New Years Eve

With Kara and her family in Italy, I'm on my own for New Years this year. So I decided to start the day by going to an area of Paris I'd not yet explored: The Marais

I started out at the Bastille, which is where the French Revolution kickstarted. There's not anything left of the original building anymore, just a monument to it, but it was still pretty cool.  Walking along Rue de St Antoine (whom I was named after) there's the Paris apartment that Jim Morrison passed away at, and then Place des Vosges which is a really pretty square that Henry IV built. A few blocks away was the Carnavalet Museum which I didn't get to explore too much since it closed early for New Years, but explores the history of Paris.

I then walked by the mayor's office (Hôtel de ville) and then Pont Neuf (New Bridge, interestingly named since it's the oldest bridge in Paris) before stopping for dinner at a cafe around Odeon. I surprised myself by understanding when the old lady next to me wanted to borrow my salt and pepper, and the food was pretty darn good (except dessert, which was basically this yogurt dish, which is not what I was expecting). 

I went back out later to St Michel to check out the crowds and get a pepperoni crepe (hadn't ever seen that around before). It was quite a bit more crowded than a normal night, but apprently most of the crowds are along the Champs-Élysées. I didn't want to have to deal with the crazy metro stops to get there. But I enjoyed the walking around and watched some French TV at midnight to see how they cover New Years with their variety shows. 

Amazingly there are no fireworks for New Years in Paris, otherwise I would have gone to do that. It surprisingly is legal to shoot them off inside the city which some people do, but I have no idea where they buy the fireworks since I haven't seen any stands. 

Another surprising thing is that the metro is free on New Years Eve from 5pm onwards, and runs all night (to most stops). It's a nice way to combat drunk driving, so kudos to Paris for that.

Frogburger

I've got the next 9 days in Paris by myself as Kara is off to Italy with her Mom and sister. I'll be working during the week, but will try to hit all the things I've been meaning to try out but haven't yet. I knew this experience would go by fast, and so while I'm not surprised it's flown by, I am still sad that it's almost half over already!

So as part of adventure mode, I went and ate dinner at a burger place we've passed by a few times. I will say they have pretty good "American style" burgers, particularly compared to what's attempted to pass off as a burger in most French cafes. I also chatted with one of the workers who is Canadian and speaks about as much French as I do (aka hardly nothing at all), which was surprising since I would expect you'd have to know something to get by in the service industry here. On the other hand, it is a burger chain with the slogan "Genuinely Good Burgers" (and yes, that's right, $15 for a hamburger alone... welcome to Paris!) written in English on their windows, and most of the people there spoke English, so I suppose an English-only employee would work in that situation. She was in Paris on a year long temporary work visa after she graduated college. I do have to say I envy her a bit as once you start working, you don't get the opportunity for those kinds of adventures (unless you switch jobs) and while I had 2 months between graduation and starting at Freescale, I wish I'd had more. I always felt really bad for my classmates who started working the week after graduation.

Browsing Youtube today, there was an ad for Google's annual year-in-review, but in French. This made me curious, so I looked up the US/English version which is mostly the same, but somewhat different in various aspects which was interesting. More soccer and tennis, highlights of French deaths, and some highlights I have no idea why they're important in France. Gay marriage was big in both countries though (yay for love!) and space is a universal fascination. I'm always fascinated by things like this.

Postcards

After sending my in-laws to the Louvre and other museums, we slept in a bit and when I went to go get some more Christmas postcards from the Panthéon. I figured the most direct way to get to the gift shop without repaying an entrance fee was to just go up to the exit doors. After prying it open (as there's no handle on the outside) the workers in the gift shop either didn't care or didn't notice that I was coming in from the "out" door. But I was able to enter, grab some more cards, pay, and get out, with apparently no one the wiser.

I then got some Beaujolais wine so Kara could finish the last glass of the bottle and have good luck the rest of the year. Oddly it was actually hard to find considering it was all over the place at the end of November, but there were some older vintages still available. Hopefully it works! 

The evening wasn't too interesting other than getting to try some of the desserts from Agelina that my mother in law brought back (as they had already sold out when we went there a few days ago), which were quite tasty. I also worked up an itinerary for my parents who are coming in a few weeks. There's so much to see here!

Wandering around Paris

After the rainy weather of the last few days, and the whole week of rainy weather ahead of us, today was an absolutely gorgeous winter day for Paris. Clear skies most of the day, relatively warm (10C), and just a slight breeze. A perfect day for sight-seeing with the inlaws!

We started by walking to Luxembourg gardens which was pretty in the early morning light. Well it was like 9am, but since the sun doesn't get up until 8:43AM, it makes it easy to be up for the sunrise. I've never gotten up so early relative to the sun in my life!
After getting a bagel for breakfast (there actually weren't that many things open nor that many people out) we went to the Pantheon. The dome is under repair at the moment so it's not "quite" as spectacular looking as usual, but it's still impressive. It was originally built as a church but during the French revolution was re-purposed for secular purposes to be a mausoleum for the greatest Frenchmen. Inside you can find the burial places for Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie, Louis Braille, Victor Hugo, and many more. It was pretty impressive and I'd recommend it.
Next we went to the Cluny Middle Ages museum which while it has a lot of really old impressive things, I'm kind of burnt out on yet more tapestries and stained glass and old crosses. It gets good reviews on Trip Advisor, but I wouldn't recommned it unless you're REALLY into the middle ages.

Afterwards we went to see Notre Dame during the day, and I wandered around Île de la Cité while my in-laws visited St Chapelle which I'd already been too. I stopped and got a glass of wine in a cafe, and just tried to feel Parisian. It was pretty nice actually! Afterwards we went to the Eiffel Tower, getting out at the Trocadéro metro stop and then walking down the hill to pass underneath the tower. The most surprising thing was how crowded it was, and that there were tons of tourists getting scammed by shell games along the bridge to the Eiffel Tower (guess where the ball is under the 3 cups I switch around). Do people not realize this is a centuries old scam?
We then went to a delicious bakery near the Eiffel tower (that has no web presence) and Popelini in the 3rd which has unique cream puffs.

Finally we made our way to the Marché des Enfants Rouges (Red Children Market, named after the uniforms of the orphans who lived here) which is an international food market. It was only half open due to the holidays, but had a lot of interesting food choices. If you're in the area it's worth going, but probably not worth it for a short Paris stay.

Other great discoveries today were some really pretty Parisian Christmas postcards in the gift shop of the Pantheon. I'd been looking for the last few weeks for something Christmasy to send friends, and the fancy postcards fit the bill. They're actually in French too, which always annoys me when you have t-shirts/postcards in English when the words are totally different for the local language. I want to send a Joyeux Noël card, not a Merry Christmas card!

We also finally found cinnamon, baking powder, and brown sugar! This is what makes everyday things such an adventure when living in France, since these common items are somewhat difficult to find and under very different names. Brown sugar has a completely different name than the literal translation, and baking powder has the same name as "yeast" (levure) except that baking power is "levure chimique" once you Google search it. And cinnamon (cannelle) is just hard to find for some reason...

There was one bad part of the day though, when I looked on our local bakery's door and saw they had left a note saying they'd be closed until December 30th. A whole week without fresh bread a minute from our flat? What kind of torture is this!?!?

Christmas in Paris!

Joyeux Noël!! Our Christmas in Paris started out with hearing all the church bells ringing at midnight as we laid in bed. We had thought about going to a midnight mass, but were too exhausted, but what a unique way to bring in Christmas!

Once we got up later in the morning (I've found that all our guests, and us, sleep WAY later in France than usual), I turned on the TV to see what, if anything, was playing Christmas morning. We did stumble across a made-for-TV Hallmark movie called Du Memories de Père Noël dubbed in French which was amusing.
After opening gifts under our sapin de Noël (surprisingly still fairly alive after 4 weeks of not watering it) we went to Notre Dame and happened to arrive as a mass was starting. It was very crowded just to get in (though there were quite a few seats still available for the 6:30pm mass). Also for some reason the Christmas tree in front of Notre Dame wasn't lit. Not sure why since it was lit up all the other nights.

We wandered around for a while until eating dinner and I got my turkey finally! It was one of the specials of the day, and while it was covered in cream and came with rice, it was stuffed roast turkey!! I had to have escargots for my appetizer though. It was a special occasion and all.

For those visiting over Christmas, most things are closed, but there are a good number of cafe's open (especially around tourist sites) so you'll have no trouble finding something to eat.

Unfortunately during dinner it started to pour rain so it was a wet walk to the metro station home, but all in all it was a great and very unique Christmas. Joyeux Noël!

Christmas Eve in Paris

After having their flight cancelled, my in-laws arrived at our flat around noon. We decided the best plan of action was to throw them into Paris and visit the Paris Opera House, which was really impressive. Out of all the palaces and castles we'd been too, I honestly have to say the Opera house was one of the most ornate. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Paris.

Afterwards we went to Galeries Lafayette next to the Opera House to see the giant Christmas tree, and then rode the escalators to the top to see Paris. My in-laws are scared of heights, but could stay far back enoug (and it wasn't THAT high) to feel comfortable, but still see the monuments.

Then we went to Angelina for hot chocolate (best in Paris) and a late lunch/early dinner. Then we hit the Champs-Élysées Christmas market which was surprising uncrowded for Christmas Eve. Probably due to the sporadic rain showers though.

For anyone visiting Paris over Christmas, most stores and museums do close several hours earlier than usual for Christmas, and are closed for Christmas Day. This being the case, we ended up going to bed fairly early, eager for Christmas Day to begin!

Wrapping Paper in France

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were supposed to arrive this evening, but due to really high winds in London, their flight to Paris was cancelled and they ended up staying the night in the Heathrow hotel. British Airways paid for it all, but still was a bit of a hassle and they were glad they had brought stuff in their carry-ons since they weren't able to pick up their checked baggage.

I also got some last minute wrapper paper from the local grocery store, which had an interesting metallic feel and not at all like normal wrapping paper. Maybe that's why it was so much for so little area. Or just maybe normal high Paris prices. Wrapping paper was also not that common in the grocery stores, I've only seen it in one particular store (the Franprix) which was a bit surprising.

Disneyland Paris Christmas

Kara wanted to see Disney at Christmas, and based on my experiences at Walt Disney World in Orlando, I thought it'd be quite spectacular. We got to a late start and after paying the very hefty prices, we got in on a fairly rainy afternoon. The first thing we did was stick around Main Street (deocrated and setup exactly like Main Street in the US parks) to watch the Christmas parade. Santa came by on the first float, and Mickey and Minnie were the last ones. It was a pretty good parade and the decorations around Main Street pretty nice. However the rest of the park wasn't decorated for Christmas at all. So overall it was quite disappointing. Thanks to the rain the crowds weren't too bad considering it was the Sunday before Christmas, but this really was my least favorite Disney experience. There were far too many chain smokers in lines and walking around the park (even though technically the park is non-smoking) and the food is even more expensive and FAR worse. I got a hamburger meal and I got one tiny tomato and 3 tiny shread of lettuce on a hockey puck like beef patty. It was just depressing. If you have any ability to visit the US parks, it's really not worth visiting unless you're a die-hard amusement park fan who just wants to experience the unique rides (like Space Mountain and Indiana Jones) and the Pirates of the Caribbean was quite a bit longer. But it's a very disappointing Disney experience.

If you do visit though, don't worry about taking the train after leaving. Most people seem to drive (which is cheaper if you have multiple people since the train fare is fairly expensive) and so leaving about 45 minutes afer the park closed (to take photos and explore some shops) the train was practically empty.

Crepe Friend

Buying our usual crepes from the usual crepe marker from our usual crepe stand near us, he decided to make some small talk between my terrible French and his limited English. It was actually quite interesting since I explained how we're here for 6 months and that I was from Texas, which he just knew from movies to mean that I was a Cowboy and made a galloping horse impression and sound. I tried to explain I was "très libérale" and "no Bush" but when I said my wife was from California, he seemed far more excited about that, and started asking how the beach was and how chic it was.

I then explained that's why Kara always says to strangers we're from California when she's overseas, since it gets a far more positive reaction than saying we're from Texas. And based on his (and many other interactions) it's been very true!

Frozen

Today was our office Christmas party. We went to a crepe resturant, and most everyone in the office showed up which is pretty unique since as it's a sales office, a lot of them are travelling and out of the office very frequently. We took up the entire resturant, and in true France fashion, we only had a single waiter for the 45 of us. It actually worked out fairly well though since we just passed the bottles of water between us and stacked up our own plates. The food didn't all come out at the same time, but close enough I suppose.

I also found out there's an office photography contest, so I'm trying to figure out which of my photos to enter. There's Christmas, Winter, and Action categories. And speaking of photography, I bought myself a new Canon 70D to replace my 8 year old 20D. I'm most excited about the higher ISO quality, and the video capabilities since there's been many a time I wish I could take a good video of what I'm seeing since sometimes videos just aren't enough.

After getting home, we went to go see Frozen (aka La Reine des neiges - The Snow Queen - as it's called in France) since we're planning on visiting Disneyland again this weekend. It was a bit difficult to find a theater that only subtitled it, since most of them dubbed it over, I assume to make it easier for French children to follow along. It was really good, and I'd recommend it! 

Though once again I found it very interesting to see how words are translated into French and all the nuance lost. For instance, "Look out!", "Watch out!", "Whoa!", "Check this out!", "Look at that!" are just translated to a single word in French: "Attention!". I'm not sure if it's the lack of nuance in French translations, or just English has a much more verbose vocabulary, but it makes me wonder about all the French films I love that I only know via subtitles (aka Amelie).

Normal Day

Today was only remarkable because nothing remarkable happened. Living in France has made even the mundane things quite an adventure since just getting dinner can lead to all kinds of complications and unexpected surprises. It's both really exciting and really stressful! 

Paris Christmas Tree Still Alive!

My friends left today, after doing a lunch at some fancy restaurant their friend booked. Kara and I got some quiche's for lunch, though we still haven't found very good ones. All the ones so far have been way too salty, ruining the taste. It's been one our big disappointments in France since we thought they would be delicious here, but so far that's not been the case.

For dinner though we got some crepes from our new favorite crepe stand near Montparnasse. This one not only has chicken, but also tomatoes and mushrooms, so I can get a chicken, cheese, mushroom, and tomatoe crepe. Very good and cheaper than a sit-down crepe restaurant.

Our Christmas tree is losing some needles when I accidentally hit it, but isn't dropping them by itself. Quite impressive considering we haven't watered it in almost 4 weeks since watering a Christmas tree in Paris is considered bizarre. I consider it bizarre since every real Christmas tree in the US is watered regularly.

Water in Paris

After a bit of a late start, we grabbed some sandwichs and ate lunch in Luxembourg gardens before heading to the Rodin museum to see The Thinker. We were running short on time so ran by Invalides (Veterns) to see Napolean's Tomb, and stumbled across some sort of military ceremony going in in the main courtyard of the Invalides. Napoleon's Tomb was neat, but I wouldn't put it on the don't-miss list of Paris. My friends went to meet up with another friend, so Kara and I went up the Arc de Triomphe since she'd missed it the other day. We then went through this crazy pscyodelic 70's fun house on the Champs-Élysées (and kept the glasses!) and then rode the giant Ferris Wheel that was put up in Place de la Concorde, which gave some great views of Paris since it was a clear night.

We finished the day after meeting up with our friends again for dinner, at Les Editeurs. The food was quite good, but as typical of French service, we were chronically short of water. Unlike the US where it's a major faux pas to let anyone's glass run dry, you have to beg to get them to refill your water. They'll never do it on their own, you always have to ask, and to do that, you have to get their attention which is no small feat. I do miss American service quite a bit.

We ended the night watching French music videos on Youtube and finishing a bottle of Beaujolais so our friends would have good luck. The time flew by!

All Over Paris

We started the day with crepes near Notre Dame before exploring inside and joining a tour. I learned quite a bit about the outside architecture, and how in a world where most people were illiterate, the statutes and architecutre of the church's were used to explain the biblical teachings. One of the most interesting things I learned was that during the French Revolution, they tore down the statues of the saints (since they were upset at the religious kings that opressed them) and what you see today are actually re-creations. But they actually found some of the heads in someone's basement in the 1970's, so they're on display in the Middle Ages museum now.

We then headed a few streets over to St Chapelle, which is famous for its stained glass windows. Even in the fading sunlight it was a spectacular sight and I was surprised I'd hadn't heard of it before reading through my Rick Steve's Paris guidebook.

Next up was the Eiffel Tower, which we climbed up the stairs (all 650 of them) as dusk was settling in. It's much more enjoyable now having been to all the famous monuments now, so I can pinpoint more clearly what I'm actually looking at. And I was surprised to see that St. Sulpice is so easy to spot, which is near our flat so it makes for an easy landmark to figure out where we live. It was an absolutely gorgeous night with a full moon and clear skies.

After a quick dinner of some panni's, we went up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to see a great view of the Champs-Élysées and all the crazy traffic around the arc. It's the only traffic circle in Paris where cars have to yield to incoming traffic, and due to the mass confusion (as there are no lanes around it) if you get in a traffic accident there, it's automatically split 50/50. You couldn't pay me enough money to try to navigate that clustermess.

After exploring the Christmas market along the Champs-Élysées, we headed towards Notre Dame to meet up with Catherine's friend again, and got some drinks at a cafe near Notre Dame. The surprise though was it included a sparkler in the drink, which I suppose made up for the ridiculously high cost. All in all a very good night, and they had live music (piano and singer... all in English) which made it quite entertaining.

Art Museums

We started off today visiting the farmer's market on Raspail, and then taking the metro to the Musée d'Orsay. The museum is housed in a re-purposed train station, and is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately they don't allow photos inside (one of the only Parisian museums to ban photography) but it has some spectacular views of the Parisian skyline and a lot of really influential and famous impressionist paintings. It's probably my favorite art museum in Paris so far.

Afterwards we walked across the Siene to visit Musée de l'Orangerie which was creasted specifically to showcase Monet's water lily paintings. It's a quick stop (especially since you can skip the line via the Museum Pass) but well worth the stop. There was also a special exhibition showcasing Frida Kahlo's artwork, which was really neat too.

Then we stopped to get hot chocolate at Angelina's, and then went to meet my friend's Parisian lab-mate to get dinner. We had some typical French food (fois gras (duck liver) is incredibly common here, and escargot of course) and then finished the night with drinks near St Germain. The most interesting part of that was the soundtrack, which was a wide range of English music from the Beatles to the Grease soundtrack. Quite literally about 90% of the music you hear in stores and restaurants is in English.

Louvre

After getting some fresh croissants and pain au chocolate from the bakery near us, our friends showed up and we headed out to the Louvre. It was my first time inside the famous museum, and it's hard to appreciate just how incredibly gigantic it is. After some confusion on where to head first, we saw the signs for the Mona Lisa and followed them until we finally came face to face to the famous painting. Since everyone says it's so much smaller than they expected, it was actually quite a lot larger than I expected. It's a "normal" sized painting, and due to the timing of our visit in the middle of December, the room was very sparsly populated so it was very easy to get up as close as possible to it. Kara was amazed how empty the room was. The perks of touring off-season!

The rest of the Louvre was interesting with the mummies (I'd never seen a real-life mummy before) and sculptures. And while you could spend days in there if you really wanted to see and study everything, honestly I thought 3 hours was enough to get the highlights. Oh, and the Museum Pass paid off in divideds as it let us enter through the "Group Tour" entrance which had no security line.

After the Louvre we got dinner at a random cafe in the 1st which was tasty, and then headed home.

Calm before the Storm

It's the calm before the storm as we have 3 sets of visitors back to back to back coming up over the next month. The first set is a friend I met way back in 2005 while interning at Intel, and she's coming along with her twin sister who I hung out with while she did an internship in Austin back in 2007. I'm really excited about them coming to visit since it'll be the first really good chance I have to be a "tourist" in Paris and actually get to know the city more. I'm taking the first few days of work off next week to go sightseeing, and already have a tentative schedule to hit the highlights.

In the meantime, I had to head to the BHV to try and find an ice scrapper for my car. It's been so chilly in the morning that a thick layer of frost forms on the windshield which I have to scrap off with a credit card currently. Unsurprisingly auto part stores are pretty non-existant in central Paris, so the BHV seems the best place to find something like an ice scrapper. That place really does have everything, even it if is ridiculously expensive and crowded.

On the way home I pass by Hotel de Ville (City Hall) which was lit up for Christmas and had a pretty Christmas tree lit up in front. There's a skating rink too that we'll have to check out.

Paris Cooking

I got to learn the secrets to French cooking today when our team dinner turned out to be a make-your-own dinner near Versailles. We made some chicken with asparagus and cream sauce, and then she had some some pre-prepared macrons with whipped cream for dessert. It was delicious and a great experience!

My first experience with the infamous Paris train strikes was today. Luckily its only lasting the one day, but it particularly affected the RER B line I use to get to work, so only 1 out of the normal 4 trains ran, meaning you had to wait a lot longer to catch one. I also noticed they didn't announce the stations at all, which is kind of odd since it's all automated, so apparently the ones that still stayed on were striking against pushing the button to turn on the announcer voice. In the meantime it meant I spent 30 minutes waiting out in the cold for the train to come.

Ile Saint Louis

Today we visited the lesser known of the two islands on the Siene which divides Paris, Ile Saint Louis. It's very close to Île de la Cité which is where Notre Dame is, but this island is mostly residential with no major tourist attractions nor metro stops on it, and apparently is where all Parisians wish they could live.

We started by having yet another delicious meal at Cafe Cassette, which while a bit pricy by Austin standards, we have yet to have anything that wasn't phenomenal there. I got the roasted chicken and Kara got the risotto and both were fantastic. It's also huître (oyster) season here so I'll need to try some before they disappear.

We then took the metro to Saint Michel to see the Christmas Tree in front of Notre Dame. I have to admit, while the tree was fairly large, the lights seemed strewn almost haphazardly on it, especially compared to previous years. But Notre Dame is so pretty at night it didn't matter. From there it's a quick walk down the bank to the small Saint Louis island, where we had some of the famous Berthillon ice cream for dessert and walked down the pretty streets. We found a really cute stationery store on the island called Marie Tournelle where Kara got some pens and paper, but they had all kinds of neat stuff.

I took a bunch of photos, and then we finished watching the 3rd Harry Potter movie. Thanks again Unotelly for letting us have Amazon and Netflix in France!

Christmas Time in Paris

Today we decided to check out the other side of the Champs de Elysees Christmas Market since we'd only done the one side. But first we stopped off at the Vavin metro stop to try and found the crêpe stand where I had my very first authentic French crêpe 5 years ago. And we found it! It was every bit as good as I remembered, and had some poulet (chicken) crêpes.

Afterwards we went into Église Notre Dame des Champs which is one of those many European church's which are FAR more beautiful than anything you would ever find in the US, but aren't in any guide book because there are ones even more impressive (such as the famous Notre Dame). There were some really pretty murals inside though, and was definitely worth the 5 minute stop to peek inside. 

Then we took the metro to Concorde to go up the Champs de Elysees. Though as we exited the metro station, we saw that looked like millions of ants swarming all around the traffic circle and up and down the avenue as the entire place was completely packed with people. I was quite a bit worried about being pick-pocketed since I had my SLR camera on me which typically screams "tourist" (though to be fair, quite a few Parisians also carry SLRs since there ARE a lot of very pretty things to take photos of) so I was mindful to keep my hands around my front pockets as much as possible. We got about a quarter of the way up the Christmas Market before admitting defeat since it was just way too crowded. And I love crowds! But this was just insane and you were just shimmying your way through. So Saturday early evening in December is not a good time to go.

Though we did pass a skating rink that would be fun to try out. When I read in a guidebook that you could go ice skating on the Eiffel tower I got really excited, until I then read somewhere else that it was closed this year (2013) because of improvements they're making on the 1st observation deck, which is where the rink usually is.

We then fought the crowds to get on the metro to check out (what I believe to be) Paris's biggest Christmas tree at the Galeries Lafayette Paris near the Opéra metro station. My Google-fu worked since there are two shopping areas with that name, but it's the one near Opéra that has the giant tree. It was really pretty, and as a bonus I got to finally see the Paris opera house. They also had some really intridcate mechanical store-front scenes, but again it was insanely crowded on the sidewalk in front of them, so we only saw it from a distance. We plan on coming back during a weeknight to see them better.

Speaking of Christmas trees, when I asked at work about mounting the tree in a log and not watering it, they all seemed confused why I would ask. "It's already dead, it doesn't need water" they reply. So I guess that's just not a thing here. Maybe the trees are a different species so they last? In the meantime the tree's been holding up so far, so we'll see if it can make it another 3 weeks. We also got Christmas lights for it finally. Well we got Christmas lights the first time, but they were the flashing kind so that's no good. Then the second one we got were very bright white LED lights which kind of hurt your eyes after a while, so that was no good either. Luckily Monoprix took the returns without an issue, and so this time we got some multicolored LED lights that work well, except they were really really short strands (about 10 feet each). And they don't piggy-back on each other like US Christmas lights, so we had to find two plugs, and then do some creative arranging to get the tree to look decorated. But all in all it worked out and now we have our very pretty lit up super-flocked Paris Christmas Bush.

Mexican Wrestling... in France!

A few days ago my co-workers sent out an email on the internal Paris office mailing list asking if anyone would like to join them in "catch Mexican". As a person with Mexican background, I was a bit concerned when trying to read this in French, until Google Translate told me that "catch" is French for wrestling.

So of course I said I was interested. I'd never been to a wrestling show before, but come on, Mexican wrestling... in Paris... with French people, I had to check it out! It's held twice a month at La Lucha Libre in the 5th in a very crowded bar. You have to get there early (by 8:30) to pay the 5€ entry fee and get your hand stamped, and then the show starts around 10:15 in the basement. Kara got to meet some of my co-workers and their significant other's, and then we all packed the basement area where they had a small wrestling ring setup. There were 3 "matches" and it was every bit as cheesy and ridiculous and fun as you could imagine WWF-type wrestling to be. And it's all in French! Even though I couldn't understand much of anything, I still had a great time and my co-workers were able to tell me that the main "good" guy was French for "Drinks too much", which is why he has a drawing of a beer on his spandex onesy. It was definitely one of the most interesting Friday nights I'd ever experienced, and that's not even considering that it was in France! 

Afterwards we got our first McDonalds of our stay since I always crave McDonalds for some weird reason in foreign countries after a long night out, even though I never eat it when I'm in the States. It was très bon though!

French Socialized Medicine

Kara still wasn't feeling better this morning, so I got my first taste of 100% authentic socialized medicine (Kara already had lots of experiences with it during her travels in Spain/Italy/New Zealand, etc). According to some politicians in the US, this meant Kara would soon die, which always amused her and visiting foreigners.

Instead it meant we call SOS Medicins, an English speaking doctor arrived AT OUR APARTMENT within an hour, and the total cost was less than what a doctor's visit would cost in the US. Had we actually gone to the doctor's office instead, it would have been 23€. For anyone.

But of course we let asinine fear mongering keep the US from joining every single other 1st world country in the world in providing much cheaper, and better, healthcare for everyone. Unfortunately for us, we aren't eligible for socialized tax-payer supported medicine in the US until we turn 65 when the most popular (based on surveys) and cheapest (for the age group) socialized healthcare in the US kicks in: Medicare.

Mersay

Today I worked from home because of a serious accident on the RER B line I use to get to work. But there was never any further news coverage on what it was and why the trains were completely stopped for 2 hours. I've noticed this seems to be a trend where I can't seem to find any details on breaking news stories of the day. I don't get it. Luckily I was running late otherwise I might have been stuck on that train and/or involved in accident.

Also remember that plumber we were calling a few days ago? Well he didn't show up on Thursday. Nor on Friday. So on the 3rd reschedule, he finally came around 4pm today. It turned out it was just a hair clog, but the drain is very weirdly designed which is why we couldn't get it fixed on our own. But now we know the secret that there's a plug that you can pull out, and so hopefully we won't have to resort to this again.

I also seem to have forgotten everything I ever learned in French while ordering lunch today. It was one of those "This all feels hopeless" moments when I can't even say "Merci" right. Some how my brain decided to take the day off and think that the most basic word ever is "Mersay". ::le sigh::

Lazy Sunday

Today we didn't do much. I mostly tried to start sorting through all the photos that had been piling up since we had done back-to-back-to-back trips to Vienna, Champagne, and Copenhagen, and then was out and about in Paris this weekend. So I had several thousand photos to go through (I'm very much of the shoot first and sort later variety). I'm still finishing them all, but expect to see a massive photo update soon.

Kara's also not been feeling well, so we may get to try out the French medical system soon. Which is ranked #1 in the world (compared to the US at #38) while spending less than half per capita what we do. I obviously have some strong opinion about the ridiculous state of the US healthcare system compared to every single other 1st world nation who does it better and FAR cheaper while covering everyone, but that's another topic for another day.