No Frog Legs and Fizzy Bubbly

Late yesterday afternoon, my true love woke up from a nap. I just finished a bottle of Vin de Pays du Gard 2010 (I know, whatever) and it was time to go for dinner. With new digs to sport, it was an exciting evening for the both of us. We got ready and made our way down Bourdon. I thought we were going down another street, but there were boats that caught my eye and got distracted.

We took each other's photos and moved closer to our destination, Ile Saint Louis.

When we got to the island, we walked into Auberge de la Reine Blanche (Hotel of the White Queen). The food was amazing. The service was outstanding! They were out of frog legs, so I had snails, duck and créme brûlée for dessert.

After dinner we visited Notre Dame again, went to City Hall and got mischievous in the Metro station. Very fun night!

This morning I woke up and was overcome with this feeling like we slept in and missed our train to Reims. I sprung up to rest my torso on my left arm and checked the time on my iPhone. It was 6:15am. We didn't have to get up until 6:45am. I breathed a sigh of relief and let my head flop back on the pillow to drift off for another half hour. The best is when you wake up at 3:00am and think it's time to get up and then realize you get 4 more hours.

Our train departed from Gare de L'Est. We had a short Metro ride to get there and had the perfect amount of time to sit down for a café allongé and croissant. There were these little birds trying to attack our paisteries. My true love was annoyed and said we're in a Hitchcock film, so I swatted the little buggers away. Don't get me wrong, I really like birds. These birds were more like mice with wings and I don't like mice.

The train to Reims was fast! I had a window seat. There was a woman a couple rows down who was chewing gum with her mouth open. Shmack, shmack, shmack... I put Bon Iver on my iPod. The song Holocene seemed to be the perfect soundtrack as the French countryside almost danced by. There were farms, fields, little villages and a big blue sky. Coming from Paris, it was like a snapshot of a simpler time. Believe me, it takes a special kind of scene to get a tech, news, culture, music junkie to sit still and just breath a sigh of appreciation for this amazing world we get to live in.

We arrived in Reims in what felt like minutes. Getting out of the train station, we referenced our map to decide where to go first. We heard the cathedral was a good place to start. There's a train system here kind of like the street cars in Toronto, except the trains are really nice and they grow grass between the tracks. Why not?

The cathedral was massive.

I decided to go along with the candle lighting thing and it was pretty cool.

Next on the list was a champagne tour at Taittinger. The map we used in the guide book didn't have all of the streets labeled on it and we got a little lost. A couple of locals sent us in the right direction and eventually we found it.

When we walked into the visitors door, we were greeted by three attendants behind a desk (well, sort of greeted. There was a brief moment where I realized I might be a little under dressed for this place and thought the well dressed attendants might have thought I was lost on my way to a pub). We were not lost and the place was simple and classy.

We took a tour of the caves and gained an appreciation for the champagne making process. Champagne is aged in it's original bottle, the bottle that you buy it in. The odd shaped cork actually goes into the bottle as a straight round cylinder. It's fermented twice and the sediment removal process might literally knock your socks off.

After our first champagne tour of the day, we walked towards the next champagne tour, but stopped about half way for lunch. I felt like I've been ignoring veg, so I ordered a salad. My true love, the same.

The next tour was at Mumm (pronounced moome). The map in our guide book was all wrong and we ended up walking around a few blocks a few times before we found the visitors entrance. The tour started at 2:00pm and we were still lost at 1:54pm. When we finally arrived at the door, they still hadn't opened for tours. Wicked.

The tour was relatively the same as the first, but the girl who gave the tour had the best French accent ever (it was an English tour) and I'd rather listen to that than the guy at Taittinger with perfect English. We are in France are we not? Anyway, when we were doing a tasting, a lady asked where the bubbles came from. Seriously. It took a great deal of self control to not burst into hysterics. Especially since I was enjoying my 5th glass of spirits at that point.

After Mumm (which had the best champagne in my opinion), we toured the city until having to catch the train back to Paris. We checked out a gate that was made in 100-something. I guess the Romans used to live here before it was France and this was a gated community.

We stopped for ice cream and later for pints at the James Joyce! How cool is that?

Tonight is our last night in Paris. I've done a good job of ignoring the fact that this visit would eventually end. We're going to get dressed up and have one more French meal! Au revoir!

A Sparkling Pylon and Fashion Galore

Last night we had dinner (like we said we would) on the cheap. Q Burger. I think the Q stands for quick. The burger had a whole wheat bun. I was confused, I thought this was Paris. People don't eat whole wheat buns in Paris. Anyway, I'm way more confused about the service customs now, because at Q Burger, it was impeccable. We were promptly served, our order was cooked fresh and served to us in a timely fashion as we sat on a high stool table overlooking a little rock garden. All included, €14. A regular restaurant costs at least €40. After dinner, my true love had a special night planned, so it was off to Pont de L'Alma to take an evening boat ride on the Seine.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Metro Station (I have no idea how he got a metro station named after him) was awesome. Classy with big screen TV's. My kind of Metro station.

When we got to our destination and surfaced, the Eiffel Tower stood proudly in the distance. It was a bit chilly, but the sky was looking great, so I was looking forward to an enchanting boat ride.

We got on board. My true love bought me some candy along the way, so I ate the sour pieces and gave her the Coke bottles.

It was a very romantic experience once we mentally blocked out the photo crazy tourists trying to get a shot of the Eiffel Tower (because this very boat was the only permitted opportunity to take a photo of the giant pylon) and beer swigging Aussies who thought it necessary to recite some (I'm guessing Aussie Rules) chants full of eff bombs and blah blah blahs. We still cuddled and told each other how nice it was to be there in that moment.

When ever we passed under a bridge, people would wave and cheer. I thought I would get a photo of the waving and cheering to share. When I went through the photos, I just about spat out my wine with laughter as I noticed that not everyone was waving and cheering.

I got some really nice photos of the setting sun and the lit up pylon.

All in all, it was a great experience. This morning we set off to visit the Catacombes!

The Bastille Metro Station was vacant. Very lonely. At times like these, I tend to either do acrobats or dance. Either way, my true love cracks a smile and tells me I so weird. I tell her I'm living in the moment.

We made our journey to the Catacombes, only to find out that it was closed for Bastille Day. No one really knew that it was closed because it's supposed to be open on a holiday. Even a tour guide didn't know. He asked us if we were there for a private tour. I said, "yes, we definitely are". Then my true love said, "no, we're not". And he said, "oh, ok. Well no one told anyone that they were closed today."

So I sulked about until we had breaky. Then I was ok and it was off the the Opéra Garnier! We realized we were out of money again after breakfast, so we had to make a quick pitstop to refuel the money bag.

The Opéra Garnier was awesome. I learned some stuff about this magnificent place. They call it the Palais Garnier. Louis XIV (the man) founded the Paris Opera in 1669 and this was the 13th edition of the building. It was built by Charles Garnier and took 15 years. There were a few set backs in construction (but when isn't there?), but if you get the chance to see is place, it's a masterpiece.

I bet Charles visited the Palace of Versailles, saw the hall of mirrors and thought to himself, child's play. There is a hall at the Opera that I thought was impeccable.

After we left the Opera, a shiny apple caught my eye.

We went to the Apple store! It's so funny because I've played with all the Apple stuff a million times, but it just doesn't get old to me. After I got my fix, we went shopping shopping. The place to spend lots of money is Galeries Lafayette. All the major labels are there; Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Tiffany & Co., blah, blah, blah. The people that can afford those antiques we saw yesterday probably buy their casual weekend clothes here. A petite dress my true love had her eye on was on sale from €520. If you want to spend some real money, get something made custom. Tailored suits started at €3500 here.

We decided to stick to our plan and each get an outfit for dinner tonight. My true love got a nice little purple dress, I picked out a yellow shirt to compliment her. It was funny actually. I got it in my head that I needed a yellow dress shirt, so the hunt was on. No one was selling the colour yellow! This either verifies that I am a trend setter, or have no fashion sense. I even went to Café Cotton where the only thing they sell is dress shirts starting at €110 and they had every colour except yellow. Not even a yellow stripe. Anyway, I did find a nice yellow polo.

After shopping, we had pizza again at Pompei on Rue de Castellane. Delicious. We even had a salad to get a little greenery. The dining room overlooked the street.

When we got back to Hotel Royal Bastille, there was a protest in the street! Something about democracy for France. Maybe they haven't read the news since 1958.

It's been a relaxing afternoon writing and drinking wine, my true love napping and protestors protesting. Tonight we'll put on our new clothes and visit Île Saint-Louis for dinner!