Paris!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is going to be short and to the point.  It's almost midnight here and I've been staying up way too late. Wanted to be in bed by 10 tonight and you can see how well that worked out!

We flew into Paris on Ryan Air last night via Beauvais airport.  Very small, efficient.  I was immediately happy to be in France when the first person I saw upon disembarking was an extremely handsome, smiling Frenchman on the tarmac.  Oh, yeah, now we're talking!  It was rainy but not pouring.  I blogged on the bus trip (1.25 hours) into Paris, raining off and on.  We could see the Eiffel Tower as we approached and the reality of being in Paris set in.  I seriously cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I am actually in Paris!  Me, a little country girl from a town that still, in 2012, does not have a traffic signal! I am humbled and thrilled to be here.  I started to worry that I've romanticized the city too much, that it won't live up to my expectations.  Not a chance - it's AMAZING!!!  It's more amazing than I ever could have imagined.  Bistros, shops, restaurants every where you look.  Incredible patisseries and boloungeries everywhere.  Fresh flowers and meats on display.  I want to go home and fill my house with flowers and decorate Parisian style!

Breakfast!

Sacre Coeur

We were STARVING by the time we got to the hotel (about 8:30), the Hotel California St Germain, recommended by my former boss, Louis Laulhere.  He knows Sophie, the proprietor, who we still have not met - she'll be here in the morning.  It's tiny, with small narrow hallways and a small room with little twin beds pushed together, but we have a view of Notre Dame Cathedral from our window!  It is clean and comfy with a contemporary bath.  George at the desk suggests two restaurants nearby that he says will be kind to us non-French speaking foreigners.  We chose Le Petite Prince just around the corner.  Very dark and eclectically decorated, but cozy and warm.  We have three courses from a two course prix fixe menu, our first small faux pas.  It says 'OR' dessert, not 'and' dessert, so we pay a bit more than we planned.  We have appetizers of escargot and pasta and tartine (open faced baked sandwich) with goat cheese, eggplant and red bell peppers. So good!  Our entrees, my sea bass wrapped in fresh bacon with apricots and a honey red wine sauce and Ariana's pork with mushrooms, bacon and red wine were delicious, served with pasta with cheesy cream sauce and potato gratinee and a basket of baguette.  My first mistake is eating about 6 pieces of baguette.  As someone who rarely eats white bread, I knew I was going over the line, but didn't care. We also have a half bottle of Cote du Rhone Villages - lovely. For dessert we have tarte tatine, an "upside down" hot apple tart with caramel ice cream and a chocolate straw, then we also order Creme Brûlée.  The server puts it down in front of us, then lights it on fire!  It caramelized itself!  I've never seen that before.  The man at the table next to us calls it a "three alarm dessert."  Very memorable for our first meal in Paris.  By the time we walk a block back to the hotel, the food settles in and I am so full I think I will die.  I never thought I'd eat again, but of course, by breakfast time this morning, I'm starving.  The hotel serves breakfast and it's included in our room charge, so we go to the little basement cafe - 9:15 by the time we were ready to leave the room.  They have everything one could want - eggs (weird and grainy, don't know why), fresh ham and two cheeses, salami, hot sausages, croissants, chocolate croissants, bread for toast, granola and corn flakes, yogurt, fruit, etc.  Wonderful.  No one has brewed decaf here - I make do with instant.

We leave the hotel and head up to Luxembourg Gardens, a few blocks from here.  Absolutely gorgeous - thousands of tulips and other beautiful flowers and trees.  Lots of people out for a run and many young children playing in the park areas. It's raining steadily.  By the time we leave, my jeans are wet in the area below my raincoat sand above my boots.  We walk to the nearby Pantheon, formerly the church of St Genivieve, now dedicated to the heroes of the country.  Victor Hugo is entombed there along Voltaire and other distinguished past citizens - statesmen, generals and senators.   They have an amazing pendulum in the center under the main dome, so we learn all about that.  From there, we walk to a crepe place Au P'tit Grec that was recommended by one of Ariana's friends.  We ordered one savory (cheese and mushroom with lettuce, tomato and onions) crepe and one sweet (chocolate Grand Marnier).  Amazing!  Ariana said I looked like a little kid with chocolate all over my hands and face and I felt like one - what a wonderful simple delight eating something so amazing is!  I couldn't stop smiling. We left and got about 1/4 mi away when I did stop smiling real quick.  I reached for my iPhone to take a photo and it was not in my pocket.  I panicked and realized I heard a noise beside our table at the crepery.  I had dropped it while we were eating lunch.  We doubled back, running and walking as fast as possible and went straight to the table where we'd been sitting.  A lovely man there said my phone was behind the counter, where the owner retrieved it for me.  I praised God and asked him to bless the person who turned it in - it would've been a disaster to be without my phone for the rest of the trip.  I was so grateful that someone honest found my phone.

Cookies on Ile St Louis

Notre Dame Gargoyle

We headed on to Notre Dame Cathedral, checking out all the unbelievably beautiful shops along the way.  We entered the cathedral with hundreds of others and walked around the inside.  You're asked to remain silent while doing so.  People were not silent, but were pretty quiet.  It's huge and gorgeous, so much stained glass. We went outside to climb to the top, for which you have to pay, touring the chapel itself was free.  We waited for more than half an hour in freezing wind and rain and nearly gave up, but I wanted to see the gargoyles close up so badly.  It was worth the wait!  We climbed 383 stairs (give or take couple - if Stan Schwarz reads this, please don't hold me to that!)  and took photos from several levels and in the bell tower.  Incredible views of the city with the ominous sky as a backdrop.  We left there and walked to Ile St Louis, a chic little enclave of shops and restaurants to the area north of St Germain. We stopped at lovely little shops and stores and had a snack of Bertillion ice cream (suggested as the best in Paris - it was wonderful!) and enjoyed all the colorful windows filled with pastries and confections.  We went to an area to catch the Metro full of amazing patisseries - we walked through and soaked up the beauty of the sweet creations filling the counters and cases.  We sat out another heavy rain under a heat lamp at Nectarine, where we had coffee and shared a rich, thick hot chocolate.  Soooo perfect! We walked back along a narrow sidewalk to catch the metro to the Sacre Coeur and it began to rain steadily.  I hate having my hood up, but my hair was already so wrecked, I put it up and just as I did, an awning under which we passed gave up it's stash of rainwater - right on my head and Ariana's!  We screamed and laughed - it was seconds after we put our hoods up.  We got wet but not drenched, thankfully.  We went into some high-end shoe and clothing shops to check out the local fashions.

Sacre Coeur

On we went to the Sacre Coeur, the sacred heart, the highest point in the city.  The Pope has said mass there.  We chalked up another 294 stairs.  Smaller chapel, but beautiful altar and the surrounding area had lots of shops and store fronts to peer into.  We had a coffee and soaked up some sun when it came out brightly around 6:00.  From there we meandered to a cafe where Ariana had eaten in October - Chez Francis La Butte.  They didn't serve meals until 8:00, so we sat and had wine and pommes frittes and a jar of pork pate served by our rockstar waiter, Adrien.  He was very pleasant and was serving the entire restaurant himself.  We were surrounded by smokers and I can still smell smoke on myself - I was fine for most of the evening, but started to wear down towards the end.  Hard to adjust to after living in CA - Scotland was the same - smokers everywhere!!!  Anyway, for dinner we had steak tartare with fresh ginger (fantastic!) and a very good chicken brochette, which Adrien dropped on his first attempt to serve it.  We shared the tartare while we waited for them to redo it, so it was not an issue.  We were too full for dessert, so we went across the street and picked up an opera cake (my favorite from my LA Vie en Rose days) which we brought back to the hotel to eat.  It wasn't nearly as good as La Vie's - guess we'll have to try some at another patisserie tomorrow!