honeymoon: paris

We’re back from our honeymoon!  There are quite a few pictures — I only took a tiny little camera on the trip because I wanted very much to be fully “present” on our honeymoon rather than constantly taking pictures, but there are still a lot of pictures to go through as you might imagine!  Funny to think that many years ago, I took a similar trip and would only take 10-20 pictures per city.  Times have surely changed.  Anyway, I digress…  Folks have been asking us a lot for a blog post — I can’t get to all of it at one time but will post about our trip in pieces, starting with Paris!  We did do the  touristy things of course… we visited the Eiffel Tower:

(The picture looks fake but I swear it’s not!)  And we also saw the Notre Dame cathedral.. and the Basilica du Sacre Coeur… and the Moulin Rouge.  Not saying any of these landmarks aren’t important… they were indeed all quite memorable, but you’ve also likely seen them in pictures or in person a million times.  So I’ll just skip those pictures (link at the end of the post for those that do want to see them), and I’ll skip to the bones of our trip!

We were determined to be savvy world travelers, and packed three weeks’ worth of clothing and supplies into these two backpacks.  Not too bad, eh?  We are all smiles here, freshly arrived in beautiful Paris.

One of the very first signs we saw assured us that the language barrier would present no problem… Doug demonstrates:

(I kid I kid.  I believe Titoff is some kind of French musical artist.  Or perhaps a stripper.)  First stop in Paris: the Louvre.  We had a few “wow” moments here but honestly we didn’t go in peak form and our experience was stilted (our own fault).  For starters we had just come off of a red-eye flight and were zombies.  Zombies don’t appreciate art at all, this is a fact.  And secondly, it was about two degrees outside and we were wholly unprepared for the weather.. by the time we had speedwalked over to the Louvre I was completely torpid from the cold weather and quite unable to process anything.  Doug was feeling the same way.

To illustrate, the brainy exchange at this gorgeous sculpture went something like this:

Hey Doug, take my picture with this thing.  Flying guy thing.
Ok. Why?
Because it’s pretty.
He’s touching her breast.
Oh ok, I won’t smile then.

And as you can see, Doug is just flat out sound asleep here inside the Louvre, sitting amidst priceless works of art.  Freakin Americans, no respect.

Visiting the Mona Lisa revived us a bit.   A crowd, 20 people deep, surrounded the painting and we took our place in the slow silent shuffle… it was amazing how reverently silent it was there, with only the sounds of shuffling feet and beeping cameras to break the spell.  Most people just took a picture of the painting.  We got to the front and turned to take our usual self-portrait.  Doug nearly punched a woman in the face doing so.  It’s ok, we’re American.

A day or two later when it was sunny and warm again though, we did revisit the Louvre to take the obligatory tourist pictures:

How did we do?

We also ate at Cafe des 2 Moulins, the cafe featured in the movie Amelie (where the main character worked as a waitress).

It was quite good, and very charming indeed.  Speaking of food… this isn’t a full roll call of all of the great food we had in Paris, but some highlights:

Clockwise from top left…

1. Cappuccinos (in retrospect these weren’t even close to the ones in Italy)
2. Delicious meat/cheese/cornichon platters.  Doug did throw one of these pieces of ham in my cappuccino, but he claims it was somehow an accident.
3. Orangina or aranciata.  Also Fanta, which I had everywhere.  Delicious, and nothing like we can get here.  No I take that back, I think you can get an Aranciata at import shops, made by San Pellegrino.
4. Falafel from the Jewish quarter.  The kind you stand in line for, falafels as big as your head.
5. French onion soup, or as they call it… onion soup.
6. Fresh crepes.

We also enjoyed some really good beef bourgignon and tons of great bread… and some good red wine, but after being in Italy where I didn’t meet a house red I didn’t like, it’s hard to say that wine made our top ten list in Paris (then again, we probably didn’t know what we were asking for half the time anyway.)

Oh and as a side note… if you see a queue forming up anywhere in France or Italy, don’t think about it and just jump into line.  We found that the only time there was an orderly queue, there was always food involved — all other times it was just a lot of chaos no matter what the situation (particularly in Italy, where shouting the loudest appears to make you the winner).  One night in Paris, we jumped into a random line that was forming anew.. we tried frantically to discern what the line was for as it shuffled forward rapidly.  We still didn’t know by the time we got to the front of the line and the girl behind the counter looked at me questioningly — I hesitatingly poked a finger in the direction of the customer before me and said “one, please” in French.  And lo and behold it worked — we were rewarded with a steaming hot baguette, fresh out of the oven.  Happiness.

One of my favorite experiences in Paris was strolling along the Seine, hand in hand with Doug.  The sun was shining, and we stopped at many of the stalls to inspect books and artwork, much of it old and yellowed by exposure to the sun — somehow this makes the books more romantic and appealing (whereas here, we would admonish the store clerks for their negligence).  At one stall selling very old postcards and photos, we spent an hour rifling through the postcards to see who could find the oldest one.  Here is one of my favorites.. “I do not forget you,” a man writes to a young lady in 1905.  *swoon*

We also encountered some protesters during our time in Paris — nothing violent, but people did seem rather angry so I kept my camera in my bag and my mouth shut as we carefully picked our way through the large crowd.  Folks shuffled about discontentedly, and one kept angrily throwing big handfuls of copy paper up into the air — they may have been printed with a message of some kind, but he threw them in such a way that the papers all landed in a big clump three feet away from himself, so I find his message dispersal technique to be a little lacking.  We had finally made it all the way through the crowd (yay) when we encountered a line of French policemen outfitted in full riot gear — armored pads, full-face helmets, and standing shoulder to shoulder with those big clear shields… uh-oh?  Not knowing what to do, we timidly asked one of them if we could pass to go to a museum.  “NON!” he barked at us.  “FERMEE!!”  And then a moment later he added in English “IS CLOSED!” and made a shooing motion at us.  So what was there to do but to go back through this crowd of angry people?  In retrospect, trying to go to the stupid museum through a line of armed policemen wasn’t the greatest idea.  But it’s ok.  I’m an American.

And of course I can’t forget the very memorable moment (memorable to me at least) when I spotted a street sign and cried out excitedly for Doug to go pose with it, which he did.  Note his very tentative posture in the photo.  ”What are you taking a picture of?” he asked.

“DOUG,” I said solemnly as I snapped one last picture.  ”WE ARE AT AN IMPASSE.”  At which point I broke into hysterical laughter…  this picture is his actual reaction to my word-nerdiness.  I laughed until I cried.. then I wiped away my tears and wobbled a squeaky “I don’t know what we are going to do now!” which totally set me off again.  Lord help me.

And so, a few final pics to finish this post… here is the view from in front of our hotel:

Amazing, right?  However, before you congratulate us, check out the view from inside our hotel:

Isn’t that even more amazing?  This continued all the way around the room, covering all walls, the doors, the headboard, and even the bedcovers.  It’s like they wanted us to never find the door and never ever leave.  The Hotel California of Paris, ahhh!!

And so, until we meet again… au revoir, Paris!  Thanks for the memories!

Byeeeeeeeee!!

The full picture gallery for our Paris trip can be found here, for those that would like to see it.  Next up to be blogged from our honeymoon files, Florence.  Until then, I hope everyone has a very safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday, wherever you are in the world!

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