13 years on, and still having Parisian Esvapades- see Delectable Excursions

Great, Fabulous, Wonderful

Many people have asked me about my trip to Paris.  I say, great, fabulous, wonderful, just what I wanted, needed, hoped.  My favorite question though was from a thoughtful friend who asked what was my biggest surprise.  I have a few.

The biggest surprise I think were the D-Day re-enactors.  I had totaly not expected that and it held a sick sort of fascination for me.  I liked that they were there and I felt sort of irked that they were there at the same time.  Almost all of them sporting American flags on their ancient uniforms, American flags flying on their 1940 vehicles, but speaking with British, Scotch, German or Norwegian accents.  I think I was disappointed that they were not actually Americans after I had a repetitive stress injury from waving at them our first day in Normandy.

Not far behind this were all the Vets that were there, just ready and willing to talk to the likes of me and share their stories. Old men, a little wobbly, using canes, with chicken necks, hearing aids, and gnarled fingers who are heroes! They share their precious stories of how they fought, won, lost and survived in that fateful battle.

Less important surprises were things like the amount of butter in a croissant.  Seriously, I knew that there is a lot, but I had no idea!    And how the heck am I going to get my stick of American butter pounded down like we did in class?  I guess it will be a good work out after someone pisses me off real good!

And the Macarons!   We made them and “I helped” (said with the same southern accent from the chicken commercial) and they were SO good!  Pink ones with delicious raspberry filling, the Tan coffee flavored ones with the caramel or chocolate or both filling in between!  The sweet little feet of the shells as they baked, and that I could accomplish this at home  (Which I have).  The camaraderie in the kitchen as we all made them for the first time.  The gentle, engouraging guidance of Pino, our instructor.  The realization that they were just as good as those of an unnamed Macaron God.

The trip to St Denis was very enlightening for me as well.  It was incredible to see the tombs of those I have studied so hard.  I had no idea that the royals had their “entrails” removed after they died and that they had their own separate tomb for those entrails.  Puts a whole new spin on being a princess, at least for me! Seeing the tombs of Charlemagne, Francois, Catherine and Marie was a quick walk backwards through some of my recent learning.

I was not sure if at the ripe old age of fifty I would be able to maintain my weight and consume what ever I wanted.  I had not done a very good job of that at home, though I did take off some weight prior to my leaving.  To my great surprise my scales read that I had gained about 6 lbs on my arrival home.  I was rather surprised as none of my pants were feeling tight, but that is what the scales said.  Until I stepped off and noticed that someone had set them 10 lbs heavy!  No one is taking credit for this fun little prank, but I have my own list of suspects!  So in the end I did eat to my heart’s content and take off 4  pounds in the process.  It had to be all the walking I did!  If only I could do that here!

Lastly, I was not totally sure, in spite of my bravado, that I would not get home sick after being gone and alone for an entire month.  But I did not.  I missed my peeps, but to be honest I was too busy, entertained, engaged to get lonely.  Did I mention that all what walking, frequent grocery shopping and regular shopping, cooking, and reading in the parks of Paris kept me too busy to get lonely.  Did I mention the amount of time it took to blog every day?  So I proved to myself that I can be somewhat self reliant and do, well, great, fabulous wonderful!

Farewell my Love - June 7, 2009

Paris put on all her finery; she draped herself in peach, mauve and pink as the night sky approached, finally putting on her diamonds.  Oh, she was lovely.  We sat in a little seating area on Pont Neuf as the sun was setting and watched her show. As I watched I felt tears well up in  my eyes.  Joey was teaching Courtney the Electric Slide in the background and Jodi was caressing the bottle as she imbibed in the last of her “big” bottles of cider. 

Today we drove back to Paris from Avrranche.  We got up, all had breakfast in the breakfast room at the hotel and were on our way.  I failed to choose a major road, and my excellent “map reader” did not correct me!   It seemed to take us forever to get back to Paris. We would just gain speed and hit another small town and have to slow way back down!  I just wanted to get back so we could do a couple of things before we left.  Joey wanted to see the “Thinker” and I failed him there too!  At least there was a mock “Thinker” in the Varenne Metro station! 

We drove back into Paris without major incident, argument or strife!  We both think it was our place of sincere prayerfulness as we approached Paris.  Regardless we also both felt very blessed at our simple return.  We returned the car with relative ease and found a taxi quite easily as well.  Our Hotel was one that had been recommended on a list serve I haunt.  It was the Hotel Palais Bourbon, it had a family room and breakfast at a reasonable price for Paris.  It is not a do over, but it was not horrid.  It did have a bidet, which was cause for some discussion with our two adolescents.  We dropped off our stuff as quickly as four people can and headed out to do some ultimate last minute souvenir shopping, dinner at Boullion Racine (Joe wanted Steak Tartare and I was thinking him wise) and to watch the sunset over Paris.  We wandered near Notre Dame and along the Seine, getting a chance to hear this band playing and goofing off there just as a person approached, they packed up and split.  One has to have a license to play street music in Paris and apparently they did not.  We encountered them about a half hour later not very far away near boulevard St. Michele.

Dinner was another good meal, Joe and I did have steak tartare, Jodi and Courtney and I had some raviolis that were actually an appetizer (I had the prix fix), and we all shared the dessert that came with my Prix fix.  My food was all very good, this restaurant, unlike Bofinger gave us the same good service en familie as I got when I was alone.  We hit up a few more shops on our way to Pont Neuf.  We sat down and relaxed just in time to see her last seduction.  I was ready to go home, to see my people, to see how my garden had fared, to take a bath in my tub, even to go back to work.  But I was also sad to be leaving Paris. My long awaited trip was now memories rather than anticipation.  Au revoir freedom, gastronomy, activity and new friends.  Au Revoir Paris, That translates literally into “Until I see you again”! 

So Far to the Top Saturday, June 6, 2009

 Well the kids are experiencing the high point of their trip as I type.  They are swimming in “cold but warm” pool in about 65-degree weather at the hotel in St. Jean le Thomas.  We let the kids sleep in again today and Jodi and I went across for breakfast in the breakfast areas in the hotel Des Bains.  The visit to Le Mont Sainte Michele went over like a bag of rocks, the climbing was too hard, it was too hot, it was so old, and so on.  It was incredibly crowded and we did manage to find yet another mean person there.  I seriously do wonder how I manage to encounter most of the classical mean French people here. The kids had not had breakfast or lunch as of yet, so I thought it would be cool to have an Mt. St Michele omlette, however we encountered the problem of: what sounded good to one did not to the other, We continued on looking and they both agreed on a Nutella Crepe.  It was a little “half self service” sort of place and the little angel at the crepe counter handed us a tray with 4, count ‘em, four plastic place settings and when she realized that Jodi wanted only a coke, she reached out and took one back and when I ordered  only a coffee for my self she snatched up another. She then had to take a whole five steps and tell the person who was ringing the order up, about the fact that we were not all getting something to eat.  She managed during this tirade, to burn the nutella in Courtney’s crepe, which had been scantily applied to begin with.  At the end of this delightful encounter she told us to go upstairs to sit, where we were alone and without a view!  What a Peach, or should I san Normandy Apple?

Anyway, Joeys post viewing comment is “it was amazing”, and Courtney’s is it was “awesome, I liked it”.Personally I am amazed each time I have the privilege if going there, at the amount of work it took to build this place on an island over 1,000 years ago.  IT is hard to imagine how the work would be done today with all of our modern abilities and machinery, and to take it to the next step is beyond me.  I asked the kids to pretend that it is 1000 years ago and that they were one of the monks that lived there, but I got a “I would never go down if I had to come back up here again.  I wonder if I gave my parents this much heck?

While were at the top someone had written Happy Birthday in French in the sand, it was so fun.  I took that opportunity to shame my family because they had not done that for me! 

So, After the swimming affair, we took off for St. Malo.  It was a fortified island in the middle ages, but is now part of the mainland and the fortified (walled) city still remains, though of course the population had spread well beyond the old walls.  We drove and drove to get there and it started raining like crazy, how ever I had not been there and Jodi seemed eager to see it so we persevered.  We ate dinner at a outdoor cafe, Joey having mussels this time, scallops for me, a hamburger for Coutney (I Think) and Jodi just did her best to not be ill over the smell of our seafood.   We were sitting near a outdoor gas heater and I blame it on the heater rather than the seafood!  We sat next to a couple from Holland and it was fun to chat with them.  I love chatting with someone and engaging the kids in the conversation!  As we left the sun was setting and Jodi took that opportunity to take some more sunset photos!  We still had a long drive back, but it was worth the trip.  

The Real and the Pretenders June 5, 2009

I decided if Mc Donald’s was going to be the bane of my existence then I might as well use them.  Jodi and I planned on a quick drive through McDonalds for breakfast this morning and then on our way to the American Cemetery!  On the way I noticed a patisserie and I stopped to get Jodi and I a pastry, but the kids were holding out for better.  Horror of Horrors, McDonalds does not serve breakfast, at least not the one in Avarranche!  So on we trekked for white a while, needing fuel for both the car and our bodies.  Finally we found fuel for the car, and eventually for us.  We ended up at a Bar Tabac where we could get coffee and milk, after we paid a preliminary visit to the bakery next door. 

We got to the American Cemetery and got our exercise for the day, as we had to walk almost a mile to get in because they were parking everyone far away.  We walked in to barrier tape, bleachers and a sea of chairs set up for President Obama for the following day.  It was not it’s normal lovely self, but I guess if you had not ever been there before….  Again the up side was that there were all these heroes there, both those who had experienced D-Day 65 years ago and those who currently wearing our American uniform.  It was such a huge blessing to be able to talk to the men who had been there, hear their stories, and express our thanks!  I had also the privilege of bedeviling a few of our current soldiers and at one such experience one of them, a paratrooper, gave each kid a pair of wings!  How special was that?  The kids were precious, a woman had walked by us touching each stone she walked by, as if caressing it.  A few moments later I saw both kids doing the same thing, with only the reverence that can some from knowing that you are in a sacred place. I don’t believe that I will ever visit that place and not be moved, by not only the sacrifice but also the magnitude of the thousands of crosses and stars there.  It truly is holy ground.

Next on the agenda for the day was Pont Du Hoc, but first Cider for Jodi.  She loves the hard cider that they make in Normandy.  We stopped as the same place we had visited before.  The kids loved it and we had to buy some apple juice for them too!   Pont Du Hoc had changed and morphed from a simple place you can go into a tourist attraction complete with parking lot and bathrooms.  The kids had suffered through the “Longest Day” and I though it would help drive the story home.  They loved running in and out of the craters left by fellow Americans 65 years ago.  One some times wonders if they get it or not.  We were walking, the kids playing and like a thief in the night a plane was on us, just overhead without any warning.  I found out later that it was a new plane hot off the factory floor that was paraded around all weekend just for the D-Day events.    It looked old, but I found it hard to imagine we had the technology back then to make a plane so quiet that was not a glider.  As I mentioned earlier, Pont Du Hoc has changed significantly, it is now so roped off that it is hard to even see the actual piece of rock the title refers to.  I wonder how many people go and think that the memorial is actually the rock?  We got to visit with a couple of D-Day vets there too, one fellow said that he did not wear his uniform unless it was an official event, I found his reticence charming.

St Mere Eglise, where there is still likeness of a man hanging on the church, was next.  It was tricky to find a space to park as here the whole center of town was barricaded off for festivities to come.  There were scads of pretenders here and it was almost eerie to consider that this was as close as I was going to come to the real thing.  Everywhere one would look were American, British and Canadian flags, thank you signs and other D-day paraphernalia.

  I love driving straight east from St. Mere Eglise to the water.  We did not find the same beach as Jodi and I had before, but the kids did not care, they still loved it, it was water and they could splash.  Utah beach was blocked off and so we headed back to the hotel by way of Granville.  I was driving and living in fear of yet, another McDonalds, but Jodi is really very good to me.  I had indicated that I wanted to try some more mussels and in Granville we went in search for them.  We found three likely spots right on the Warf and I asked some women passing by which they would recommend.  Fortunately for the kids they recommended the place that also made Pizza.  So I got my mussels and everyone was happy!  After a delightful dinner we wandered in the car up into the older part of town only to encounter a lighthouse.  As we were getting out of the car my phone rang, startled I answered it and it was work!  Ironically they had a person who needed my services and spoke mostly French, Unfortunately I was not available to assist them (other than to give my opinion) and I went back to my vacation, after a small taste of my real life.  The piece of ground on which the lisght house stood had been fortified by the Germans and still even had cannons in the pillboxes.  The setting sun was exquisite and while Jodi is not thrilled with this photo of me, I like it; it softens out those 50 years!