Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas --
We’re missing family, but buttoning down for a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our Paris apartment.
Here’s a quick update/summary of the journey:
Day 2 (Monday, Dec. 23) – Our first full day in Paris and certainly more than pleased with our accommodations. Decided to squeeze quite a bit into the day. A see-the-sights bus trip, a walking tour and the Pompidou Center, all with two kids totally disinterested (which is sullen in the good times and moaning in the bad times). Marlene and I walked to Rue Cler, grabbed a pastry and
sat with her coffee and my hot chocolate. Nice place. It was just past noon (a typical start for us) and we were in the dining room. No such thing without a meal, so they sent us
out to the covered and enclosed small table area built on the original street. Got back and headed out with the kids. Walked to the Eiffel Tower area to grab the Bus #69. The walk was through the area that features lots of Americans and we even saw an all American small grocery store. There’s a big park leading up to the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding buildings are fabulous, apparently some of the nicest residences in Paris. We got on the bus, which is a well outlined tour in our Paris tour guide book. It was an interesting 4.5 mile ride and we saw many of the Paris highlights. We took the bus back and got off to take the Marais walking tour. We got off the bus late and quit early, so the 2.5 mile walking tour was more like one mile for us. We went down the original street in Paris, through an area dating back to the Middle Ages and through the Jewish area. In the 1930s many German Jews fled to this area of Paris and during the early 1940s about 75% of them met their fate when the Nazis arrived. We ate at an Israeli restaurant (see photo). Sophia saw pitas, I decided to jump on board because I saw lamb, while Marz and Keaka were dragged in. To me it was a U.S. hamburger joint. Sophia and I had pitas (they make them conveyor belt style and include a walkup window in front). That means diced cucumber, cabbage, tomato, and a few other things with a sauce, and in my case some lamb. I’m not big on mixing lots of things, but it got the job done, and it was better than having another Big Mac. Marz had Moroccan salad (it looked like a plate of tomato stew served with pita bread), while Keaka had a plate of (French) fries. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and the place was big and jammed, so somebody knew something. By this time there was lots of moaning and Marlene was running out of gas with her cold, so we dragged on to the Pompidou Center (it’s the ultra modern looking erector set-like building that opened in 1977 and will look modern 400 years from now). See the photo of Marz and Keaka in front of a pool outside Pompidou Center, loaded with modern art. We’d been to Pompidou before,but didn’t go in. So, we went in this time and mustered up to the 4th floor Modern Art exhibit. Didn’t see much of it, but we did see an Andy Warhol work of Elizabeth Taylor. Out we went into the dark evening, walked three blocks to the Bus #69 route and headed back to our apartment, about 20 minutes away in traffic. The troops were cooked, so out I went for Chinese food (“take away” as the French say), which wasn’t quite like American Chinese, but close enough.
Day 3 (Tuesday, Dec. 24) – Slept in until 11:30 this morning. I was shocked. Marz fixed breakfast (an American breakfast with egges), while I went grocery shopping. I took the old person’s two wheeled grocery cart (it’s actually stylish here) and went to the grocery, the vegetable (legumes) store and the bakery (patisserre). I had checked to see if my pork chop and mashed potatoes restaurant might be open on Christmas Eve – no such luck – so I got some pasta, some sauce and some other staples, including the baquette, so we could fix Christmas Eve dinner in the apartment. Marlene and I are heading over to the Musee Orsay (Keaka has video games to play and Sophia is busy on her phone, which has now grown attached to her hand), the Louvre is closed on Tuesday, and will check out the impressionist works. Yes, it is a day for umbrellas, as had been predicted.
Day 4 (Wednesday, Dec. 25) – Not every day is so predictable that you can summarize it before it happens, but I believe Christmas Day falls in that category. We’ll be sleeping in and then shortly after noon heading over to Joe Allen’s Restaurant. They have one in New York and another in London, featuring American food. I called and they don’t have Turkey dinner on Christmas Day because they already had Turkey at Thanksgiving. But, they have their brunch, which I looked up. I saw egg dishes, so Joe Allen’s it is for Christmas Day dinner. We’re off to the cocktail show (9:00 pm) at the Moulin Rouge. Marlene feels it’s a once in a lifetime experience, and I fully expect once will be plenty.
The photo of Sophia is on the main street of the Jewish section of the Marais section of Paris near the Israeli restaurant. Yes, by the way, that is the Eiffel Tower and residential buildings in the area by the tower.
Be merry.
The Wilsons
