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!