Alright so we arrived three days ago, but I hear we have been busy. There were two very long days spent getting here including a 12 hour layover at the Gatwick Airport in London. Was very thankful to have lounge access but a very long wait still, an hour plane ride later we were in Paris, more accurately a Paris Airport hotel, but Paris still. If you caught that, we waited 12 hours to take an hour long flight. We could have caught a bus and made it here in less time. I digress.... PARIS!
Our apartment in fantastic and very much what the pictures implied... one tiny kitchen.
Our glorious kitchen: mini fridge, sink, microwave, toaster over and prep table. Despite "the deer in the headlights look" I knew Daniel was taking my picture. The apartment is quite charming (more pictures to come) and our artist landlord has made many DIY alterations and filled the walls with her art work and the view ...
That is the Pantheon in the background. Our landlord enjoyed this view so much there is a painting of it hangs over the couch for sale, crafty that one.
So the first few days have been all about getting set up and finding our bearings. We are in the 5th, off Rue Saint Jacque (street). This makes me laugh because it is a street referenced in one of my learn french directions audio tapes.
"Où est la rue Saint-Jacques" (Where is Saint Jacques Street)
"C'est ici." (It is here)
Unexpected challenges in running out to the grocery store was reading labels. Yes I know the word for coffee is café and the word for soap is savon but a lot of dish soap does not simply read savon à vaisselle on the bottle it reads Paic Citron. And I don't want to admit how long we spent reading coffee labels trying to find a course grind for our coffee press (which we did not successful buy). In short the grocery store which I thought would be the easy part of the shopping was by far the hardest. Side Note: did not see a hair dryer there nor at the pharmacy.
Shopping for dinner on the second day turned out to be a bit more rewarding. We walked two blocks from our apartment to the Boulangerie (bakery) and bought a beautiful baguette (not actually called a baguette but more on that later) then we walked next door to the fromagerie (cheese shop). I have no idea what we bought but it was very taste with the bread. Two doors down we stopped into the vegetable shop, the shopkeep was very amused by us and one of the few shop owners that coninuted to speak french to us, as soon as most shopkeeps heard our "bonjour" they immediately switched to english. Then we finished up with a swing by the butcher next door. These were actually much simpler shopping, staring at things for a while and then just randomly point to something that looked tasty.
Our awesome haul.
My awesome dinner.
So yes my first french dinner in my tiny kitchen I made a salad, but your body would be craving veggies too after two days of airplane/ airport food. Today we went for a bit more of an adventure and hit up an open air market, for your most Parisians of shop experiences. It was amazingly overwhelming, Daniel and I walked through the entire two cross town block gauntlet of stalls and bustling shoppers before we regrouped at the end and geared ourselves up for the shopping experience. We shopped from five different stalls where hardly anyone spoke english to us and I even spoke a little, very little, but everyone was extremely nice and helpful. Amounts are a hard thing to process right away and most venders were happy to repeat themselves or automatically showed us the printed amount upon asking us to pay.
I am still letting Daniel do almost all of the talking, but by the market was feeling comfortable enough to engage a little. I even bought the garlic, by bought I said hello, handed her the bulb, handed her the money, and said thanks, Daniel answer any necessary questions (big step for me none the less).
My even awesomer haul.
Please note the pork chops. There was a butcher stall that after we spent much time guessing at the cuts of meat, for one they don't look like they do pre packaged at Harris Tetter and again Rossetta Stone covered porc (pork) it didn't exactly cover ham hacks, we ventured an order. The young man picked up the huge piece of meat with his bare hand and proceed to hack at it with a meat cleaver, remember open air market, and I was just like "damn." A super exciting morning, everyone should have that kind of entertainment from grocery shopping. I will have pictures of the market later on when I don't feel so touristy, which I am. We are still a little flummoxed by ordering weights of things (I believe a kilo is about two pounds) and would love to know how to ask for less than quarter of a kilo (half a pound).
Well I have been going on for awhile so I will wrap it up with a few shots of Paris at night from Daniel and I's strolls by the Seine the last two nights.
La belle ville la nuit.
Tomorrow Croissants for Breakfast!
Wow!
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