Paris Trip 2009

Paris Travel Blog
~ Paris ~

Tuesday - February 17, 2009 -


Aly standing in fron of the Arch de Triumph (pronunciation)
   

We arrived in Paris about 8:15 AM which was a bit late because we had to take a different plane than the one originally scheduled for our flight. Apparently the first one had some mechanical problems that couldn't be fixed in air. The captain came on the P.A. and said that "We had to get a new plane. This plane has no major problems with it, there's nothing wrong with it, in fact it's perfectly alright". Makes one wonder???
The photo on the left was our room, well, our new room after we left the dungeon room. The middle photo was the Elysee Union hotel sign and the Eiffel Tower, and the photo on the right is Aly's new car. Well, she wants it to be.


We took the RER to Gare du Nord station and walked across the street to have breakfast at, well, someplace. The computer ATE my photo! But this is what Sue looked like inside.

 

W had a GREAT omelet with slightly crispy edges, filled with ham and cheese. The eggs were whipped perfectly!

After that we made our way to our hotel. We were a bit confused when we were researching hotels because we found two web sites for this one same hotel. Web site #1. Web site #2. One looked a bit run-of-the-mill, and one looked amazing. We have never stayed anywhere where the hotel was represented by two completely different web pages, different photos, etc. As soon as we arrived we understood why. This is a completely schizophrenic hotel! They checked us into a horrible room, #515 which was dirty, there were big plaster blotches on the wall, the furniture was way, way Kmart, and instead of a double bed and a single bed, the double bed was really two single beds pushed together to make one double bed with a giant crack in the middle that Sue would have fallen through about half way through the night. (We're snugglers). Apparently this was the room in the tacky web page? Sue went down to the front desk and complained. (We take turns and I had already gone down to complain that the digital key didn't work). They then moved us to room #418 which had marble fixtures in the bathroom, was brightly decorated and everything in the room looked like it was from the second web page. So, since we made our arrangements about eight months prior to us arriving, and we had half a dozen emails communicating with the hotel regarding our reservations, I truly don't know what the magic word is to have them book you into a nice room to start with. The location is really great regardless which side of the schitzo-hotel you end up in. We were so wiped out from our trip that we layed town and took about a four hour nap. (in the nice room!)


Aly wanted to stay in the room and sleep so Sue and I wandered around holding hands in Paris, WE'RE IN PARIS!!!!. Anyway, we wandered closer and closer to the Eiffel Tower and when we were close enough I whipped out one of my really big dating kisses and planted it on Sue. I could tell that she liked it when she nearly fell backwards. It was a little foggy and the Eiffel Tower looked really cool. We also saw this strange bright blue lighting display that looked like it was dripping. We wandered over to that and took a couple of photos and discovered that it was the aquarium. We hadn't seen this on any of the maps we looked at or in any of the travel guides that we'd been looking at. Speaking of maps... Google Earth is a couple of blocks off on just about everything. Nothing that we looked at on Google Earth was actually where they showed it to be! So, FYI, Google Earth will get you into the neighborhood but they certainly won't get you to your address. Sue and I ate some dinner at the Bistro de Longchamp Brasserie. Sue had a mixed cheese and bread plate and I had spaghetti bolonaisse. It was GREAT and the server was really good too.

   
Eiffel Tower official site               Eiffel Tower wikipedia           Eiffel Tower photos



We ran across a store called "Mangas" which Sue thought I should work in. Apparently I have some personal man-gas abilities that she thought that I could apply at such a store. Personally I have no idea what she is talking about... oh, excuse me!
Wednesday - February 18, 2009 -


Today we went to Invalides and hung out. We caught a bite near our hotel at a little pastry shop. It was great.

We have been walking non-stop for a long time now and my knees and my feet are very angry with me. Sue and Aly are sore too. I wish that I could keep up with them better. They are patient and wait for me and we all have fun.
 
 

French Pastries            French Pastry Recipes               French Cheeses        French Cheese Library       French Cheese Guide

 

  

    
For some reason we keep ending up at or near the Eiffel Tower. It's strange but I seem to enjoy looking at the Eiffel Tower almost as much as I enjoy looking at Sue. If something ever happened to Sue I'm afraid that I'd have to move to this neighborhood just for something to look at all day long! We seem to have made some good choices as to our clothing today. It is a little chilly (sorry Sue), and the humidity makes the cold shoot right inside our clothes but it is not uncomfortable. Besides that... IT'S PARIS!
 

There are some truly amazing artifacts at Invalides. Every single artifact here is a work of art in its own right. I can't imagine the hours and hours of work that went into each one. The amount of history contained just in this one building just boggles the mind. It is so interesting looking at the armor and weapons contained in this building. There are tons and tons of them. There are literally rows and rows of canons outside the building, in the entrance and in the courtyard inside.

 


  Gallery of French Armor           More French Armor  




We found a delightful cafe near the Invalides called Au Canon des Invalides where they had the same idea about desserts as we do. I had a really great rabbit, Sue wasn't feeling all that great so she got the French onion soup, and Aly got the penne bollaniase. The penne was good, the soup was fabulous and the rabbit was amazing. Then, after the main courses we had dessert. They had mini-desserts so everybody got three! How cool was that? The server was amazing and after we were done, she bought me a shot of schnapps on the house. Wahoo! They were so friendly that you would have thought that we'd been eating lunch here for the past 20 years. She is the one that took the photo of Sue, Aly and I. She was a great server, but her photography needs some work. She made me look old, fat, and gray!



Next, we were walking down the street and saw a cute neighborhood so we headed there. We found this little store "Les Caprices de Virginie" that had some great stuff in the window. They had great prices. We wanted to buy a lot more than we did but because our return trip includes landing at one airport and taking a cab to another one, we are trying to only have carry-on bags so we passed on some of the other items we wanted.
Sue found a great knit poncho in black but passed on the pink one, even though it was really cute on her. They were really friendly and seemed to be very curious about Alaska when they found were from there. They gave Sue a blue Paris scarf and each of us a Eiffel Tower key ring for free. Really friendly!

On the way to Rennes




~ Rennes ~

Thursday - February 19, 2009 -
Rennes wikipedia     Rennes France for Visitors     Rennes photos

Our schedule has been a bit off because of all of our traveling. After a really early morning bath we headed off for our day. We made it to the TGV train with time to spare. This was an interesting trip as several of the people on the train brought their little French dogs. They are almost always white, but sometimes white with bits of brown or black. They would all neatly fit into a mailbox and they all seem to be a bit territorial. They are treated more as a child would be than a pet. They were well behaved except for the incidental crossing of paths which can't be avoided on a train.




Sixt Car Rental SUCKS!
Expedia SUCKS too!



We arrived in Rennes and began looking for our rental car. We chose Sixt because of a previous great experience but this one cured us of that mistake. Sixt doesn't have an office at the train station, just an address, if you call 0 an address.


This is where Sixt is NOT!

It is where Sixt SHOULD be but is NOT!

This is where we did NOT pick up our rental car.

Well... you get it.

We couldn't find them so we started asking. We asked the espresso places, then the stores, then the maintenance people, then the people walking around. We look at every single sign in the train station about 11 times and then headed out of the train station. There are six rental car places in the train station but there isn't a Sixt place there. We popped into a really amazing beauty school near the train station and asked them if they knew where the Sixt place was. They were by FAR the most helpful and walked us to where the car rental places park their cars. NO Sixt parking. Finally I got pissed off enough to start looking for hotels so that I could find an English speaking person that would help me contact Sixt so I could have someone's ass for breakfast. By this time I was really hungry too! We stopped by one hotel and found out that they are the secret pick-up location for Sixt. But, apparently our asking about 85 people for directions took more than a half an hour so by now the office was closed from 12:00 to 2:00. I did speak with one guy on the phone who explained that they "held" our reservation for half an hour but because we didn't show up they left. I asked him how we were supposed to know where the car was and he complained about how we didn't have a signed contract or a phone number. I explained that he had over six months and my email address to contact me if he needed. He went into some strange French gibberish and I handed the phone back to the woman behind the desk while he was still going off on the phone. We went into the Hertz car rental office which WAS at the train station and rented a car. The woman at the National car rental office was very pissy too, but the guy at Hertz was nice.
We got our mini-van and headed off. The brakes were CRAZY! If you put your foot near the brake pedal and thought about stopping the car would stop. If you actually dared to place your foot on the pedal the car would instantly stop and throw Sue into the dashboard and Aly into the seat in front of her. So, NO braking, just think slow down, slow down.

I emailed Expedia and Sixt and told them that I didn't appreciate booking our vacation nearly a YEAR in advance and them not even bothering to provide me with a pick up address! I got a stupid "Oops - We Bad?" from each of them which didn't help at all. I posted a complaint on tripadvisor but only got ganged up on by some of the messageboard lurkers there so I got no satisfaction anywhere. I'll know better than to book a rental car from Sixt or to book through Expedia again, without finding out the name of the contact, his blood type, his home phone number, a photo of the office, and an ariel photograph of the office. Don't trust that they will simply provide you with the information, BECAUSE THEY WON'T! Three of the morons that made posts at trip advisor said that I was lying and that they did provide me with an address. Apparently this wasn't offensive enough to have their comments stricken, but when I explained that we read the paper carefully four times, all three of us, and that if they could perceive what this paper said, having never met us, or ever having seen the paper, that they should get a job on the psychic friends network. THAT was offensive and they removed my posts. I asked that they close my account there four days ago, but apparently they can't figure out how to do this. Trolls!

We made it to Chateaubriant and saw the castle there. It was amazing. There were some snotty teenage girls here that were just as clueless and pissy as the US. Weird. They lived in this amazing place, rich with beauty, a place where people traveled for thousands of miles and they sat there eating candy dropping the wrappers on the sidewalk for someone else to pick up. I didn't slap them, not even in French.

The castle had parts that were fully intact and some places that were falling down. On the way to the castle Sue caught a sheep in her sight, off to the right, in a field, having a baby. Aly and Sue saw it about the same time. How weird to be driving down this road and then "plop" out falls a lamb right next to the road. It looked like it surprised the sheep too.




~ Chateaubriant ~

  Chateaubriant wikipedia     Chateaubriant daily photos    Chateaubriant photos

   

      

 

 


After leaving Chateaubriant we drove to Fougeres. What an amazing town! There is no ugly or even boring place in this entire town! 


~ Fougeres ~

Fougeres photos          Fougeres wikipedia          Fougeres tripwolf          Fougeres travel stories

 



 Danielle Carlini of the Balzac Hotel (more photos) has been about as delightful as any person we've met in any of our travels! From the minute we first arrived we felt like family. She drew us a map and showed us all of her favorite places to see, her favorite walks, and other towns she thought that we might like to visit.

   

Well, off to see the castle at Fougeres up close & personal!



Friday - February 20, 2009 -


We woke up to (really loud) sound of the pigeons right outside our room making mating sounds in the dormer windows. We had breakfast in the breakfast room next to the main entry of the hotel. REALLY great croissants, orange juice, coffee (cafe creme GRANDE), yogurt (pineapple. Ask us about the "pudding" in Venice sometime. ;-) and fresh French bread.

 

 

The photo on the left is the breakfast area of the Balzac hotel in Fougeres. We decided to drive to the castle since our feet are so broken down and sore. When we got to the castle we watched a couple of people leave the entrance to the castle. When we tried to enter, we found that it was closed  from 12:00 to 2:00 like nearly everything else. We decided to eat. We ate at this amazing place called Tivabro. We're a little confused about the difference between galletes and crepes. Apparently galletes are made of buckwheat. The photo on the right is of the Tivabro restaurant. It is old! I mean really OLD!! The middle photo are the cooks. I couldn't get a photo of the server because she was running all over the place so fast. Really, really great food, in a really cute place, with really, really friendly people!

 

 




Poof! We're in Fougeres. At least on the Internet anyway. In real life, we got a bit lost two times, and three crazy drivers tried to take us out at traffic circles (turnabouts). Anyway we got to Fougeres OK, and in fact, we walked all over that place two times, and had amazing food, and we're now at a really incredible room at Mont Saint Michel. But, about Fougeres. This is about the most adorable town I've ever seen! AND with a castle!
You can see above that a lot of the fortifications are still intact. You can also see that the sun came out and provided us with some really beautiful photos! Yeah!!! The castle (above) is from the 11th century! Wow!


   

Walking around is really whacking my knees and my left foot is very bruised and blistered but I can't seem to stop walking. As soon as you see one sight, you look further out and see something even cooler. We must stop frequently to maintain our energy and to test whether the new pastry shop we found was as good as the one we just left. The photo above is from a pastry shop right around the corner from our hotel. The photo in the middle is a typical street in Fougeres. Cute huh? I'm also getting tons of ideas here for my jewelry too. The photo on the right is a necklace that is made entirely of buttons.



~ Mont Saint Michel ~

Saturday - February 21, 2009 -
Mont Saint Michel photos         Mont Saint Michel wikipedia          Mont Saint Michel official site          Mont Saint Michel videos          Mont Saint Michel national monument

We are sore today but we are intent on getting to the top of Mont Saint Michel and then to get to Dinan & possibly to Saint Malo before getting our rental car checked in and catching the train back to Paris. It's 8:35 AM now and I am sitting at the breakfast table in the Auberge Saint Pierre Hotel/Restaurant and I'm trying to figure out how we'll get this all done today. The dinner here last night was really amazing. We had to skip the third course of assorted cheeses last night because we were just so wiped out. It seems like a really heavy curtain falls on us about 8:30 at night, usually while we're waiting for our bill. All three of us can feel it. I think that we're still all a little jet-lagged.



What a sight! It's pretty cool what 10 centuries of work and achieve!

     

Aly thought that this was the coolest hotel room in the world. The stairs are so steep leading upstairs that the steps are cut out so that if you get your feet in the wrong order you can't use the steps. Aly's little room upstairs had a pitched roof with two single beds with a window looking over the bay. The photo on the right is the dining room at our hotel. GREAT food too!

     

   

   

 
     

Mont Saint Michel is really an amazing place. We were here on a previous trip but this is the first time we've ever stayed here over night.


~ St Malo ~

St Malo wikipedia          St Malo France Monthly          St Malo photos          St Malo trip advisor

We parked near the old quarter of St Malo and walked through the gates. This is a really unusual town. Everything is inside fortified walls and the buildings are huge for their age. St Malo is a seafaring town and nearly everything here has to do with the sea. There are boats everywhere and most of the signs and advertisements have to so with sailors or pirates. EVERYTHING a little kid would like here is decorated with a pirate. We didn't hardly take any photos because by the time we arrived here we were the walking dead and taking another photo seemed like dragging your car 5 miles to the gas station with a rope. We got a few at least.
 

   

     


Aly is getting her accent down so well that when she says - "Non, merci. Je vais partager avec mes parents.", the servers look at her like "cool, you're so nice for draggin' your non-French-speaking parents around". She really has a great natural affinity for languages. Look adorable Sue is standing there against the wall all wrapped up cozy in her cashmere! She was waiting for Aly to get out of the bathroom. Sometimes I walk around the corner to see how they're doing and BOOM! She is so gorgeous that I'd walk up to her anywhere and ask her out. Except... she's already married.. TO ME! Yeah!!!

We ate in a cafe here that was AMAZINGLY slow! The service was fast once it started, but the poor woman that was the server for our section had about four times too many tables. She kept seating more and more people and taking the orders of the people that came in after us, and then delivering food and drinks to the tables of people that came in after us. Finally, our last item arrived and she carried it to the middle of the room and just looked and looked and had no clue where to take it. Finally she looked at me and I nodded. I then realized that she was so busy that she was just flusterbrained and probably didn't have any clue as to when any of us came in, she was just running food and hoping that nobody else came in. Nearly everybody that ate there ordered mussels in cream sauce and french fries. She ordered this too and it was great. I ordered lasagne and it wasn't so great unless you're living in a nursing home and they it would probably make your day. The lasagne here and in Venice is very flat and very boring and has no meat at all. OK, I learned my lesson. NO more lasagne!

~ Dinan ~ (dee-nah)

Dinan globalsapiens          Dinan Frommers          Dinan photos          Dinan wikipedia

After we left St Malo we drove to Dinan.

   

   

 
 


Heading back to Paris...




When we got back to Rennes and turned in our rental car we decided to catch a bite before our train back to Paris. We couldn't eat any more moules (mussels), and we really just wanted something familiar. We popped into the Cafe Leffe Brasserie & Bar. WOW!!! Does this place make a great burger. "Am-buur-guear". They made some amazing ice creams too. What a treat! Then, we headed back to Paris with our Brittany and Normandy vacations behind us.


Sunday - February 22, 2009 - Sue and I were getting dressed while Aly was in the bathroom when all of a sudden it sounded like dozens of birds fighting with each other right above a train's wheels squeeling while trying to stop, next to a truck trying to stop with screaming brakes. Suddently the door of the bathroom opened and Aly walks out smiling and said "Good acoustics". What a funny kid!


~ Paris ~
Paris official site         Paris photos         Paris wikipedia          Paris



Monday - February 23, 2009 -
We slept in a bit today after hanging out in our room and nearby in the neighborhood yesterday. We're still exausted but a little better. I'm still hacked off about the whole Sixt car rental thing. I took about 10 months to plan this trip, which included google earth photos, maps, reviews, people's personal travel blogs and web sites, professional guide suggestions, etc., and it still blows me away that after all of that planning that some moron at a car rental place can jack my vacation simply by being a moron, or just by being lazy!

Because our hotel is in such a great location, we're thinking about just heading East and taking in what we see in the order we see. Today is one of the days that we didn't plan but just decided to wing it.

 

We met Pascal who owns a little boutique called Opium. This little shop has really unique and one of a kind clothes that both Sue and Aly love. Pascal is probably one of the nicest people in Paris and he has a great fashion sense too. He was very helpful in selecting items for both Sue and Aly and seemed to understand them right away. If you are in Paris, is would be well worth your time to stop by this little shop in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

 
Another thing you must do when in Paris is to try the Berthillion ice cream. They have a cool little gothic type face which is always in black and always in bold so it's easy to pick out on the menu. We tried probably a dozen different variations of this ice cream from plain, to sundays to fancy desserts and the Berthilion ice cream was always amazing. We even went to far as to have Berthilion at one place and them Hagandaas just a few blocks later and the Berthilion was much better. They gave you more at the Hagandass place, but the quality wasn't as good and I LOVE Hagandaas. So, that makes Berthilion pretty darn good!


I'm about a day and a half behind, but it's getting late and we have to get up early so that we can get to our French cooking class on time. I'll try and catch up more tomorrow.

   

Just before we went to the Louvre we went into this really great restaurant - the L'Ancien Trocadero. We had the most amazing waiter here. He was the most professional waiter that I've ever seen in my life. I mean he was really amazing. The food was pretty outstanding too. This place was the runner up to the place mentioned on this page as the best experience, but to be fair it could have been the specific selections me made, it was that close.

 

Here is the Venus di Milo sculpture (left), and an Etruscan arch at the Louvre.

 

It is so easy to walk around the Louvre from room to room and to be so astounded by the amazing art work that you actually miss the art work that is on the ceiling. It is also easy to lose yourself in the scale of the art work. Some of the sculptures are three stories tall. This photo (right) is over two stories tall.

We went to the Louvre today after shopping for a bit. We were so exausted that we just sort of dragged ourselves through. We seem to be taking fewer and fewer photos. We are surrounded by so much culture, so much art, and so many different things that we've nearly numbed our brains to inactivity. We'll be OK tomorrow after we rest up a bit. We also ate at Procope restaurant, which was founded in 1686. Aly and Sue bought a couple of clothing articles and I didn't, so I splurged with a lobster at Procope. I can't actually wear the lobster, but I can wear the smile on my face for a while.





Procope French          Procope wikipedia          Procope photos

This is the Procope restaurant, founded in 1686. Wow, that's even older than me! It was really fun to eat in a restaurant that Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, and Thomas Jefferson used to dine in!


Tuesday - February 24, 2009 -

   

We went to our cooking class today at Cook with Class and it was great! We made croissants, pain du chocolate, apple stroodle, and pizza. GREAT! I mean REALLY GREAT! Chef Pino Ficary was our instructor and he blended humor and history with his culinary expertise to make this a really outstanding class. Tomorrow we are doing a dinner menu. The photo on the left is everybody in the class doing their part to create pizza's for our lunch and other delicious treats. I'm not sure what Aly is doing in the middle photo... Sue says that she is chopping apples for the stroodle, but Aly has no knife, no bowl, no apples, but hey... we're married and I love her so - the middle photo is Aly chopping apples for the stroodle! The photo on the right shows some croissants that just came out of the oven, and some apples cooking in the back ground to be included in the stroodle.

   

On the left the apples, some raisins (soaked over night in rum), some butter, sugar & pine nuts are simmering for the filling of the stroodle. The middle photo shows Chef Pino cutting slits in the stroodle dough to create the braids. The photo on the right is the braiding process which seals up the apple misture.

 

Here is the stroodle fresh out of the oven and on the right, a freshly sliced piece. YUM!

     

More cooking photos with everyone in the group. Look at Aly the chopping machine in the middle! Wow! Chop - Baby - Chop!




Wednesday - February 25, 2009 -
Oinker on street. This morning we were looking at some stuff in the entrance of a store when this really rude French guy walked past us going really fast and oinked at us. We all made comments about how rude he was and I oinked back. Then after only taking a couple of steps going south, we all stopped and decided that we were going to give him a piece of our minds and we turned around and started off after him. I couldn't go very fast because I'd blown my knee out and was using a cane. This happens when I travel a lot. We chased him to the corner and he darted into a bank. I think that he must have only gone in and then looked out the window because he was only in there about 10 seconds or so. He then crossed the street and by the time we got to the corner he was gone. I stood out there for a couple of minutes, but he was obvoiusly hiding in one of the local stores but I couldn't tell which one. It's kind of a good thing that the oinker passed our path because we ended up in front of a really cool music store that had dozens of synthesizers so we went in for a while. We had been in there for a while and Aly looked like she still wanted to hang out so Sue and I went next door and had a coffee.

   
These are the desserts that we had at the cafe in the Galleries Lafayette store in Paris.
Left, Sue had a Creme Brulee which was served in an orange, and had a really great jasmine mango sauce with a vanilla bean.
Center, I had pears marinated dates cooked in a spicy sweet sauce with a scoop (boule) of cinnamon/nutmeg flavored ice cream (glace).
Right, Aly had the mixed fruit platter which was really fresh and really great quality.

Galleries Lafayette & Printemps

 

Arab & Indian markets at foot of Montmartre

   

   



   

Cooking class at 6:00 PM. We went back to the cooking school for another class tonight. This time we did a ratatouille with vegetable medalions and scallops with a blended ratatouille sauce for the apetizer (entree). It was really great. Then for the main course we fixed duck breast and risotto that was really amazing. Then we sat around and had a white wine and a red wine with an assorted cheese place where Pino (I really like this guy!) explained the different cheeses, how they're used, how they're made and their history. Finally, we made a chocolate souffle. We had been out waking around the entire day, chased the oinker up the street, walked around dozens of shops and walked to Montmartre and through even more shops, so this day we splurged and took a taxi back to our hotel instead of three different metro's. Great deal. It was only 11 Euros.


Thursday - February 26, 2009 - Today I woke up just famished. I started eating some dried figs we bought the day before yesterday. They were great, then I had a few dates. They're pretty cool. They are really fresh and they are sold in a bad of strings, which are really the branches they grow on. I was still hungry and I asked Sue what else we had. She started looking through our stuff and I ran a bath. I had just slunk into a hot bath and was trying to wake up when she walked into the bathroom and said "How about a crepe?" Of course she was naked. WHAT? Am I stupid? I'm sitting in a hot tub, hungry, and a naked woman is asking me if I want her to make me some crepes? OF COURSE I want some crepes! She rolled up some apricot/strawberry jam and some creme fraiche. Yum! After having three I couldn't eat any more. Sue surprised Aly with one (but she wore a towel) and I could hear Aly making yummy sounds from the other room. What a GREAT way to start your day. All I need now is a Cafe Creme Grande!

   



We went to Notre Dame mid-day today and there were a lot more people than our previous trips. In fact, there were a lot more people everywhere we went this time. I didn't enjoy Notre Dame as much as I usually do because of all the stupid Bosnia women walking up to us every 45 seconds trying to get money for Bosnia. There were here last time also, but not nearly as bad as this time. Sometimes the same woman would walk up to us 3 or 4 times within just a couple of minutes. It really got to be annoying. One of them walked up, about the 70th one,  and I yelled "NO MORE BOSNIA!". She looked surprised. I suppose that she thinks that everyone else enjoyed being annoyed by her every few seconds. They seem to come in hordes! About the sixth horde that walked up to us spread out just before they reached us. I had saved a paper some guy gave me on the subway and I pulled it out and walked up to her and tried to look as pitiful as I could and held it out for her to read and said "Alaska... Alaska... ALASKA!" She looked really confused and actually tried to read the paper and then turned away. As she turned away I asked her if she liked being annoyed every few seconds. She seemed to think that I was crazy or something and avoided me the rest of the time were at Notre Dame. Wow! I made a really great discovery. BE even more annoying then they are and they leave you alone. On the walk towards the boats we discussed the possibility of moving to Paris and starting a business of printing buttons that say Boznia across them in black and putting a red circle with a slash through it and selling them for 2 Euros. I bet that we could sell between 80 and 100 a day. We wouldn't get rich but it would pay for our meals and it would be fun.

The Pantheon, built from 1764 to 1790. I wanted to hang out here more but we simply ran out of time. I did get a few good photos though. It seems that many famous people were buried here like Mirabeau, Rosseau, Victor Hugo, and Zola, and then other famous people, like Voltaire, were buried in other places were moved and then buried here. Dead people in Paris seem to travel even more than most of the living people I know in other places.

   



BEST Place We Ate Award
It's strange but we found the best place to eat and the worst place to eat on the same day. We were in such a dreamy mood after lunch, when we left that I forgot to take a photo of the best place. The waiter cracked us up and was really friendly and funny. I Google-Earth'd it and found out that it is called Le Lutetia restaurant. We've taken so many photos that it's weird that I didnt' take a photo of this one, it's just that after such a great lunch, and with the prospects of having the best ice cream in Paris just around the corner, I got a bit distracted. PLUS... I hadn't had ANY coffee yet and everyone knows not to expect much from me before I've had about three cups of coffee and I hadn't even had ONE yet! Here's what it looks like, but I didn't take this photo -



Now... about the best place thing. The worst place? No problem. Pissy, stupid guy. Pretty easy. The best place... this one is a bit harder. For the main course Le Lutitia had the best French onion soup, and the salad that I had was the best and Sue & Aly agreed. We thought that the hamburger was slightly better in Rennes, but we're not sure how much the server influenced us there, so maybe this was a draw. The main dish clearly wasn't as good at the Galleries Lafayette, but the desserts were the best we had on our trip. The best food we ate was at our cooking class. I mean Chef Pino went to the market and dealt with the guys directly to buy the stuff we cooked. Then, we were the VIP's of the evening, and everything came straight off the pan and onto the plate. At the Le Lutitia, we had to sit on these really high square stools with matching square tables, so there was no way to get situated unless the waiter came and helped slide you in. He was really helpful and had funny little saying and gestures while he waited on us. Aly had been sharing our meals and just ordering an extra plate, but when the waiter came over to take our order, Aly said "Oh, I'm sorry, just a minute." The waiter simply rested his head on his hands with his elbow on our table and said, "Oh, take your time." One other waiter helped bring some of the items and check with us frequenty and the guy behind the bar was all smiles and made sure were were doing OK. When we left all three thanked us for coming in. It was really, really great!


WORST Place We Ate Award


The Worst Place We Ate Award goes to La Piazzetta (in Paris). Part of our evening went a bit sour this evening when we accidently tripsed into the La Piazzetta for a light dinner on the way home and to let my knee rest for a few minutes. Well... we were in this place for a total of about 28 minutes. We went into this little pizza place and the server was very nice, well, to our faces. She spoke very good English. As we entered she asked us whether we were having food or drinks. We answered food. She sat us at two 2-tops which she pushed together. The place was nearly deserted with only two little old ladies in the window to our right, a guy staring at us off to our right was having a beer, and there was a couple near the back. That's it, so obviously we weren't taking up much space. In fact, I took this photo just a minute after we left and as you can see in the photo, there were only six people in the entire restaurant, which means there were probably 20-30 empty chairs in this place!

Anyway, we ordered a pizza, & 3 cokes. As soon as the server handed the ticket to the guy behind the counter... boom. You would have thought that he had a serious case of PMS and had just been forced to call his mother-in-law and ask for cleaning advice. Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine, blah, blah, blah. Then after his first rant ended he started rolling his eyes and doing this weird long-face, fat-lip look. VERY juvenile! The server matched his sacrastic tone while she was talking with him and then turned the corner and with a great big smile asked us if there was anything more. Can you believe it? I'm not sure if this idiot is always like this and she felt that she must not hack him off or if this was really her attitude as well, because each time she came to the table she was "on". I excused myself to go the the restroom and tried to make eye contact twice with him on the way there, and once on the way back but he forced himself to avoid any eye contact whatsoever. Schmuck! We had to put up with this and the pizza wasn't even that good. Fair maybe?

We gobbled down the pizza and then split a very marginal tiramisu and some kind of ice cream rolled in little crunchy things. It was good, but not great. We were in the door and out the door in about 28 minutes, by which time a couple had entered and tried to figure out which table they wanted changing their minds about 5 times. Then a few minutes later another couple came in. By now, the restaurant is about a third full. I have a feeling that the guy behind the counter was unhappy with the amount of food that we ordered. Which was really weird because he was apparently happy about the guy sitting at a 2-top who was only having a beer, since before we arrived, and was just leaving when we were leaving. SO kiddies... AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE! If this guy is this bitchy during the slow season because we didn't order enough food and we had to tolerate his whiny blathering and then weird faces and rolling his eyes at us in February, he's probably going to wet himself in the summer when about half of the normal business doesn't come in because of the economy. That is unless you like being two-faced by a staff who just invited you into their restaurant. Our bill came to about 39 Euros, which means that we spend about $50 in this jerk's restaurant in 28 minutes which comes to about $1.78 per minute. On the other hand, DO go into this restaurant and order a beer. Then sit there for several hours staring at the tourists who come in to eat. Perhaps then some deserving restaurant owner can set up shop there and get this guy away from the public. NOT a people person! I tried to find this place on the Internet to see if anyone else had had a similar experience but I couldn't even find ANY info. Huh, surprise?

 

 

Doesn't Paris agree with Sue? She just glows while we're here. She is really a great traveling partner, but then again so is Aly! It was plain windy and cold when I took this photo but when I asked Aly if she was cold, she said yes, but it was really worth it because the boat ride was so beautiful. Both Sue and Aly are world class travelers and it is my honor to travel with them. About the boat...
Well, I don't know what happened. I guess I freaked out a little but I got something like 877 photos just on the boat. We are packing right now because we fly out in the morning, but I'll post some of them. Don't worry, not all 877, maybe something like 7 or 8.


Friday - February 27, 2009 -


Stuck at the La Guardia airport for 8 hours! YUCK! Aly is making the most of it with her apple juice and Sue with her "Dirty" brand BBQ chips. I'm taking the photo here while trying to choke down some kind of shortbread cookie thing. There are some prepackaged sandwiches that looked a bit sketchy to us and some yogurt thingies with fluid sitting on top, so we're stuck with what we can find that won't give us food poisoning or something.

Wow! American Airlines is a disaster! In Paris, the computers went down for an hour. In fact, New York isn't much better. I read about how dirty JFK was, but I don't think that La Guardia is any cleaner at all, and it certainly isn't any more organized. Our flight from Paris was really good except the landing was pretty rough. Moments before we touched down we could see the wings bouncing up and down about 8 feet or so, and we actually landed mid bounce, and then we swerved really hard to the right and they they got a hold of it. We caught a cab to La Guardia and man was that place messed up. We got in one line and it took them 28 minutes to check one customer in. This was not one employee but TWO! We finally gave up because the supervisor told us that we should self check in. We would have done this but the self-check stations weren't at the entrance like every other airport we'd been to. So, I stayed in line while Sue self checked us in. By the time she got back, they were working on checking in another customer but they had been at the window and weren't even close to getting them finished and another 27 minutes had passed.

So, since Sue self checked us in, the supervisor told us to go to the "Baggage Drop Off" window, which wasn't a window, but another line. After about half an hour in that line, they gave us our bags back and told us to go the the security area behind us and drop them off there. So, I can't really see what is so baggage-drop-offish about the baggage drop off window, when all they do is give you your bags back again. It's more like the another-line-to-stand-in-without-accomplishing-anything window. This entire airport is worn out, the buildings on the way to the airport are worn out. The airline buildings leading up to the airport look like they're in the process of falling apart! It is so strange to leave Paris and see buildings that are so well preserved that range from a few decades old to centuries old, and then come to New York and see buildings that are 20 or 30 or 40 years old that have big pieces missing, that are filthy, and that show such horrible neglect. The people talking on the PA system have such a strange dialect that I kept hoping that they would repeat the messages in English, when a couple of minutes after the announcement, my brain had finally decoded a few of the words which were still lingering in my memory, and I realized that THIS is what they considered English! I realize that I am a bit sleep deprived and that I just came off of an eight hour flight, but seriously... if this is what this place is like, I'm surprised that anyone works here at all as I probably would have killed my self my third week of working here. But then again, they don't actually DO much work here at all.



Everywhere we go there are employees standing around with cleaning equipment chatting with people behind the counters, etc. without actually doing any work at all. NOBODY speaks English with each other either, everything is Spanish, and then when they make announcements they all sound like that really annoying actress Rosey Perez. It's like we're being haunted by her! She in on every speaker, at every stand, and at times, even the messages overlap each other. I can't wait to get on the airplane... WAIT! What am I saying? Anyway, we heard more English spoken in France than at the La Guardia airport! I think that I'm going to contact UAA and see if I can get a half credit in Spanish for every 8 hours I spend in this airport.

We're waiting now for the next leg of our trip which will take us to Detroit. We're taking an American Eagle flight which is a bit frustrating in itself. We took one of these flights on the way. We checked the web site five times, and Sue called the airlines four times before we left to make sure that we wouldn't have any baggage problems, and then the second flight that we took had completely conflicting baggage rules which means that all of our packing, and all of our research was completely worthless. I wonder why they bother to print any materials or to maintain a web site if they're not going to actually follow their own publications!

I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep and we have reservations at a hotel that we nearly always stay at when in Detroit.

Saturday - February 28, 2009 - We are really wiped out from our trip, but we had fun, we learned stuff, and we increased our level of culture and international understanding. Then we went to a supermarket in Detroit and most of it leaked back out during the first half hour! It's weird, but I'm skinny here, I mean I'm REALLY skinny here. I hate walking in between the sleeping shoppers at Costco in Anchorage, but here I can't even fit between the sleeping shoppers. Shopping here was difficult also. We found most of what we needed to cook dinner, but the pickings were slim and we had to change our plans several times just while we were shopping. We found a great radio station that I'd like to bring back to Anchorage. I thought that the radio stations in Seattle were bad, but Anchorage just has to be the worst! Hawaii has some great radio stations too. Some of the local ding-a-ling-a-ding-dang kids here really couldn't figure out Aly's look. I don't know if it was her hair or her texture, but they were just weirded out. It's a bit strange to watch three morons that are struggling to share a single IQ between them oggle Aly and make stupid comments when they're standing there in the fat store, wearing dirty white-trash clothing judging something they don't understand, next to someone who's going to fall over from a heart attack from being 300 pounds overweight. Yep, Aly has unique hair and her fashion sense is a bit forward, but at least she can spell IQ which was a feat these three dweebs couldn't do. I'm not going to worry about it too much anyway as it is obvious that the mom's barely-hanging sweat pants aren't going to make it through the day as the crotch was nearly at her knees when we passed her. As I always say, "One of the worst parts about the disorder of stupidity is the complete unawareness that they ARE suffering from the disorder of stupidity." 

The dinner I cooked was a disaster! I was not used to the kitchen and I forgot to salt and pepper the meat, and I had no spices to work with except rosemary. And, I only had three little oven pans instead of the big one. You can choose any other half dozen excuses as to why dinner didn't work out, perhaps I just forgot how to cook? It's weird I could cook pretty well, then I went to Paris and took two cooking classes, and now I can't even cook meat for dinner very well. I'm hoping it's just a matter of getting home to my own surroundings and my cooking skills will return. I was pretty exausted too. We made some croissant dough yesterday and it's been chilling in the fridge. Later today we're going to take a shot at making croissants and perhaps some pain du chocolate which is a croissant variation that isn't rolled. The croissant recipe creates croissants that have 80 layers per turn. Pain du chocolate doesn't really sound much like a bread but rather some torture technique involving chocolate. I think that after creating such a tortuous experience for everyone last night that I deserve to be tortured with some chocolate today. In fact, I'll take charge of my own chocolate abuse and administer it to myself before I will allow myself to participate in any more cooking attempts.

Our grandbaby Ava Grace was cuter than ever. She running around and copying things she sees on her educational videos, etc.

   

Most of our photos look like this because when we are in public settings we turn off the flash and Ava is usually moving so fast that everything is blurry. We did get a couple of clear shots though. Ava make for some great photos even if you have to squint a bit on the blurry ones to see her. Our hotel in Detroit is really good but some of the stuff doesn't work. They always fix it but it's kind of funny. Our Internet box didn't work, so one of the women on staff came in and unplugged everything and took a box from another room and fixed it via phone with their tech person. Then the bath plug didn't work so Sue got one of the women in the hall to come in and look at it. She turned on the water and then instead of pushing on the plug she pushed on the shower knob so the shower turned on her head and wiped out her hair do. She had a good attitude about it and it made us all laugh. The bath still won't work so she offered to have us use the bath in another room. Sue thought that we should just use the hot tub by the pool but none of us brought suits. I told her to explain that we had just returned from Europe and we weren't all that worried about swim suits. Aly keeps looking at me sideways though, as she is never quite sure when I'm kidding and when I'm not. Alaska already has enough butt-weird news on a daily basis without me getting all of us arrested and THAT turning up in the ADN as well! They're down to 49 cents per share right now anyway so maybe they won't even be in business by the time we get back. One can only hope!




Sunday - March 1, 2009 - We're going to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra tonight to see the "New World Symphony" because one of Aly's friends is playing tonight.

   

OK, that was amazing! I mean this was absolutely, wonderfully, remarkably incredible! This was the best classical music concert I have ever been to my entire life. And these kids are so young! If this is the junior symphony, the Detroit symphony must be out of this world. Frankly, after hearing these guys play, the way in which they performed as one being rather than a collection of 100 different beings, I find it hard to believe that ANY group could possibly outperform these guys, THEY WERE THAT GOOD! In fact, I would travel just to see them! They were doing some kind of program with China that I didn't really understand, but I guess this concert was recorded so that it could be broadcast to about 20 million people. I hope that I can get a copy.



This is a photo of Danike, one of Aly's friends who plays the bassoon in the symphony (middle) and her friend, Tim 2, (left). We ate dinner with them at the Mexican restaurant and hung out with them a while. They're fun and it was really fun to watch Aly interact with them.

We tried to eat at "Slow's" but there was a 45 minute wait and a couple of people in our party were already almost on the verge of passing out from the intense amount of cigarette smoke and we were just in the door way! I don't think that Detroit has heard about the ongoing war on lung cancer. We gave up and went to a Mexican place that I can't remember the name of but it was also really great. We met some really friendly people in Detroit, and they truly have some great radio stations, musicians, and great restaurants but what is up with the roads? There are actually craters in the roads. I mean a lot of the roads look like Beruit, but downtown Detroit actually has craters! The traffic comes to an almost stand-still so that people don't fall into the giant pits! There are lots of really huge abandoned buildings there too. Weird.


Monday - March 2, 2009



We also had a chance to eat at Andiamo's in Detroit. THIS was an amazing oportunity! I have never had a meal like this one! I know restaurants too as I have worked in over a dozen of them in half a dozen positions. Every, single item was extraordinary. Wow!

See you all in a couple of days...