Lisa and Brad's April in Paris: April 2007

Friday 20th 3 hour Chocolate Walk

Today I went on a 3 hour "Chocolate Walk" given by David Lebovitz http://www.davidlebovitz.com/tours.html
The tour was through a company called Context
http://paris.contexttravel.com

I was contemplating whether or not I should do it as it wasn't cheap, 90 euros, but i decided i needed to learn something. I know you are thinking, learn something on a chocolate tour?
After not working for 3 weeks, I gotta tell you I really miss my job!

We went to 8 different places, 5 of which where chocolatiers.

We met at the St. Germain De Pres church at 10am. Believe it or not, I was 15 minutes early!

First stop was Laduree. Famous for their macrons. They opened in 1864 (i think).
Brad and I are going to go back here for tea, as Brad is coffeed out.

I was really excited to come here, to Eric Kayser Boulanerie. He is suppose to be the new hot baker. YUMMMMYYYY!!!

Thur. Avril 19, Marche Place d' Aligre and La Defense

Brad just appeared after reading Stephen Clarke's second book, " Merde Actually" while
I have spent the past 3 hours updating "our" blog for the past week. His first comment to me was that I was logged in as him not me. I don't know why this is a big deal since it is VERY obvious to tell the difference between my writing and his....

Today, I went to an open air market called Place d' Aligre. It is located in the 11th and I did not like it. All the males selling things kept on bothering me, speaking either English or German to me.

Then I took a picture of the back of a woman's stroller and she came out of the store yelling at me in French. This is very common theme for me. If I speak French to someone, they respond to me in English. Actually this is great because i won't be able to understand them if they responded to me in French. However when they are mad at me, that's when i get the french...
So this woman is Muslim and you aren't suppose to take pictures of Muslim woman when they are in "their" section of town. I wasn't taking a picture of her, but she thought i was. She then followed me for a few blocks (still yelling at me) until I lost her by ducking into a store.

I stopped to pick up a baguette and a couple items for dessert. I asked for a bag, and the woman responded to me that she could put the dessert in a bag, but the baguette is NEVER to go into a bag! She handed me the fresh baguette which wax tissue over the middle for me to hold. Well long story short after holding the baguette in the center for so long, it started to go limp. Plus it was very annoying as I was also caring a bunch of other bags. So, while no one was looking i followed the baguette in half and put it into one of my bags. I'm sure I just offended all of France.

Onto La Defense with Brad. Then a movie, Mr. Bean's vacation (actually it was really funny)
dinner at Chez Nenesse (a great local mom and pop restaurant)

Avril 18th A bottle of Champagne and the Eiffel Tower

(Written by Lisa, logged in as Brad, again by mistake)
We started our day by going to the Carnavalet Museum. I really won't recommend going here unless you are in Paris for 1 month and you are running out of museums to see. Seriously though it was a great museum and full of tons and tons of art and furniture but it took a long time to get through it all. I was kinda over it soon after we started looking around.

Next stop was Maison Europeene de la Photographie. This was a really good photography museum except for it had 5 or 6 different exhibits, but no permanent collection on display.
Some of the exhibits were these crap video displays. There were 2 GREAT exhibits, one was one titled, TRASH. Basically these 2 guys went into about 15 different celebrities trash and photographed it and made a show of it. NOTE- everyone's trash except Jack Nicholson's had at least one diet coke in it. (his just had booze) Which brings me to another point, i have almost given up Diet Coke. I have only had 4-5 d.c. since i've been here.
The second exhibt was of Richard Kalvar who is a Magnum photographer. Really great!!

For dinner we packed a picnic and headed to The Eiffel Tower. Nothing more romantic than a bottle of champagne, really smelly cheese, bread, strawberries and a chocolate eclair.
The bread and eclair are from our favorite Boulangerie, Gosselin on rue St. Honre. This shop was the Grand Prix winner of the city's Best Baguette in Paris award, supplies bread and croissants to Jacques Chirac and the Elysee Palace. (all according to T&L magazine)

Jill this is for you :-)

Tuesday 17 Normandy

This is posted by lisa, not brad, again a mistake...

We took the 8:30am train up to Normandy today. It was a 2 hour train ride to Caen.
We rented a car for the day to tour the beaches of Normandy and go to The Memorial Museum.
The Memorial Museum was on the outskirts of Caen. It was a great museum on WWII showing events leading up to D-Day, a 35 minute movie on D-day with real footage, and events leading up to the end of the war. Not being a war buff, I learned a lot!

One of the many villages we drove through trying to find our way to the American Cemetery.

Perfectly trimed trees at the American Cemetery.

The cemetery looks over Omaha Beach. You can't really see it in the picture of the beach but those little black dots are people walking on the beach.

Monday 16th shopping, High Tea at Mariage Freres on Bourg-Tibourg

lisa not brad......

Today was my shopping day. First stop Mora, a GREAT cooking store.
I got a bunch of items that you either can't get in the U.S or they are super expensive.

Next stop was the chic shopping area by La Madeline. I thought i would save time by jumping on the Metro. Wrong. As many of you know I have NO sense of direction. I can get home from a place because i visually see where i am going, however even with a map i can't get myself anywhere.

After exiting the wrong exit from the Metro I ended up in front of Fauchon.
Actually this was perfect because i wanted to go there. Next I was trying to find Longchamp.
I could go right or left and of course i chose the wrong direction. I was dressed right to go into all these stores and I was even wearing high heels. (i was wearing flip flops and then i would change before going into the store) I didn't want to look like a stupid american.

Tres Chic Shopping

OK enough shopping, time for High Tea. I called Brad and he met me at Mariage Freres. This is a lovely tea salon. I think there are 3 or 4 in the city. The funny thing is the French think they invented tea. After sitting down they give you a book in English and in French explaining just how "they" invented tea. So of course I had French Breakfast tea and some YUMMMY food.

The picture at the top of this posting was my lunch.

avril 15th Luxembourg Garden, shopping, dinner at Languedoc

surprise lisa logged in as brad, yet again

Today we had a great day. We slept in (a common theme on our vacation). We headed to the Bastille Market, which is suppose to be the biggest open air market in Paris. We got there as it was closing, so we headed off to the Luxembourg Gardens.

This park is beautiful. However I got a major problem with the parks in Paris. You can't actually sit on the grass. There are a bunch of chairs and benches for you to sit on and LOOK at the grass. On a day like today when it was almost 80, all you want to do is sit on the grass and have a picnic. So we sat in our uncomfortable metal chairs, that I had to beat an old lady to get to (just kidding, but they are hard to come by) and ate our picnic. I would love to show you some beautiful pictures of the gardens however I realized after caring around my 10 pound camera for hours, that my battery was dead. I did take some pictures on my treo, but i have no idea how to get them off the treo.

Tonight we had dinner at our one of our favorite places, Le Languedoc. This is the place that we have a huge photograph in our apartment (i gave it to brad on our first anniversary)
Everything was the same and perfect! We each got 9 escargo to start, i had what else but steak w/ pomme frites. yummmyy!! oh and of course a bottle of wine.

Finishing our meal at 11:30 we then headed for a romantic walk along The Seine. This was my favorite part because i made Brad hold my hand the whole time (which he hates).

Saturday April 14 Marche aux Puces de Clignancourt, dinner Chez Janou

lisa not brad.....

Our street. Our street is the Chinatown of Paris. EVERY shop on the street is a bag shop where you can purchase bags, bags and more bags for wholesale.

The antique market.

I have wanted to come to Marche aux Puces de Clignancourt for a long time!
This is a huge antique market where i would like to buy lots of furniture for our
house. I guess we'll be back when we buy a house ;-) Brad was a good sport and after lunch he stayed and read his book at the restaurant while i shopped. no purchases :-( i might have to go back next weekend!

Friday 13th Sainte Chapelle and Pompidou

posted by lisa not brad.....

Day 2 of our 2 day Museum Pass. The Museum Pass is a great idea. It's 30 euros for 2 days and it allow you to cut the lines (but not the security bag check lines) to most of the museums.

So, first stop Sainte Chapelle. Beth (my sister) told us to come here when we were in Paris for our honeymoon. We loved it so much we wanted to come back. The church was built in 1242-1248. This picture does the stain glass no justice! It really is an amazing place!

FYI- the museum pass is great here because the line is so long to get in!

Walking past Notre Dame to go get some lunch (and of course an ice cream) on Ile St. Louis

My second favorite museum in Paris (brad's too) is the Pompidou Center.
The top floor has a modern art collection starting at the impressionists and moving on.
The floor below has the modern modern work. Brad and I spent over 3 hours here.
We loved the top floor. I must say i didn't really get the other floor.