy it in a box of 7 than it is to buy it individually. However, no store had it and she didn’t want to be stuck with 7 pistachio macarons in case they tasted nasty.

There are a lot of supermarkets on Rue Rivoli going to Rue Saint Antoine. There’s a Franprix, G20, and Monoprix all within the same block. Franprix had these awesome looking frozen quiches and tarts but they rejected my credit card ;( The store manager wouldn’t accept any more credit cards after that and I was running low on cash so I said forget it and left the frozen food at the checkout stand for them to restock :P Suck that, Franprix.

Monoprix on Rue St Antoine had the best prices for Italian green grapes—Dad’s been eating a lot of them this trip, starting from Vienna and working his way through Salzburg and Munich. London didn’t have any, so Mom bought him apples, which he wasn’t too keen on eating. The G20 had the best prices for Cote D’or… after we had already bought out two stores’ entire supply! Our total candy bar count is now running in the 90s, after I cleared out G20’s supply as well. If it’s cheap…

G20 was 2.75 for the milk chocolate with salted caramel almonds and 2.69 for the praline noir.

We ate croissants at Aux Desirs de Manon, as we remembered them to be really good from last time.

However, after we walked down half a block, Miss Manon’s croissants were even tastier. Their chocolate almond croissants were also awesome; chockfull of chocolate and almond filling. Some bakeries only put in 2 small bars of chocolate, like we did in pastry school… and that’s just boring!

The original goal was to go to Bastille, but it took us pretty much 2 hours to wander there with all the shops we ducked into. It should’ve only taken 20 minutes! There are a lot of cheap vendors along the way, including a little shop selling shoes for cheap. I bought a gray pair of galoshes for 10.50 euro that look really nice and Chanel-y. Mom bought a pair of fur gray boots for 10.50 euros as well, and a pair of red suede booties for 8 euros. The displays only have one shoe; you have to ask for the other shoe… I think it’s to prevent stealing. After all, what can one do with only one shoe? And their policy is that the shoes have to be over 10 euros in order for you to try them on. Mom insisted Angel should buy a pair, but she refused.

After eating all the croissants, we were still hungry. Shopping is a very intensive exercise, no? :P Mom saw a durum place and she got all excited. It was 5.50 euros for just the durum itself, or 6 euros for durum + fries. And hey, we've never tried French fries while in France, so it was the perfect opportunity. I'm not usually a big French fries person, but who knew it would taste so yummy! It was piping hot, so flavorful and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside~

Mayo doesn't usually come with it, but I can't eat fries w/o a creamy sauce so I asked the guy if he could throw it in, no charge (while in the US, you usually expect sides to be no charge, this is not the case in Europe). He smiled and dumped a heaping spoonful of mayo on our tray! ^.^

Doner Durum

We finally reached Bastille, where we took some nice pictures (it was sunny! Yay!).

Bastille

There’s a LeNotre just by the corner and we went in. Boy, was it expensive. And their macarons looked disgusting. They were selling them for more than Pierre Herme.  Couldn’t figure out anything to buy with my voucher so we decided to keep on looking.

Look at the puppy! Just sitting there, waiting for his master to come out!

As we were heading back, Angel started getting snappish. I suspected she needed to go to the bathroom, but she didn’t say anything until we reached Places des Vosges. I wanted to show Mom Victor Hugo’s house in the charming courtyard, but Angel blew up and said she needed to go to the bathroom NOW to poo. So we handed her all our purchases, and told her to go back to the apartment while we went to Victor Hugo’s and completed our grocery shopping. All along this trip, I kept telling Angel to go into the public toilets, but she refused. Especially in Paris; we walked by one directly across from our apartment this morning and I jokingly told her to go there. She snapped, so I did not mention the other bathrooms as we passed them by in our morning trek.

So Angel ran all the way back to the apartment to do her deed.

As it turned out, she needed to go so bad that had I pointed out the public bathrooms along the way, she would have gone in them, she later admitted. There were two on Rue Rivoli going to Saint Antoine; one on each side. Quite prominent, in fact. And a third just a little ways off the main street, with a sign pointing toward it. But in her single-minded hurry, she didn’t see any of them!

We told her to meet us down at the first floor of the apartment to let us in (she had the key) at 2pm, but we were a little late and she wasn’t there. Thank God I knew the owner’s last name, so I rang the buzzer and she came down to fetch us.

Places des Vosges

Victor Hugo's house

After a short break, we took Mom to the left bank.

Notre Dame:

The Police Headquarters is a beautiful building across from the famous church, complete with gilded iron fences. There were a lot of people in line to go into the Museum of Justice in the police headquarters.

Police Headquarters

Saint Chapelle was still under construction (2 years already! Geesh!).

We got Berthillon ice cream—1 scoop/boule is 2.50 euro! You can buy a whole pint—heck, in some cases, a whole gallon of ice cream—at that price in the States! As we were taking the picture above, the lady behind the counter said "No picture!" There was no sign saying that, lady! I was grumbling as I handed her my money, and I told Angel that their ice cream better be damn good to be worth this kind of crappy customer service. Unfortunately, Angel and Mom both loved it. They said the pistachio flavor is really nice.

It was very creamy without being eggy, and the pistachios were not infused. Rather, they were chopped up and tossed into the ice cream. We concluded the ratio was probably a lot more cream than eggs and not to infuse the next time. I should just toast and add them in later.

We took Mom to the Louvre via the back entrance, so she could see just how large the palace is. We walked through a huge courtyard before entering the front side with the pyramid.

Then we walked past the arch and into the Tuileries. It was sunny, although the gravel was wet and had puddles. Droves of people were out today, with many just chilling by the fountains.

We walked along the river, and got a nice shot of the clouds over Musee D'Orsay:

What is it about European clouds? If you look at European artists, like Michelangelo, you'll notice the beautiful clouds in their paintings... especially in ceiling reliefs. The pictures don't do them justice, but they have just the right balance of stormy gray with a silver lining that we don't see very much of in California. In CA, the clouds are either white or gray...

Louvre

We snapped a bunch of pictures but Mom seemed more interested in shopping, so we took her to Carrefour. You should’ve seen her eyes lit up when we said “Jia Le Fu.” There’s a huge Carrefour on Rue du Seine on the left bank, just a block down from the bridge. I loaded up on foie gras (14 cans, baby!) and marron paste (6 cans). We’ve been checking prices at each and every supermarket we’ve gone into, and so far, Carrefour is the cheapest for these items. Foie gras has shot up in price since the last time we were here. I kept dreaming of it, because it was sooooo cheap last time. It’s gone up at least 1/3 in price. In some cases, almost twice in price! Depending on the brand you get. We bought frozen quiches here, but Mom was still thinking of the puff pastry pie she wanted to buy at Franprix (the one time my credit card was rejected).

As we left Carrefour, it was turning dark and rue de Buce next to it was coming alive. All the cafes were packed full of people (although we never saw anyone eating; they were all smoking and drinking). We walked down the street just to see what was there, and there was a Franprix on the other side! With the tart Mom wanted to buy!  We bought it and hurried back home. Dad baked the quiche and tart, and Angel cooked pork and lentils (from a can we bought yesterday).

Everything was delicious! The lentils are very comforting on a cold freezing day and the pork that came along with it was soooo juicy and tender. And the can was only 1.1 euro at Marche U! The salmon quiche was really tasty, and the ham and mushroom tart was very mushroomy.

Dad really likes raisin spiral croissants. He buys it at every bakery he goes into. Marks and Spencer’s sells a really good one in a pack of four for 2.09 pounds. Monoprix sells a pack of three for 1.80 euros and not only does it have raisins, it has custard in the spirals as well. But the thing I really like about M&S’ is that they use sultana raisins, which are plump and juicy and the flavor is really nice. Too bad sultana is really expensive in the States.

He eats two pain aux raisins for breakfast, some as a midnight snack and he’ll grab them for lunch. He spent today at the Musee de l’armee (the War museum).

He spent a good five hours there and would have spent more if he could. He was really enthralled with everything, but didn’t have enough time to visit all the artifacts. Some, he had to skip over. And others, there were no English explanations.

They had tanks, armors, artillery, cannons on display, as well as Napolean I’s tomb. He was so busy taking in the museum that he didn’t even eat lunch until 4pm. Usually, if he’s bored, he can go to the bathroom four times in an hour. But he only went three times in the museum over the course of 5 hours.   Impressive, no?

But getting there proved a challenge. He got lost, and lost an hour of time trying to find his way to the museum. Paris’ signs are not very good and arrows point one way when they mean another. For example, if the arrow points directly down, it doesn’t mean go downstairs. It means go straight… in some cases, go straight up the stairs. If an arrow points left, it doesn’t mean go left. It means go on the bridge to your left, and go straight. Grr.

Mom: one bottle of antibacterial is enough to last 3 weeks. Two travel kit contact lens solution lasts three weeks.