We began our day by me getting frustrated at the limited internet connectivity at our apartment. The place has Wifi, but it is not working properly (nor is the TV) and we have to connect to unsecure networks floating around in the area. I have called the manager about this and am assured that someone will come by to check on it. I am not confident they will.
We set out to eat lunch by sampling some local meats, cheeses and breads via a makeshift picnic. Outside the little butcher shop, they are receiving their meats for the day. Here’s what we saw.
What this didn’t show was the strange looking beast of a man who looked at us with his crazy eyes and told us not to take any pictures. I am not sure why, but cest la vie. At least I wasn’t the only tourist taking a picture. These are whole pigs, and the crazy beast brought in a whole cow, sans skin. Gotta use the whole animal people!
The local patisserie hooked us up, as does the fromaggerie. We sat in a little garden by the Notre Dame and take it all in. Wow, this stuff is good. A lean ham, some soft cheese and fresh crusty bread sure do work wonders. Everything is light and tasty and I wish I could eat a 100 of these little sandwiches. Alas, 3 will have to do. We topped it off with some apples and bananas, just to make us feel like we are eating healthy. Also, the massive dairy diets we are on have backed up both our systems up and we try to ingest a little fiber here and there to try and move things along. The day we have to leave and return to soft bread and weak cheese will be a sad one indeed, and I think my next line of work will be a French food import business.
The Mongrels
We took in the surroundings as we meandered our way through lunch, until we noticed that the 300 or so kids around us were all acting like they drank the kool-aid. Seriously, it was though 300 little zombies were running around trying to brain each other. They hit, kicked, shoved, slammed with backpacks and threw water on each other with true mean spiritedness and I was afraid Malcolm was watching and learning too. I guess it’s good to see that it is not just American kids that are violent, but I wonder how many Arnold Schwartzenegger movies contributed to the melee. I guess I would be that violent too if I had been subjected to Twins more than once.
We went back to Luxembourg gardens and Malcolm played with some bigger kids who were a little better behaved. He stood on the sidelines and begged for candies they were eating and some were nice enough to share. Unfortunately, the sugar got them going too, and soon thereafter they were trying to beat the shit out of each other. This was a very neat scene in one section of the park.
On our way back we stopped at the Notre Dame I “hunched” over for this pic.
Heee Heee Heee, get it? I had a “hunch” you would. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
More French Flavor
I was going to make dinner in the apartment, so I needed one crucial item for tonight’s roast pork: olive oil. I saw that our charming little street had a charming little olive oil shop so I headed out to secure some high-end stuff. I once again practiced my “I don’t speak French” French and got into the tiny, stifflingly warm shop and completely panicked. I looked like the shop girl was trying to rob me as I choked out some garbage reasonably close to je ne parl Francais. Then I started to sweat. The shop girl looked more concerned that I would keel over and faint than annoyed that I was another stupid American. The back and forth that ensued was neither quaint nor enjoyable for the path to the correct olive oil is long and complicated. I clucked, nodded and massively sweated my way through whether I wanted fruity or piquant (I don’t even know what that means), cooking or as dressing, French or Spanish, and several other key qualities to consider. I finally decided on the cheapest one in the store, not so much because it was the cheapest, but because it was the easiest one for me to point to. The shop girl said that she hoped I liked it during the intolerable 5 minutes it took for the credit card to run, and I said that I hoped so too, and that I would bring my friends and family there too, when they arrived. She clearly didn’t understand what I meant and looked at me like I was inviting her out to attend my grandmother’s funeral. With relief, I left the store with some ridiculously expensive oil, a fragile mental state, and the desire to speak in perfectly good English to the stove.
The pork and sweet potatoes (and a salad for good measure) was decent, but hey it was fresh, local and best of all, not inedible. Malcolm used to eat sweet potatoes by the handful, but tonight he was showing how much he had grown up. Kids are weird this way: yesterday’s best thing ever is today’s no fuckin’ way I’m touching that. So he went back to mac and cheese and everything was fine.
After our dinner, and Malcolm was bathed and bedded, I went to secure us a Nutella Crepe to celebrate more Parisian delicacies. By the way, Amy and I have set the lofty goal of sampling delicious French desserts every day we are here. It is a lofty goal and one that I hope to achieve. I know that others have lofty goals too while here (seeing every piece at the Louvre, making it to every important landmark or learning French) but ours seems enjoyable to do and will leave us with a permanent reminder of our trip (making us too fat to fit into our clothes).
I had to stand in line a bit, as the creperie was packed and everyone had just ordered. When it came to be my turn, I successfully ordered in French. Better yet, we actually got a Nutella crepe! There is something so right about seeing a skillful chef work the crepe wheel and make your dessert right in front of you. I took it back to the apartment and we enjoyed the crepe with some decent wine. Enjoyed is probably not the word though, more like made love with our mouths. We took our time too, and the gerbil-sized crepe probably took about 15 minutes to eat, each of us savoring each bite, licking our teeth and gums between each bite, and washing it down with wine.
Sadly the eating part of our day was done, and we drifted off to sleep reading about the Paris of old. I am reading A Moveable Feast, by Hemingway and Amy is reading the Autobiography of Alice Tokeville (or something close to that) by Gertrude Stein. Both are set in Paris in the early 20th century. Isn
’t it weird that we are no longer in the 20th century? It is interesting to read about the Paris they lived in and to set out on the same adventures that we do now. Only, they seemed to go inside the buildings. Losers.
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