Paris Day 1 - Eurostar from London St. Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord

Rue Montorgueil

10/31/2012

Goodbye London! Bonjour Paris! Mom really enjoyed her stay in London; perhaps it was the location and the posh Doubletree we were staying in (plus, we had separate rooms, so lots more room per person!) and she said Londoners are much nicer than Parisians (over the next few days).

We took the Pimlico line to St. Pancras, but holy shit there were some stairs to navigate! It’s not as much as some other lines, but we had pretty heavy suitcases (Angel and I somehow managed to have our carry-ons in our large suitcases throughout this whole trip. Our aim is to only bring it out when we go back home), plus the wheels broke from Dad’s and Angel’s suitcases. This meant we needed to head out for St. Pancras a full two hours before our train… who knew a broken wheel could derail your schedule? 

By the time we got through security and check-in at Eurostar, we only had half an hour left (check-in closes for the train half an hour before the scheduled departure). And here I wanted to check-in, go out for a pasty and come back in… but they wouldn’t let me ;(

London Eurostar has free maps… well, free if you buy Paris museum tickets or metro tickets. It is more expensive to buy Paris carnet tickets in London, as they are in pounds. The lady was nice enough to give us the Paris maps without me buying anything. They don’t sell palace tickets, ie. For Versailles.

The ride is 2½ hours and supposedly goes through the underwater tunnel. However, we were only in a tunnel for the better part of 10 minutes and it’s hard to imagine that the train can travel that fast, to get through the English channel in less than 10 minutes. :T Anyway, it was dark and we couldn’t see anything. Somehow, I imagined a glass tunnel where you can see sealife. Guess I’ll get my fix at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Dad really likes to drink coffee now. He drinks 2 cups in the morning. He had to go buy espresso on the Eurostar train… for 2.2 pounds!

And then he added milk to it.

And sugar.

It ain’t espresso no more :T

Upon arriving at Gare du Nord, we bought the Carnet tickets to ride the metro to our rental apartment. A full fare metro ticket is usually 1.7 euros, but if you buy the carnet, you get a stack of 10 single tickets for 12.70 euros. You save almost 5 euros, so why not? The Paris Visite pass is overpriced and catered to uneducated tourists, so it’s never worth it to get that pass. Our apartment is an easy ride from Gare du Nord (our stop is Les Halles, which is on the same line). Thus, we were at the apartment a full hour before the scheduled meeting time with the apartment owner. Angel and I went to the ATM to get the cash to pay for the rental; it was a half-minute walk away from our apartment.

That’s how beautiful our location is.

It’s seriously less than a five-minute walk to the Louvre. Turn the corner, it’s Rue Montorgueil!!! Yay! We hiked over an hour here the last time, when we stayed near the Arc de Triomphe, and never had time to go back. There is a bakery on the street called Collet that makes awesome croque monsieurs.

The vacation rental owner’s sister came to greet us around 4:15 (our meeting time was 4:30). She doesn’t speak much English, but is charming with her French and hand gestures. She led us up to the apartment… it has a one person elevator, so it took six separate trips to get our luggage and everybody up there! The apartment is large and best of all, has top-of-the-line appliances: washer, oven, dishwasher, microwave, water boiler, Nespresso machine; and separate rooms for the toilet and shower (which is awesome when there are 4 people living together!).

There was a fish bowl next to the Nespresso machine, full of Nespresso pods… Dad drank almost all of it within A DAY!

As the sister didn’t speak English, and it isn’t her apartment, she couldn’t answer my questions on how to operate the machines. The owner said she was running late at work and so wouldn’t get here until 5-6pm. After the sister left, Mom asked us why the lady kept saying “let’s go, let’s go” to her sister. We were confused… until we realized what Mom heard as “let’s go” is “d’accord” instead! It means “okay” in French.

Angel took Mom to Rue Montorgueil to grab dinner while Dad and I waited in the apartment for the owner to arrive. Dad fixed the low battery beeping sound from the smoke detector after finding a ladder and a spare 9Volt battery.

After the owner came and explained everything, Angel and Mom returned with goodies from Collet. Croque monsieur, croissant jambon, crepes jambon… *sigh* have I missed you! The crepe was surprisingly delicious. They wrapped béchamel sauce with ham in the crepe, topped it off with cheese and baked it till golden and abso-freakin-lutely delicious!

It was around 6:30pm after we ate. Even though it was dark outside (it turns dark around 5pm now… boooo!), we were eager to go out and roam the streets of Paris. Angel wanted to go to Pierre Herme, but his original store was too far away. She settled for one of his little outposts instead, a twenty-minute walk from our apartment. On the way, we saw the streets alive with people walking, smoking and drinking in cafes. Mom commented that none of them were eating. I have noticed on this trip that the European women are skinnier and skinnier… perhaps because their diet consists mainly of tobacco and alcohol? I don’t recall that many of them eating the last time we came here, either.

We walked by Places des Victoires, which was scaffolded the last time we came as it underwent remodeling. When we finally reached Pierre Herme, Angel went in like a jubilant two-year-old.

Only to find out that they aren’t selling the pistachio flavor anymore (pistache). Sacre bleu!

We went to Monoprix to look around, and Angel was loading up on Cote D’ors when I found a section where the Cote D’ors are on sale (2 bars in 1 package deal). Oh man, did we load up. I think we bought over $100 in chocolates alone yesterday and hefted it back to the apartment. They had some new flavors Angel was anxious to try out, but she proclaimed in the end that her favorite is still the milk chocolate with salted almonds.

Rue Montorgueil has 3 supermarkets on it. A U-Express, a Marche U and a Monop. At the U-Express, we found Cote du Rhone wine for 1.80 euro! Bordeaux was 1.95 euro, so we bought both to try out.

At the Marche U, Dad insisted he wanted to buy ramen. Ramen. In France. Really?! It was 3.22 euro for a small package of ramen… when you can buy a pack of 12 for like $2 in the States! Ugh! There were plenty of French food in the supermarket, but he went for an Asian product… after Angel just finished lecturing about how you’re a moron if you’re Chinese and go to France to eat Chinese food. Or Japanese, going for Japanese food. And so forth. If you’re in a foreign country, you should try their food! When in Rome, do as the Romans do, no?

And then Dad had the gall to say the ramen wasn’t very good!

Duh! I could’ve told you that!

Stohrer bakery goodies... that's foie gras mousse in the green demitasse!

After we bought everything, we went back to the apartment. Only to find out that the access code for the front gate was invalid. I freaked out. If we couldn’t open the gate, and I didn’t have the owner’s phone number, how the hell do we get into the apartment?! We tried everything, until Angel discovered that you have to push really, really, really hard to get in, using the key provided. Unfortunately, the owner gave us only one key to the front gate and there is no buzzer to ring upstairs, so we’ll have to be creative if we want to split up in the following days.

The Cote du Rhone wine is delicious. Something of that quality could easily cost $60 in the States. It was very balanced, the alcohol was just right (6.5%) and it just went down oh-so-smoothly.

Look up at the ceiling~

Gorgeous!