Last Day In The Office

I found out via our HR department and immigration lawyers that due to some paperwork from way back in August, my work visa actually expires today. I don't have to leave the country until April 8th (our flight is April 3rd) but my last day in the office had to be today.

This meant I also had to give up my work phone today as well. Thankfully T-Mobile has gotten even better since we've left, and actually now has unlimited international texting and data roaming (though at 2G speeds). Calls are the only thing that costs money, and even that is "only" 20 cents a minute, which is WAY less than the like $2 a minute is used to be. Oh, and that international texting even includes texting to international numbers, so I can still communicate with Kara's French phone.

The other kind of interesting part is that this also means my cell phone bill will be going drastically up, as it's ~$100 a month for both Kara and I for unlimited calling/texting and 3GB of data. In France you can get that for only $56 a month. It's one of the very few things actually cheaper here when compared to the US. Though as Kara does point out, our coverage range is much larger in the US since France is only about the size of Texas. But still....

After leaving work, I met Kara in the Marais district of Paris for dinner. We ate a a sit-down Mediterranean place with kebab's, since they're much better here and she loves kebab's. They often get a bad rap in Europe since they're considered lowly street food (it's like they were the McDonald's hamburgers of fast food, which is even more ironic since McDonalds is so incredibly popular here, seriously, always packed!). I do admit having inexpensive kebab's everywhere is something we'll miss quite a bit once we get back to the States.

Palais Garnier

Today we attended a classical music concert at the famous and incredibly beautiful Paris opera house: Palais Garnier. We had been there before on Christmas Eve, but this was our first time to get up close and personal with it.

The original plan was to get ballet tickets since Kara and I both love dance, but everything was sold out months in advance! Even buying the tickets 3 months early, this was one of the very few events that still had tickets available. Luckily they weren't too horribly expensive, and we managed to get really good seats close to the stage.

Interestingly all the seats are individually numbered, so it's not done by row like normal. They also don't fold up, so the aisles are a bit bigger than normal, but does make getting in and out difficult. The performance itself was well, bizarre. I had no idea what exactly they were going to play beforehand, it just said piano and percussion. But while the musicians I'm sure did a good job with what they were given, I really didn't get the music choice and we could see quite a lot of other people surprised at the seemingly chaotic sounds being produced on stage. Unfortunately neither of us liked it at all, but at least it was in a really pretty building!

Palais Garnier is actually my favorite building/monument in Paris, just because it is so over the top decadent. It gives Fontainebleau a run for its money in the most extravagant interior and has an interesting history closely tied to why Paris looks like it does today.

Afterwards we stopped to eat a random restaurant on Saint Germain on the way home. Unfortunately for Kara, her food was really really terrible. The pumpkin soup looked and tasted like mashed up baby food and was completely flavorless. And of course we were still charged for it (and it was not a cheap place!). My food though was really good, with the biggest escargot I've ever seen, and a delicious duck breast for the main course.

Paris in 6 hours

Today my best friend from college came to visit for a few hours during her long layover at CDG. Her flight got in at 5:50am, so even with the delay of leaving the airport and the hour long RER ride, she was at our apartment around 7:15 or so. The boulangerie near us is open that early even on Saturdays, so we could welcome her with some croissants and pain au chocolate.

We then headed to Notre Dame which she'd never been to. Afterwards Sainte Chapelle was opening (and right close by) so I visited that yet again, and then at that point the Notre Dame towers were open. I'd been wanting to go up the entire time we were here, so we got in the line that already formed and waited about 30 minutes to go up. The views at the top were really cool, with the best part of it being all the chimera and gargoyles (gargoyles are specifically used to drain away rain water) that you can see close up. It's not too many steps (at least compared to the Eiffel tower). Then we stopped by Pierre Hermé to pick up some macaroons, and then had lunch at Cafe Cassette where she had to leave to catch the train back to the airport. Not bad for a few hours worth of Paris!

I was utterly exhausted so took a nap for a while, before heading back out to walk around a bit and finally check out Le Bon Marché which was one of the first department stores in the world. It literally means "The Good Store/Buy" but can also be thought of as "Good Bargain". It wasn't particularly neat other than being famous for being an early department store, but it's one of those little things I was glad I was able to do by living in Paris.

Then we finished the night with more wine and cheese, since we only have a few days left of that!

No Accidents!

Today was my last day driving in France as I had to give up the company car I'd been using the last 6 months. I somehow managed to avoid getting in an accident the entire time, even with the crazy French drivers, confusing signs, tight parking, random stop lights, unmarked lanes, and the whole ridiculous Priorité à droite
thing. It's not to say it wasn't stressful at times though, and I'm looking forward to driving back in the US where people follow the rules, lanes are clearly marked, and one way and two way streets don't look exactly the same.

This is our last weekend in France. We both love living in Europe, and Paris has really started to grow on us (though it may be because Kara can finally speak French and that it's no longer dark most of the day). I'm both excited to get home to where things are just "easy", but also sad to leave the mystery of the unknown. I do miss my old role at work so I'm definitely looking forward to that, but there's so many little things I'm going to miss about living in Paris. I know we'll definitely try to come back to Europe one way or another in the future.

Now it's time to start packing and figuring out how to squeeze everything back into our suitcases. You only get 1 litre of alcohol a person so I'm trying to figure out what my two favorite bottles of wine were. I should have been writing this down! If only I could also import the bread too....

French Music III

One of the things I will miss the most about living overseas is the much wider variety of music on pop radio. So here's what's popular now in France that I like, that may or may not be hitting the US soon:

The translation is actually helping my French!


A lot of French radio is techno heavy with English refrains, like this song


One of the biggest French rappers


Heard this on the radio all the time and it got in my head!

Vaux-le-Vicomte

Today was a day of lasts. One of those was visiting our last château on the to-do list: Vaux le Vicomte. We would have done it earlier but it's actually closed most of the winter. It only opened back up March 9th.

Some people argue that it's the best château in France, which is understandable as it was the inspiration for Versailles. But inspiration in a tragic way unfortunately. King Louis XIV was so jealous of what his financier Nicolas Fouquet had built, he had him arrested on trumped up charges and spent the rest of his life in prison. And meanwhile used Fouquet's same architects to build Versailles.

It's actually a bit difficult to get to if you don't have a car (there are some shuttle buses from the nearest train station on the weekends in the summer apparently) so I knew we had to take advantage while I still had car access (which I give that up on Friday). I took the afternoon off work and we drove there.

It was quite eleaborate inside, and the audio guide delved into the history of Fouquet. The grounds are the most stunning part, and a lot of the literally groundbreaking gardening and perspective techniques were then used at Versailles.

But after visiting half a dozen castles around France, the best French château in my opinion is still Fontainebleau. It's got the best and most extravegant interior and has a lot of history associated with it, and is easy to get to from Paris. Honestly I'd recommend it over Versailles. Kara's favorite (and my 2nd favorite) is Chenonceau in the Loire valley. It requires a full day trip with a car, but it does have the most beautiful exterior and has quite a lot of history of its own.

It also marked the last time I'll have to use the portable TomTom my work collegue gave me to use while I was here. It served us well, though sometimes makes some interesting route choices.

We also went up the Eiffel Tower for the last time. Actually the first time for Kara during our trip. The first time she wasn't able to climb the stairs and didn't join my friends who were visiting, and the 2nd time the top was all fogged in. But this time we got reservations (only time available was the last one at 9:30pm) and it actually turned out to be a clear night!

We got there in time to see the lights sparkling from on the tower, which was really cool. I also had my new D70 with much better low light sensor, so I could get some really good shots. We actually ended up getting kicked off the tower because we stayed till closing and rode down with the workers. But of course the numerous Eiffel Tower model selling guys were still downstairs, trying to get you to buy an Eiffel Tower for a euro. We ended up staying until Midnight to see it sparkle one last time up close. It's sad to leave!

Czechs in France

Kara's host family from her au pairship came to visit us today. They're from Prague but hadn't spent much time at all in Paris, so the mom and the girl Kara took care of for 3 months 5 years ago came to visit for a few days.

While I was at work they visited the Sacré Cœur and got caught by the infamous bracelet guys. For some reason I'd never seen them in my previous trips there (and I'd been looking for them) but I suppose having 2 females and a small child set off their tourist sensors more than my giant SLR. Apparently they only target those who don't look like they're walking with a purpose, which normally I always do so maybe that's it. Anyways, they all got bracelets and the guys got some small change, so I suppose it worked out for everyone.

We then had some crepes for dinner that they brought back. I'm really going to miss convenient and (relatively) inexpensive crepes within walking distance once we get back to the US.

Pizza

For some reason Paris felt very crowded today. The train home was packed even at Le Guichet way out on the outskirts of the suburbs, and the line at Monoprix was crazy long to get some wine.

We also bought tickets to the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday night, so hopefully the skies are clear. The forecast says they will be, but I've learned that the forecast is often quite wrong in France.

We also finally visited the local pizza place that is literally 10 meters away from us. It was quite expensive (21€, or $29) for a pizza but was pretty good. But not worth the cost. It's ALWAYS packed though, so I guess they're doing something right. 

Normandy D-Day Beaches

Visiting the D-Day beaches was one of my "must do's" after we found out we'd be moving to Paris, and so I was really excited to finally get to see such an important part of history. But since we were in Bayeux, and after reading about the sights around the area, we decided to go to the two biggest ones suggested: The Bayeux Tapestry and the Bayeux Cathedral.

I had no idea until the night before how important the Bayeux tapestry was to our understanding of French and English history. If you look up any of the major players around that time (1066) like William the Conqueror, Edward the Confessor, or Harold II, it's all images from the tapestry. And it's not actually technically a tapestry, as it's actually an embroidered cloth.

I'd seen other tapestry's before, like the famous Unicorn one in the Cluny museum, but I was actually really really impressed by this 70 meter (230 feet) long story of the Norman conquest of England. Or in other words, why half of the English language has French origins and why I can read French so easily!

There's a really engaging audio guide that talks you through all the scenes on the tapestry, and then upstairs are some models of the tapestry to explain how it was made (a 1000 years ago!) and life in that era. There's also a film explaining the events of the famous 1066 Battle of Hastings which changed the course of history forever.

The cathedral is then very close by, and was amazingly spared destruction during WWII due to a chaplain getting word to the allies that Bayeux wasn't a Nazi stronghold and didn't need to be bombed. It was actually one of the most impressive churches we've ever been to (and we've been in a LOT of churches) and the stained glass was incredibly impressive. If you're remotely in the area and are remotely interesting in church's, it's definitely a must-do. It's the same size as Notre Dame, but older, and dominates the tiny city of Bayeux.

Because we were running behind schedule we skipped the WWII museum in the city, and went straight to the beaches. I really want to go back next time we're in Paris and do a full 2 days in the area since there's so much to see, but I feel we got a good sampling of all the history that area contains.

The first place we visited was Pointe Du Hoc which is a series of cliffs between Omaha and Utah beaches where the Americans made landfall on D-Day. It's where lots of German weaponry was located, and you can clearly make out the massive and numerous bombshells left from our bombers trying to destroy them ahead of time. You can walk through the Nazi bunkers they set up, see the machine gun concrete bunkers they used, and explore where they had their observation posts to communicate to the massive guns to shoot at ships. Over half the Army Rangers who led the climb against the cliffs were killed or wounded, but the area was captured that same day. It was incredibly powerful and they had filmed interviews with some of those brave soldiers who fought that day.

The next stop was the American Cemetery. It was incredibly moving, and I really wish we could have spent more time there. Unfortunately I misread the closing times on the website, and we got there very close to closing time, so we had to rush through the exhibits in order to have some time among the almost 10,000 grave sites of the soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the freedom of Europe. It's an incredibly powerful place and is a reminder of everything that is sacrificed during war.

Heading further East, we stopped at the Longues Sur mer Battery where you can view the actual anti-naval artery that the Nazi's set up to protect against an invasion of France. You could touch the actual weapons that they touched, and walk along the bunkers. It was very surreal.

Our final stop was the cliffs over Arromanches where a massive artificial harbor was setup right after D-Day to transport goods into France. It was INCREDIBLY windy and thus cold, and felt like we were in a hurricane simulator. But it was really neat to see the sunken ships and concrete still visible even today, and I'd love to go back to see the museum and 360 movie there that explore the D-Day invasion.

At this point the sun was starting to set so we started our way back to Paris. It rained on us a bit, but we also got an amazing view of a very bright half-rainbow which lightened our spirits after such a depressing subject day. And finally after a very long weekend we finally made it back home.

Mont Saint Michel

After a delicious breakfast and one of the best croissants we've had so far, we drove the 15 minutes to Mont Saint Michel. Our Tom Tom Nav system came up with probably the most convoluted way to get there going through the middle of nowhere (though very very pretty) farm land, but alas we did finally make it to the gorgeous island.

Apparently back in the day the parking lot would actually get flooded during high tides, but they've moved it further back now so it's no longer a risk. You take a free shuttle bus then to get to the island. There's a causeway built to get there, but it's in the process of being replaced by a bridge since the causeway is causing (ha!) too much sediment to be built up. The bridge is supposed to be done in something like 2015 so we still used the causeway for this trip.

Mont Saint Michel has an interesting history dating back to the 700's. It was built because a bishop had visions that Saint Michael wanted him to build a church on a rocky island. The island is surrounded by stores and shops on the lower level, with an abbey at the top. The tour of the abbey was really interesting and I'd consider it well worth a visit if you have the time in France.

The tides around the bay are also supposed to be spectacular in how fast and high they rise, but unfortunately due to other scheduling conflicts we could only go when the tide wasn't high enough to actually surround the island. But it was still really cool and well worth going even if the tides aren't going on.

We ate lunch at a restaurant on the island, and I got one of the famous omelets that are a tradition there since they're fast to make so that pilgrims could make it back to the mainland before the tides came in. Now of course it still took a good while until the food came so I suppose we would have drowned if it were the olden days, but it was a really good and incredibly fluffy omelet. You can take walks along the mudflats surrounding the island, but considering it was really really cold and windy that didn't seem like fun. Also there's quicksand so if you did do that, it's best to take a guided tour to avoid those areas and be aware of the tides since they do come in so incredibly fast. It sprinkled on us occasionally but somehow we missed the brunt of the rain, though we could always see it off in the horizon. We did have to move inside while eating though since it starting dropping some big heavy drops in the middle of lunch.

Afterwards we drove along the coastline towards Saint Malo. There's a really scenic route specifically setup for this, and with our trusty Rick Steves France book, were able to get our nav system to cooperate in finding it. Along the way we passed people land sailing on the empty coastline and actually tried to see if we could join in (as it was a business) but alas you needed reservations. It was still really cool to see it in action. We also passed by a village where the ships were all stuck in the sea floor because it was low tide, which was a really interesting sight.

It also randomly started hailing on us for about 3 minutes in the middle of the drive, and then was sunny again. From reading the news over the last 6 months I knew the Brittany region had some crazy weather, and this just confirmed it. 

Finally we made it to Saint Malo which is a really interesting city surrounded by gigantic walls to protect it from invaders. You can actually climb up to the top of them and walk around. We finished the evening by eating some crepes (which the area is known for) as the sunset fell. Interestingly most of the city was destroyed in WWII due to bombing.

After a very full day of sightseeing we drove 2 hours to Bayeux to spend the night in preparation of seeing the D-Day beaches the next day. After a bit of confusion of how to park at the Hotel Churchill (named of course after Winston Churchill, as they were the first major city liberated after D-Day) we could finally get some rest.
 

Trip to the Northern Coast

One of the last things on our France to-do list is to see Mont Saint Michel and the Normandy beaches. So after work today we hopped in the car and drove the 3.5 hours to a bed and breakfast near Mont Saint Michel. After almost a 30€ toll fee (!) we decided to stop in a random local diner before heading in for the night since we were kind of in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately the food wasn't that good, particularly the dessert apple crepes which were drowning in rum (I had to think for a minute if it was spelled "rhum" (like the French do) or "rum). 

I also confirmed that toll booths in France will take chip+signature cards like my Hyatt Visa. I had always used my French Carte Bleu just to be on the safe side, but since no one was behind me went and tried my American credit card and it worked out.

Musée des Arts et Métiers

Today we finally went to the Museum of Arts and Crafts. Which in English sounds like we went to a museum of Popsicle stick houses, but it means "crafts" as in the old style meaning of technical achievements. It's like the Paris engineering museum essentially. It's open until 9:30pm on Thursdays, and so we decided to take advantage and go after work.

Surprisingly for some reason the admission was free, so that was pretty cool. The museum is interesting, but I wouldn't put it on the "Don't Miss" list of Paris. It does though have some neat models of old steam engine "cars", old scientific measurement equipment, and some interesting videos of how food containers are made.

And most interesting of all, it had the very first commercial non-kit personal computer created, the Micral N. It's actually from France which is not something most people would guess. There were also some really old TI and Mac computers as well, old movie cameras, and the original Foucault pendulum which was used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. Very cool stuff indeed!

Paris Life

Today marked the 2 week mark before our adventure in Europe ends, it does feel like every day counts now.

So because of that, we ate Thai food tonight! Ok, so we can get Thai in Austin, but it was a place we had passed by a few time and I'd be curious about. And with only 2 weeks left, it was time to actually try it. Luckily it was quite tasty, and was actually the first truly spicy thing I'd eaten in the last 5 months. Even the "mexican" food here isn't actually spicy, so this was a nice surprise.

Afterwards we went to our friendly local crepe stand, and because Kara was with me, she could actually communicate with him. He forgot to put the banana's in the "Nutella and Banana" crepe, so he gave us the messed up one for free, threw in some free coconut, and actually seemed sad when Kara told him we'd only be around for 2 more weeks. I will definitely miss having delicious fresh crepes only a 5 minute walk from our flat.

I also got my final French haircut today. It's the 3rd one of our journey, and is probably the most difficult part of being an ex-pat just because I do not have the vocabulary to express what I want. Thank goodness for Google Translate and being able to print out its translations! And now I have much less shaggy hair.

Also I think my French has actually gotten worse over the last week or so. I've been forgetting how to pronounce things. But I've pretty much given up on it since I'm only here another 2 weeks, and while I never got to the "broken but understandable conversation" phase, I am happy with how much I can read at least.

We also booked our Airbnb room for this weekend to visit Mont Saint Michel and the Normandy beaches. We wanted to do as much of France as possible since it's a unique opportunity to have a car, and this is the one place we've been trying to go to for months and never quite made it. So it's our last shot, since we only have 2 more weekends and we wanted to spend the last one here to just enjoy Paris.

Speaking of which, it's actually getting warm here! Sad to go just when things are blooming and you don't need a coat everyday, but we're trying to make the most of it.

Paris Air Pollution

Today we flew back to Paris, and discovered that the entire metro system was free both today and over the weekend due to some crazy high levels of pollution. The Parisian government actually instituted a driving ban on half the cars on the motorways (only allowing those with odd numbered license plates to drive) but lifted the fees on the metro and on parking.

I had noticed it getting really hazy when we were leaving Thursday, but we apparently picked a great weekend to get out of Paris. Due to some shifting weather patterns it should be much better tomorrow so things will go back to normal.

Barcelona!

We spent the weekend in Barcelona, which was my first trip to Spain! Kara lived a summer in Spain a few years back, and had been to Barcelona before, but was really excited to get back to a Spanish(y) speaking country.

Spanish-y because I didn't realize it before, but Barcelona actually speaks its own language: Catalan. It's an interesting mix of Spanish and French, but most people spoke Spanish so we were fine since Kara can speak Spanish fluently.

It's a gorgeous city with some amazing architecture. Mind-blowing architecture really. The most famous of these being Antoni Gaudi, who creates buildings and structures that look like they're straight out of Dr Seuss. The most famous of which was Sagrada Familia which is a gigantic church that is actually still under construction. You don't think about multi-century church construction anymore, but here it is. Very very impressive!

The food was also great and we had a lot of fun the whole weekend!

Paris Saint Germain Football

Tonight we finally went to a football match to see Paris Saint Germain team play Bayer Leverkusen (who are from Germany). It was actually a fairly important game since it was part of the Champions League tournament, and the win pushed them into the quarter-finals. I just chose it because it was the only date available before we left when we would be in town.

The games are played at Parc Des Princes which is just technically outside of central Paris, but accessible by metro. Or would have been had line #10 not shut down right as we were trying to get there. Thankfully we ended up doing a hodgepodge of routes to make our way to the stadium by taking a taxi to the RER C (as he said the traffic was horrendous around the stadium) and then taking the #10 from Javel the rest of the way (the issue was in the middle of where our apartment is and Javel somewhere).

The game itself was pretty awesome. We had good seats in the lower corner of the stadium, which we bought online from a ticket reseller off the PSG website. And while Bayer (yes, it's the same city that the pharamacutical company Bayer was founded and they sponsored the first teams) scored first, Paris ended up winning 2-1.

Apparently they're quite good this year, and while I had no idea at the time, PSG has one of the top players in the world, Zlatan Ibrahimović who is a Swede who gets $14 million a year to play. He's quite good.

Using the metro to get back home after the game was surprisingly relatively uncrowded. I mean it was crowded standing room only, but it took a while to fill up and wasn't a crazy crush of people like I thought it might be. All in all it was a great night!

Pétanque

Today wasn't too eventful except for getting crepes. Which was only noteworthy after I realized I hadn't eaten a crepe in almost 2 and a half weeks due to being in Germany for one week, and somehow living off of baguettes, pizza, and breakfast tacos the other week.

I am going to miss those things.

At work today we played some pétanque after lunch, which was fun. It's very similar to bocce or shuffleboard, so easy to pick up, and learned some more French curse words!

We also got some gelato afterwards, and I'm still impressed by the gelato "flowers" that Amorino trains its workers to create. The gelato is just OK, but it's really pretty gelato when put into a cone.

Delivery!

Kara's on medicine but still sick, so we didn't do too much today.

But one thing we finally did was get food delivered! We had tried previously with no success, and the Domino's and Pizza Hut (yep, they're quite common in Paris) for whatever reason do not deliver to our area of Paris. Kara had to use her French skills on the phone to figure this out.  Luckily after a bit of Googling, we found out that Speed Rabbit Pizza does deliver to us, AND you can order online so lack of French conversational skills won't stop you. It's a French pizza chain, but it was really good.

The only odd thing is there is quite literally no pepperoni pizza option. Or hamburger. Or any of the "typical" pizzas we order in the US. We ended up going with a potato ground beef pizza which was really good, but that's still one of the things that surprises me is how different pizza toppings are here.

We also booked a trip to Barcelona for next weekend! The original plan was to do a full week doing Spain and Portugal, but due to work constraints it had to be shrunk down some. But we'll be in Barcelona next weekend to soak in the culture. Which I didn't realize until I really started reading into it (and even though Kara said so herself) that Barcelona really isn't Spain. It has its own language and its own culture.

I have a feeling I'd love Spain (I love any culture that stays up ridiculously late) so we definitely plan on going back later to do a full trip around the country.

I also bought tickets to see the Paris football team play. Seeing Roma play while visiting Rome was one of the highlights of my trip, so I'm really excited to see my second European football match.

And yes, it is quite ridiculous we call American Football "football".

Checking off the to-do list

Today I tried to knock some things off the Paris to-do list, since we only have 4 weekends left before we fly back to the US. Luckily it was an absolutely gorgeous Saturday with blue skies and warm enough where I could go around outside without my coat for the first time in since October!

First thing was to stop by 27 Rue Fleurus which is where Gertrude Stein lived back in the day. Then I was going to check out the but the line was ridiculously long. Luckily even though the last day was supposed to be today (maybe why the line was so long, when Kara went she didn't have one at all) it got extended until March 29th.

So I walked along the Marais through the gay district on Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie. Then I stopped by St Paul's church which was really impressive inside, before finally making my way to Thanksgiving, which is Paris's most well known American expat grocery store. Sure Poptarts are $9 a box, but it's Poptarts in Paris! And real tortillas! And root beer! I picked up the aforementioned root beer and some Reeses Pieces before heading back out.

For late lunch I continued the American vibe and ate at Breakfast in America where I had my first breakfast taco in over 5 months. Considering they're somewhat of a staple in my meals in the US, I was really really happy to discover someone actually made them in Paris. It was pretty tasty, and I had a fun conversation with a visiting American who was in town scouting out for a movie, so that was fun.

Next on the to-do list was to check out the Palais Royal and the inner courtyard which is kind of a secret park. Even though I'd been around the area a decent number of times, I'd never actually ventured into the courtyard area. And trees were blooming! Spring is coming! And we're leaving :( I was kind of sad this was my first (and quite possibly my only) time there, and while most of the trees were still quite bare, I can imagine how beautiful it must look in the summer.

After that, I went searching for the church my parents said was right next to the Louvre. And after some scouting around, I finally found Saint-Germain of Auxerrois Church.

Mass was going on at the time so I didn't get to explore it much, but it's just one of those things that still amazes me about Europe, where such a beautiful church gets completely overshadowed by everything else, even though it would be a top visited site were it located in the US. 

Since I was near by, I also finally visited the tip of Île de la Cité past Pont Neuf ("New Bridge") which is neat because back when Pont Neuf was created in 1607, it was at the very edge of the island. And over the last few hundred years, it's built up quite a bit past that. Being a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it was quite crowded with people hanging out along the river, and was really quite neat. 

Then it was a jump on the metro to get to the final destination of the day, Passage Jouffroy and Passage Verdeau which are covered storefronts through old time passageways. Not the top of the "must do" list of Paris, but pretty neat places none the less. 

All in all a quite productive day! The original plan was to go to Normandy and Mont Saint Michel this weekend but Kara was sick so had to come up with a new plan. Only 3 more weekends left! 

RATP Police

Today wasn't going to be worth an update since nothing too exciting happened (other than Kara binging on Norman videos) except that on the way home, the RATP were out in force. Quite literally every other day I see people jumping over the turnstyles or going two-at-a-time to cheat the system, and I always wondered why there weren't just plain clothes policemen waiting to catch them since it seems to be incredibly common. Well today I was transferring from the RER B to Line #4 at Denfert-Rochereau like I normally do, and I noticed a very thin woman squeeze between the bars of the "luggage" entrance without paying. I was busy being impressed she could squeeze through so small a space, when she was quickly stopped by undercover RATP agents who flashed their badges and then quickly whisked her away to pay her fine. Nice.

All this watching of Norman (who is incredibly hilarious if you know French) has really helped out Kara's French, and even mine. She actually gets most of it despite the slang and incredibly fast speaking, but even I'm able to figure out a handful of words. And I learn the pronunciation of words I would have never ever guessed, like how "choix" (choice in English) is pronounced which lets just say nothing at all how I assumed it was. Oh French. 

One Month Left

We officially have one more month left in Paris. 5 months down and just one to go. It's gone by incredibly quickly, but I fully expected it to so I can't say I'm too surprised. There's still a lot left to see in Paris and around us in France, but  we'll try our best to get it all done.

Kara also discovered through her language class this really funny French comic on Youtube called Norman Thavaud. His videos are all in French, but Kara could translate them for me. It often took a few tries though as he has a thick and very very quick Parisian accent. If you know French though, you'll enjoy them. And even the visual gags work decently without the context.

Back to Paris

Our flight left late in the evening, so we had some more time to walk around and visited the Munich history museum. It actually wasn't all that interesting, and while there was an English guidebook they gave you, all the rest of the exhibits were in German and so it felt like we missed a lot of the explanations.

Also after being gone almost a week, it was a bit odd feeling to be looking forward to getting back to "home" in Paris. It was really weird when we arrived and it was comforting that I was back in a land where I could actually understand stuff. I never thought I'd feel that way about French, but my reading comprehension has gotten to the point where signs and ads make sense and are easy, unlike German. And I'm slowly but surely understanding more spoken French. A little bit anyways.

On the other hand having people chain smoking while waiting in line for a taxi wasn't the fun part about being back in Paris.

Munich Weekend Pt 2

Today was really crowded due to a football match between Munich and Schalke. There were a LOT of people in blue clothing and hats, which were the visiting team, and then a good number of people in red clothing which were from Munich. It's also carnival season, so there were people dressed up in other types of costumes and lots of food trucks around. It was pretty neat, though hard to find a table at places.

Speaking of which, I need to book football tickets to see the Paris team play. We're running out of days!