Life About Town

Paul and I have always enjoyed practicing "when in Rome..." when we travel. We'd rather experience a day in a local's shoes than see all the tourist sites there are. To that end, we spent a lot of time in Paris exploring neighborhoods and out of the way places. We also rode the busses to sightsee. And we made a point of not dressing like tourists. We wore trenchcoats rather than parkas, and good walking shoes instead of sneakers and no baseball caps or T-shirts! It must have worked because twice we were asked for directions by natives.

We also packed very lightly, bringing only synthetic clothes so that we didn't have to worry about wrinkling and so we could do laundry right in our hotel room and the stuff would dry overnight if there was no convenient laundromat nearby. It worked out perfectly.


Markets
Paris has thriving farmers markets running throughout the week. We checked out the Marché Bastille on our last day in Paris and sampled delicious cheeses, cured meats, bread of course, and the most amazing almond croissant we'd ever had. The produce was beautiful and there were a lot of fish stalls with fresh fish and shellfish - live scallops and sea urchins on display in baskets of seaweed.




The Metro
The public transportation system in Paris is very similar to London, and so we immediately felt right at home getting around town. When we first arrived and got off at the metro station for our hotel, I nearly squealed out loud as our metro stop had one of the beautiful art nouveau "Metropolitan" signs over the entrance.
On one of our first days in Paris, we were changing lines in Chatelet and walking down one of the long passageways between lines when we came upon a street musician/performance artist in costume. He (- or she maybe) was dressed in an oversized shirt and pants, appearing to be a headless body playing the accordion. As we walked past, he began playing the theme music from the French movie Amelie. It echoed through the metro passages in a very surreal and goosebump-raising way. I think that moment really was the exact moment that it hit me that we were truly in Paris.


Our Hotel
Our hotel was on a narrow side street convenient to the Metro and many good patisseries and cafés, and was exactly how I'd pictured it to be - simple, clean & efficient, and very European in feel, complete with a narrow spiral staircase and an oh-so-comfortable slat bed with a mattress that we wanted to ship home. The room was small by American standards and featured a very large radiator that the cleaning staff kept turning on and we kept turning off again. We had a lovely view from our window, too.

At night, as we were digesting yet another fantastic dinner, we enjoyed watching a little French TV, including a game show made up of math and word puzzles that made Wheel of Fortune look like a game for kindergarteners. We were entertained by American shows such as Law & Order and CSI Miami dubbed in French. And we got a kick out of this Do Not Disturb sign advertising a cable channel.