New Sum Air Eve Eh?

Well, we have arrived in the land of the French; ancestral home of the Quebec language and garlic. To be honest, the first day was pretty much a blur or a blank, as I didn't sleep on the flight over and we didn't get the room until 3PM. So, we had to occupy ourselves elsewhere from the time we arrived at the hotel at noon.

Since we were hungry, we stopped in across from the hotel and had Chinese. For eight Euros each, we had a fairly largish lunch consisting of an entree, plat principal, rice and a drink. We did the married couple thing and divied up our lunches; The Singer had pork dumplings, beef with basil and rice. My lunch was pork spring rolls, crunchy chicken (they were all out of chicken with lemon grass) and sauteed noodles. It wasn't the best by any means, but it was tasty and filling.

From there we walked over to the Eiffel Tower on our mission to kill time. It's Paris. We're tourists. It wasn't raining. Of course, since it's Paris and we're tourists, we were besieged by an army of street vendors hawking those little metal Eiffel Towers. Also, since it's Paris and there are other tourists, the line-up for the tower was massive. We made a tactical decision to find some other way to kill 2.5 hours than to spend 4 hours in line waiting to go up the tower.

So, we ended up on one of those hopon/hop off buses (24 Euro a head, and good for two days). It was about a two hour tour of the major sites, through which I faded in and out of conciousness. I don't remember travelling up the Champs-Elysees. But it was a beautiful, warm and sunny day.

In Paris.

After getting into our very European (small) hotel room and me having a very European (short) nap, we wandered out to dinner. We ended up at the Cafe du Marche, recommended by Rick as a place that the locals eat and priced accordingly. Our dinner ran 23 Euros for grilled salmon brochette with a ginger and garlic glaze (The Singer), roast chicken with a Normandy sauce (it had turnip I think) and a glass of white wine. All of it very delicious, though when you sit on the patio in Paris, you also sit with the smokers. There's a reason why the inside of the restaurant is empty; everybody in Paris smokes.

I miss smoking sometimes.

After dinner, we passed out in our hotel room. In fact, I slept so long, I ran my CPAP dry (12 hours +). On that note, all future packing lists will include one power bar and one extension cord. This room only has one plug, so these two items have been life savers. We can charge the cameras, computer, and keep my CPAP going.

We wandered out this morning after a continental breakfast at the Hotel - when I Rome (sic.), I try to do as the Romans and not the Mongol hordes. Lord, how I do love fresh, French bread with butter and jam.

Our first stop was Notre Dame, where we did various touristy things and said no to a lot of people asking us, "Do you speak English?", while they were holding out little notes and smiling smiles filled with gold teeth. Somehow, I don't think they really needed our help. I'd have lit a votive candle for them during our tour of Notre Dame, but at 5 Euros each... no, just no. And I didn't think the church needed my help either. To me, Notre Dame has been reduced to tourist attraction and has lost any sense of reverence that one should find in a church. To be fair though, they seem to encourage that with their little gift stand and medallion vending machines, they're encouraging that themselves.

From Notre Dame, we wandered into the Latin Quarter and found ourselves at Saveurs de Savoie for lunch. We had a lesson in the Parisien way of doing business when we had to ask for the 10 Euro menu, after being presented immediately with the 16 Euro and a la carte menu. I then committed the social gaffe of thinking I only ordered a glass of wine, when in fact I'd ordered a bottle of chardonnay. I missed the fact that it was only sold by the bottle, and so, asked for a half bottle of the petit chablis instead. Next time, I'm going to order d'eau. Regardless, we had a wonderful lunch of salad, plat principal and dessert. The Singer had Spinach and Cheese quiche served with small salad as her appetizer, followed by beef bourginon and chocolate mousse for dessert. My lunch consisted of a smoked salmon salad (since I missed the appetizers at the wedding), grilled lamb in a garlic sauce and then creme caramel. Om nom nom.

More sight seeing later, we ended up at Tribeca for dinner. It's an Italian restuarant run by the same people who run Cafe du Marche and run with the same raison de eating; good food, priced for the locals. I ordered the Curry Risoto with grilled beef and mushrooms and The Singer had Lasagne Bolenase. We also tried the Wine of the Month, which is a Cote de Rhine "Petite something or other". Needless to say, we left sated and went to visit the Eiffel Tower at night.

It's Paris and we're still tourists.

Apparently, they have an hourly light show on the tower, turning it into the worlds largest visual graphic equalizer. We declined many offers from people selling bottles of warm champagne, pulled from the inside of their jacket pockets. They certainly are enterprising here, I'll give them that.

But not my cash. I may be a tourist in Paris, but I wasn't born yesterday.