As a brief introduction to the following novella, I would like to comment on a few things about myself and the trip. First, to my bewilderment, I became obsessed with dog poop on this trip. Not just because everyone in Paris has a dog and nobody picks up, but because I am the least graceful person I know and if anyone is going to end the day with poop on their shoe, it's going to be me. Second, I am a fairly confident person in English because I think my conversational skills when I'm lost make me seem approachable and people therefore want to help. This was not so in France. I did not take French in high school, so I was terrified of communication. I came to heavily rely on the Darrows' knowledge of French, and even found myself turning into an idiot when Bryan explained (more than once) that I essentially ran from someone who was speaking English to me. Last and most importantly, I love food. I love to cook, I love watching the Food Network, I love reading recipes, and I am a pretty adventurous eater. This caused most of the trip to become centered around what I ate. All memories of France stem from what I ate on any given day. With that being said, the following journal of our experience in Paris takes place with me at all times avoiding poop and French communication, and becoming obsessed with food. So, here goes:
Day 1: We arrived in Paris early in the morning just in time to enjoy a Parisian rush-hour experience, which I immediately enjoyed if you know what sort of passenger I am. We had flown through the night without any sleep due to excitement and a good in-flight movie lineup, so we laid down for a nap for a few hours once we got to the apartment. When we woke up, the French culinary adventure began with supplies Mark had purchased for our arrival. We had a lunch spread of marinted olives, chicken, spicy mustard, brown bread, and a bottle of wine (we were in France, so obviously noontime wine is acceptable). After lunch we walked through the neighborhood (16th ward) to get acquainted, and then down to the Siene River and the Eiffel tower. After marveling at the seemingly impossible size of the tower for some time, we walked back up to Trocadero to have a glass of wine. We sat for quite a while chatting and having some wine-induced giggles as we enjoyed the view from our table. We headed back to the apartment as the fatigue began to set in and later went around the corner to Le Passy for dinner. I ate filet of some kind (Bryan insists it was Dori from Finding Nemo) with beurre blanc (white butter) and breadcrumbs baked on top with a side of zucchini au gratin. Dessert was a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.
Day 2: Bryan made breakfast: English muffins with egg, serrano ham (cooked in a pan until perfectly crispy), laughing cow cheese, and salt and pepper. We ate, showered, got ready for the day and welcomed Mark back from his business trip. We went to lunch at Cafe Trocadero before he had to return to work for a meeting. This would be the first of two times I ran into trouble with foreign food. I ordered the salad trocadero which came with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, Swiss cheese, smoked, aged thinly-sliced ham, and a light creamy horseradish dressing. Most of the salad was very good and I was doing just fine eating it. However, the ham was very difficult to cut into smaller pieces, so I was stuck putting very large slices in my mouth at once. I don't know how everyone else's gag reflex operates, but if I have to chew something for more than 2 minutes or so, mine kicks in. I managed to choke down the potential disaster, and handed the rest of the salad off to Bryan. I was later scolded for being ridiculous and told by Jill and Mark that if I don't like something, don't eat it. Unfortunately, I'm a very curious diner. We'll get to that later. After lunch we walked down to the Arc de Triomphe, up to the top, and down the Champs-Elysees for a few miles. The view from the Arc was amazing. To see the eiffel tower jutting out from the cityscape in that way made me really appreciate how massive it actually is. After our long walking tour through Paris, we returned to the apartment and waited for Mark to return from work. We all went to dinner a few blocks away at Cafe du Muette: We all had a blush champagne as an apertif, which I have interpreted as the drink version of an appetizer. The real appetizer that I got was an artichoke bottom with a poached egg, topped with smoked salmon. Bryan had escargot which was my favorite. Dinner was roasted back of bass with buttered potato purée. I'm going to start addressing my mashed potatoes that way. Dessert was a quartered and sliced pineapple served with rhubarb compote and spun sugar laced over the top. The entire 2 to 3 hour meal ended with espresso and dark chocolate with almond. I love how the French do dinner.
Day 3: woke up at 11:15am-- oops! Had a dark chocolate-filled warm croissant for breakfast and had a quick lunch (wheat bread with French mustard and packaged chicken) and coffee. Bryan and I walked to the cineaqua du Paris while Jill stayed back to get some unpacking and settling in done. We spent 2 hours and lots of video footage underground looking at exotic fish and being terrified of the touch pool where they allow you to have large fish have a go at eating your hand off. We went home to rest and check in with Jill, then went for beers at Le Passy when Mark got home from work. From there, we went to dinner at La Matta Pizza. We had an antipasto platter with mortadella, spicy salami, and prosciutto with capers and gherkins. We also had a platter with two bruschettas topped with Spanish olives, and a free apertif of chianti. For dinner, I had a Pizza Regina (cheese, ham, mushrooms, and oregano). To follow suit with many of the other pizza selections, I also ordered an egg on mine. I thought it would come hard-boiled and diced atop the pizza, but when it came out it was a raw egg cracked over the pizza and just beginning to cook. I was okay with this concept, but as a rule dislike the texture of clear, runny eggs. Once I spread the egg out and it proceeded to cook to a more familiar color, I bit in. Delicious!! Dessert was tiramisu with espresso.
Day 4: Woke up, had a quick breakfast of toast and Nutella, and went to the flower shop. We browsed potted plants for the apartment windowsills with Jill in order to have a truly French view from the apartment. We found some nice plants that were tagless, and therefore remain nameless. We later took the train to Notre Dame, also known as Pigeon Disneyland. Bryan and I braved the cold to walk the stairs to the top and back down. The view was amazing, and I tried to remind myself of that while I stood shivering and glaring at Bryan as he filmed every angle from every terrace on every level of the roof. After the descent, we walked through the Latin District and got a glass of wine. While we were in the area, we also went to an Irish pub, Canadian bar, and Scottish pub. Still enjoying our time spent bar crawling along the Seine, we frolicked through the Louvre courtyard and settled in to eat dinner at an Irish bar across the street. We ate stew with carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and lamb in a light broth. It was the perfect hearty dinner we needed to end our hearty night of drinking.
Day 5: woke up early to go to the market. We stopped at Le Passy to have a chocolate croissant and an espresso, which had become my very favorite breakfast combination. We hurried off to the market and saw lots of strange foods and had many samples. We sampled wine, foie gras (of both the duck and goose variety), clementines, and shrimp. We each picked a cheese, and I also found some intriguing puff pastries, so we got some ham and mushroom varieties. We assembled a lunch out of the market supplies and threw in a bottle of wine. The mushroom pastry was delicious, and tasted similar to a pot pie. The ham was good as well, but resembled a slab of spam inside a pastry, which didn't sit well with me. We had 5-6 different cheeses on a tray to eat alone, on a fresh baguette, or with some apple slices. My favorite cheese was called Compte, and my least favorite was the cheese I blindly selected at the market, Tomme de Chevre. The Compte was a hard cheese similar to a parmiggiano-reggiano, and the Tomme tasted like high-end cow manure. We also had some dried sausage that Bryan picked out, and sliced tomatoes in balsamic vinegar. After lunch, we headed off to the Louvre with high hopes for seeing everything it had to offer. As it turns out, that is impossible. We spent about 5 hours walking through the halls of the Italian Renaissance which takes up about half of one floor. There are 3 floors total. After visiting the Louvre, we went to Le Petite Tour for dinner. I ordered escargot, which came in the shells, cooked with what I believe was butter, garlic, parsley, and basil. The sauce is especially good for dipping bread. I also tried some homemade foie gras with fig jelly that Bryan ordered. I still don't think I can say I actually like it, but this was the best way I had tried it so far. I had scallops for dinner with a side of potatoes au gratin. For dessert, Bryan and I had profiteroles and decaf espresso. Delicious!!
Day 6: Woke up and went to church. I was afraid of someone speaking to me and not knowing what they were saying, but Bryan reminded me that we're Catholic and generally don't speak to each other in church. What a relief. We left church and went to a small market, looked around, and got some flowers and an orchid. We came back to the apartment and had some cheese, wine, peanuts, and bread. We spent some time talking and relaxing and then went to lunch at Dino. We all had a glass of white wine and I had pizze royale which had cheese, tomato, ham, and pancetta. It was very cold that day, so we spent most of it at the apartment just enjoying the down time. For dinner, we made sandwiches at home on baguettes with zucchini, broccoli, onion, and garlic baked in the oven. We had a fruit tart for dessert with apricots, strawberries, and kiwi on top. C'est magnifique!! We watched the movie Julie & Julia after dinner which led to me spending the rest of the trip pronouncing all of my French like Julia Child.
Day 7: woke up around 9/10:00, showered, ate a quick breakfast, and got ready to go to the Eiffel tower. When we got there, we discovered that it was closed due to technical issues. We cut our losses and sat in front of the tower for a while. Bryan drank a beer while I had a hot chocolate and we both ate banana-filled crepes. After that, we walked down LePassy and shopped. We got cologne for Bryan, chocolate for souvenirs, some jam, a baguette, and a tomato and basil panini for lunch. We met Mark at the Frog Pub for happy hour drinks, and then went to a Chinese restaurant called Man-Lung for dinner. I had Chinese Roast Duck for dinner, and Jill and I shared apple-caramel fritters for dessert. The server turned them in caramelized sugar with chopsticks and covered them with sesame seeds. He then dipped them in cold water to harden the caramel. It was very good, but the caramel was very hard and poked me in the throat and caused me to gag, thus beginning the second food-related incident where I almost vomited at a restaurant. While Bryan stared on watching the color drain from my face as I forced the apple down, the caramel was working on cauterizing my taste buds. While all this was going on, the waiter delivered free saki which also made me gag, burned my throat and mouth, and evaporated the chapstick right off my lips. I drank the teaspoon of water I had left, and then the hot towels arrived. Seeing them as a relief, I dove in. Contrary to what I had hoped, the towel was still scalding hot and burned the remainder of my face off, thus ending the worst 3 minutes of my life. C'est la vie.
Day 8: woke up and went to the monoprix with Jill to get groceries. Bryan and I picked out some wine to bring back to the US with us, realizing that Wegmans will never win Best Store Ever until it adds a wine selection. We stopped back to the apartment to drop the groceries off and set off to see the Eiffel Tower again. The very top was closed until that coming weekend, but we got to go to the middle floor. We took pictures and video and enjoyed the sights for a while, then came back down. It was starting to get very cold, so we headed home. We stopped to get a panini with peppers, onions, olives, eggplant and mozzarella to split. Later on, Mark's co-worker came to have drinks and dinner with us. We had some Brouilly and Bordeaux wine with baguette slices, foie gras, fig jam, and a spread of cheeses and sausage. After that, we went to a seafood restaurant called La Maree Passy where Jill and I split appetizers of langoustines and fried gambas (shrimp) with a tandoori sauce. For dinner, I got a bouillabaisse with a whole fish hiding at the bottom. It was served with Parmesan cheese, toasted baguette slices, and a small bowl of some sort of mustard. I wasn't sure how to apply the mustard to the soup so it was left out, though I'm sure it would have been a nice addition. I also ate a fish eye that Bryan was too afraid to eat. I was also afraid to eat it, but I have this obnoxious tendency to compete with Bryan over ridiculous things like "Who can eat the weirdest food", which I won. For dessert, we had a rum cake that was a bit rummy for my taste but still very good and beautifully presented.
Day 9: Our last full day in Paris. The morning was spent puttering around, getting ready, and waiting for Mark to get home from work. We walked up to Le Passy with Jill and had lunch. I got crepes with chicken and vegetables wrapped and fried. Shortly after that, Mark returned early from work and accompanied us on a walking tour of the areas near the apartment that we had not yet seen. We stopped at a pub hidden away down an alley called The Honest Lawyer, and had a few beers while we recapped our favorite parts of the trip. For dinner, Mark and Jill had asked us to pick our favorite restaurant to revisit. Bryan was feeling indecisive and I love pizza, so we went to La Matta again. An Italian restaurant on our last night in France may seem strange, but good food is good food.
Day 10: Our flight was at 1:00, so we woke up and planned to be packed, ready, and to the airport by 11:00, ensuring enough time to get our bags checked and make our way through passport control and security. We had one last breakfast of chocolate croissants, and waited outside for the taxi. We hugged Jill goodbye, and set off with Mark to the airport. We checked our bags at about 11:00 and got our tickets. We were originally supposed to fly into Chicago, but due to a blizzard there the day before were instead redirected to Washington D.C. on an earlier flight. We found all of this out when we were handed our tickets. Needless to say, it was a quick goodbye to Mark and a steady sprint to get to the plane in under an hour. We made it with an extra 15 to 20 minutes to spare. We boarded the plane at about noon, and settled in to our seats both excited to get home, and sad to see the French countryside grow smaller and smaller beneath us as we took off into the sky.
* A special thanks to Mark and Jill Darrow, who not only made this trip possible, but also made it unforgettable. We truly appreciate all you have done for us.
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