PARIS DAY 4.2: An adventure, and and pizza and beer

Alright, where were we?

Jason comes back from class, exhausted. Lunch is postponed while Jason naps and I read. Eventually, we get up and head out for CREPES! Oh man. French food (as in any food made by the French) is sooo good. The place is a little outdoor shop a few blocks away from Jason’s abode; apparently it is the best they’d found and I’m inclined to believe then. We each got a crepe with chicken, cheese, and mushroom, and an orangina. It’s also incredibly inexpensive for what you’re getting; this whole meal cost us just a little over 10 euro, and it was completely filling.

By the way, the huge intersection by this creperie had started to back up, and there police directing the traffic. Then, firefighters started arriving literally by busloads. In the windows of the buses were signs that said “En greve,” and while I don’t know what that means, Jason says that whatever else was written on the buses and the flags they were carrying, they seemed angry. I still can’t find anything about this on the internet, though, so if someone else does before I do, let me know!

After we got back from lunch we headed out to take a trip inspired by (or exactly planned out by) my theatre manager from high school, John Dean. Here are his instructions:

Start at Saint-Germain-des-Pres at the corner of Boulevard Saint

Germain and Rue Bonaparte...across the street west from the church is

Les Deux Magots where Sartre held court and next door is Cafe de

Flore...just north of the church is Picasso's statue of Apollonaire.

Then walk east along Saint Germain to the corner of Rue de Buci, it is

on the left and not well marked, but just a short distance from the

church..and contains the most wonderful market (get bread and cheese).

Walk to the corner of Rue de Seine, about a block. Near that

intersection is the most wonderful pastisserie where they wrap your

purchases in a paper pyramid tied with a ribbon. Buy some for now and

some for later (and some for me...preferably with raspberry filling).

Walk north on Rue de Seine, past the statue of Voltaire and the back of

the Institute de France to the Seine. Go the the Pont des Arts and go

down the stairs to the quay turn to the east and follow the river (stop

and eat when you get hungry) until you see Notre Dame from beneath the

Pont au Double. Then you have walked through the heart of the left

bank. …Paris never disappoints.

Saint-Germain-des-Pres is a convenient stop on the 4; it took me a second to find that first church mentioned though I soon realized that was actually right on top of the metro station (and in fact quite large). We then wandered east, not knowing what direction we were going in, and saw a statue of Diderot, the inventor of the encyclopedia (this prompted a brief discussion of Diderot’s hypothetical opinion of Wikipedia). We figured out that we were going the wrong way and so headed back in the other direction where, right across the street as promised lay Les Deux Magots, and just past it Café de Flore. Having just eaten we neglected to enter either café, but did stop for pictures at the Picasso statue before continuing on our way, correctly east this time.

We found Rue de Buci without a problem, though I think we may have missed the market. Still, there was a fresh fruit and legumes shop where I bought a pomelo and we wondered what a kaki was (it is an oversized persimmon). Across the street (at the corner of Rue de Seine) was a very swank patisserie called Paul’s where we purchased a lemon meringue tart and a raspberry tart, and while they were not wrapped in a paper pyramid with a ribbon, they were put in a dandy little box.

We continued up Rue de Seine, which turned out to be an art gallery district, which was not surprising, knowing John Dean (who is an artist by trade and previously an art teacher as well); the galleries were all closed, however, as it was mid afternoon by then. Not knowing quite how far we had to go, we lost confidence in whether we were going in the right direction, stopped to ask a waiter at a café, “Which way is North?” He seemed genuinely unsure but ended up pointing us in…the wrong direction. We ended up back on St. Germain and so then knew that we had in fact been going the right way, so we went back and kept going. We passed an interesting statue (there are lots of pictures coming from this trip, by the way), a park with benches shaped like books, and finally came across the statue, as promised, of Voltaire. Up high on a wall nearby was a tile depiction of a Bubble Dragon from the 1986 video arcade game Bubble Bobble, so that was kind of neat.

We came out onto the street that ran along the south side of the Seine, and bought some posters from a man with tourist stuff like that along the river; we also asked him the direction of Notre Dame, just to be on the safe side and were told (correctly this time), “That way, two minutes.”

We continued along the Seine and then made our way down to the river itself to have a pastry (delicious lemon meringue) and to scare some seagulls, which is always fun.

Before we knew it the cathedral Notre Dame loomed ahead of us, with its spires and its gargoyles. We wandered the whole way around inside, which was pleasant enough, but couldn’t figure out how to get access to the top of it, so left. By this point we were both tired and our feet were achy, so we found a metro station and headed back to the Fondation for a nap.

Nap lasted until 7pm, at which point I had been sleeping quite well and couldn’t believe that it was still Tuesday evening… Not really hungry but knowing that we would need food eventually, we kind of bummed around, lazy and tired, before finally heading back to the same creperie with the intent of getting Panini (which every place has sitting pre-made and then put on the grill when you order). However, it was very, very chilly on the way there and I decided that I would rather go to a brasserie and sit down and have something warm and to eat and/or drink than have a cheap sandwich on the walk home. In search of a restaurant we passed many places that seemed too expensive to be worth it, and a few that were no longer serving food, only drinks, and those many and few pretty much covered it all. We made an entire loop and a half around this intersection, and let me tell you, it is a pretty huge intersection with at least four lanes of traffic on each side (and it was still being directed by cops). There was only one guy working at the crepe place, and rather than wait in line Jason promised me that past the Fondation on the other side there was a place that would probably still be serving food and that was probably not too expensive. On the way there we bought a giant bottle of Evian from a grumpy shopkeeper; my newly developed theory is that the French don’t believe in drinking fountains because it would be too expensive for them to pipe Perrier throughout the city.

We arrive at the restaurant, something like Les Fleurus, and they are still serving food “With certainty!” and the prices are good! Yay. And the place was pretty chill; not crowded, a soccer game on in the back, and while we were waiting to order a huge crowd of friends I took to be regulars came in a grabbed a long table, all ordered drinks and pizza, and then one guy proceeded to spill his drink onto the pizza, prompting from the waiter the comment, “Oh, it’s not that bad,” hehe. We ordered a pizza marguerite (tomato sauce and cheese, w00t) and an andouille sausage with French fries (it was not like any sausage I’d tried before). The pizza was very tasty (how do they do it?). We also ordered beers: Jason had something called Kranbrau or something like that, and I had a Grimbergen (never heard of it before) which I liked very much. That done, we headed back where I fought with slow internet and typed this up.

Tomorrow I am going to the Musee D’orsay and then having lunch with Teresa!

Love,

A