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.
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