Getting Ready for NYC - Pearl River Mart

It's been a long time since I've posted anything of real content here. I'm forgetting how to use Blogger. Juan gave us a link to a large Chinese department store in New York City's Chinatown called Pearl River Mart. Of course it reminded me that I better get busy on my Google Map of New York City as well! The Pearl River Mart website reminds us up front that it will be the Year of the Dragon, so we should look for some dragon charms for Speck. I also need a Rabbit charm for Sebastian.

Are We Ready for the Camino Again?

Grant Spangler posted an article from the November 2011 issue of the Lonely Planet Travel magazine on the Camino and Northern Spain in the Go Camino Listserv: Fork in the Road. Is it time to get enthused and get in shape?

Restaurante Club Colombia

When we were in Bogotá in December of 2006, Patty and Juan David took us to the restaurant "Club Colombia", which I thought was only a beer. I'm not sure what the relationship is between the restaurant and the beverage but there is a history of the restaurant at Colombia.com which says that Club Colombia opened its doors November 21, 2005 in Bogotá when two culinary experts, Harry Sassón and Leo Katz (!) decided to revive the traditional recipes of grandmothers and offer to the public an ample range of typical Colombian food from Cartagena to the Amazons. They have 25 types of juices, 4 kinds of arepas and empanadas and the best dessert is a torte of almojábana with cheese and honey.

The biggest selling dishes are Posta negra de Cartagena, sobrebarriga (brisket), and Sancocho trifásico which is a stew with three kinds of meat, served with avocado and rice with coconut. I think that Fernando may have ordered the Sancocho trifásico last time. The specialties of the house are Ceviche de langostinos, caldo de costilla con papa, empanadas de pipián, arepa de huevo, tamal bogotano, cazuela de mariscos y la sobrebarriga guisada.

The thing I remember most was the champu made with fresh lulo. Absolutely delish!

I'm trying to pull together other typical restaurants just so we'll have a list! Unfortunately Google Maps does not understand Colombian addresses. You cannot look up a regular address and get a proper result. You have to search by the restaurant name and even then it gives lots of incorrect or incomplete information and there's no street view to verify.

Bogota, por fin!

OK, so finally I'm back to posting and it's high time since we have less than a week before we go to Bogota! Lots of things have changed on the web since we last went in 2006 and I should be able to orient myself much better since apparently they have google maps.

I was looking at the city of Bogota's tourism map and they showcase Andres Carne de Res and also La Puerta Falsa, a small store around the corner from the cathedral that sells typical Colombian sweets. It says it is 100 years old. Unfortunately the BogotaTurismo.gov site is technologically challenged and its "galerias" are not working. They are also supposed to have "Bogota in a minute" video clips that are nonexistent. I'll have to find some better sources - there are bound to be some out there somewhere!! Except I've been looking at the restaurants and almost none of them have followed Andres Carne de Res and created their own websites. They might have a facebook or myspace page, or a gmail address but that is about all.

Oh, and WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!! Google Maps does not have street views for Bogota! Will we have to wait a decade for that? I guess I should be happy they have maps. I'll have to get some addresses to plot. Hm. Do I remember where we lived in the 1970s? I'm going to have to play around with it a bit so I don't get lost.

The New York Times ran a 36 Hours in Bogota last year. And they mention the new location of Andres Carne de Res at Calle 82 No. 12-21. Oh, my and look at this one: Sopas de Mamá y Postres de la Abuela. How could you go wrong with a name like that??? And it even has a theme song! See there is some hope that things have progressed a little in Bogota! Papi will be so happy. They have morcilla with papas criollas, fritanga, calentado, empanadas... I didn't get this listing from the New York Times, of course it would be too plebian for them, but from Bogota's city site in English.

Sign up to stay informed and visit the libraries!

The first thing you might want to do (or might not) is sign up for newsletters that tell you what is happening in San Diego. Or you can just go to their websites.

• KPBS San Diego Week (TV)
• San Diego City Beat
• San Diego Reader
• San Diego Restaurant Week in September
• San Diego Union Tribune
• This Week @ UCSD

And you always have to stop by the libraries to see what is up. Then you will see that the Geisel Library's (as in Dr. Seuss) 40th Anniversary is May 1st. Now, because you work for UCSD does that mean you get a UCSD library card?

And then there is the San Diego Public Library but their website gives me a headache, and their sirsi catalog does too. Sometimes I wonder if I am really a librarian...

Grunion Runs

Wow! The grunion are still running on the beaches of California! Here's something for you to do, Juan and Mandy. The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute sponsors Grunion Runs. Will you be in San Diego Thursday, May 19, from 11 p.m. - 1 a.m.? When we go visit you some spring, that is something I definitely would like to do. And in the winter months, they offer tidepooling, and in the summer months snorkeling. There! All your weekends are taken care of!

San Diego

Juan says that my next destination has to be San Diego. Let's see. What do I know/remember about San Diego? At Santa Cruz, there was a student, Jeffrey Greenberg, who spent two years at Santa Cruz then transferred to Berkeley. Later I remember seeing a news program done by an ex-Stevenson College student about Greenberg -- he became a dentist and moved to San Diego. He was saying how as a Northern Californian he had always made fun of Southern California, but then he moved to San Diego and was absolutely smitten. Well, that goes to show you that Northern Californians are full of hot air and don't know what they are talking about.

I've only been to San Diego twice. Once as a child (maybe 9 or 10?) when we went to visit the Pipers and I vividly remember going to Tijuana and getting a serape. The second time was with Fernando when we were at Berkeley. We didn't make it to Tijuana that time because Fernando needed a visa to cross the border (although Gonzalo and his friends crossed the border without one...). We did see the chimpanzees at the zoo.

I would go to San Diego to check out the California Rare Fruit Growers. Except now I see they are at The Fullerton Arboretum - CSUF and not in Vista anymore. Whoops. Now what am I going there for? Ah, maybe to see the undersea canyon that goes up to La Jolla. And to walk along the seashore. And maybe to see the Torrey Pines that my grandfather's cat was named after. Did they really pick him up along the road there?

2011-03-12

Today, our last day (sob, sob) we walked up to the second stage of the Eiffel Tower and survived! Then we walked (as if we hadn't walked enough) around that neighborhood admiring the architecture and the market on Rue Cler. We are now attempting to pack and tonight we will use up (we hope) all the leftovers in our refrigerator. It's been wonderful.  Having the apartment has been fantastic and we were able to do  and see so much.  It's enough to make us wish we could do this every year, or, perhaps, say for a month or two.
Wish you were all here

bring your bottle and they'll fill it or get one of their bottles on deposit

Why didn't we come to the Baron Rouge sooner. We got deposit bottles at .50 and filled two with inexpensive but very good (we think) wine from their barrels. This is near the Marche d'Aligre and the Viaduct des Artes (fine crafts people). Then after lunch we went to the GRAND MAGASINES (actually just the Gallery Lafayette) and we certainly now understand why people come to Paris to shop and to check out the styles. And Fernando got the Mephistos he's been after. Then (as if that wan't enough) we walked over to the Latin Quarter and walked the streets teeming with students celebrating Friday evening, and saw Rue Mouffetard and Rue Monge before heading home to look for a restaurant that was still open. And we found one!

Like our new hats, Vincent?

Like our new hats, Vincent?

Thursday, March 9, 2011   Paris, France
Today, after a quick trip to the Bastille Market (can't have a day without a market in Paris?) we took the bus to the Musee D'Ordsay, then had a lovely lunch, before going to the Orangeries for most great art.  Then walked up the Champs d"Elysees to be au courant before Metro-ing home.  Penny's pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/pennykaplan/20110310?feat=directlink

Cathy's at https://picasaweb.google.com/chaparroc/ThursdayInParis#.

Today was the Louvre

Unfortunately Penny had to wake me up this morning. It was 9 am and I was still sound asleep. So much for getting early starts. I think we got out of the house around 10:30 and had cafe au lait and croissants/brioche/pain aux raisins at the neighborhood boulangerie/patisserie: Miss Manon. Fernando was shocked to be billed 20 euros, especially since we had paid 15 euros for our dinner of falafels the night before. So I think he will be satisfied with coffee and croissants at home from now on.

Then we started walking down the Rue Saint Antoine to the Louvre, passing shops where I wasn't able to stop, except for one Spanish store Zara. Here's the gmap pedometer map of where we went, where the walk was 5.13 miles, not counting the Louvre.

When we got to the Louvre there was a long line towards the pyramid with a guard holding a sign saying that from that point it was a 1 hour wait. He was also asking people if they spoke French and if so he told them they could go to a different entrance. So we followed the French speakers to the Carousel du Louvre, which is a shopping center connected to the Louvre where there really wasn't a line at all. But first we needed to find a bathroom, les toilettes, but couldn't find one anywhere. Finally a woman showed us to a swanky pay toilet with colored toilet paper for 1 euro. Kind of steep but we were desperate. (Later we found there were free toilettes inside the Louvre.)

We spent a couple of hours in the Italian and French section of the Louvre - saw the Mona Lisa and works by David, Ingres and Delacroix. And we saw lots and lots of people, old and young. I think we took plenty of photos so you can see some of what we saw. By then it must have been 2:30 so we decided to eat in the mall's food court. Penny and I split a dish of roast lamb, carrots and ratatouille (Fernando had his own). It would be nice if American malls had equally good fast food.

Then we came back out of the Louvre, walked over towards Rue Montorgueil and tested out one of the automatic toilettes in the street. It was quite satisfactory except for the hand dryer and the amount of time one had to wait for the toilette to disinfect itself between users.

We visited the cookware store E. Dehillerin and almost bought that big stock pot that Camila needed. Then we went into the food store G. DeTout but didn't buy anything except a few chocolate bars. I'd like to buy some Kushti tea because the tins are so pretty but it is rather expensive.

We had the best time on rue Montorgueil, going into the produce markets where we bought strawberrries, a cucumber, heart-shaped red potatoes, and purple artichokes. Fernando picked up some boudin noir (blood sausage) and head cheese at a boucherie and finally we picked up two kinds of cheese at a fromagerie. This was our dinner. It was about 2 miles from there home and we still had to pick up some wine and bread for dinner and milk for breakfast so we stopped at our neighborhood monoprix, which is a supermarket just a block away.

Tomorrow we might pick up a roast chicken for dinner -- or maybe we should make an omelet with these huge champignons we bought the first day. Then we'll boil our artichokes and undoubtedly find even more food that we can't resist. I better check when the markets are. Maybe Penny and I can run out tomorrow morning to the Bastille market...

Carousel at Hotel de Ville for Isabel

Click the photo to begin

Cathy and Fernando arrive

We have arrived!

Our flight from Atlanta arrived early at 5:33 am and so we were able to catch the RER train into Paris at 6:45 am, arriving at Chatelet-Les Halles and then transferring to the metro and arriving at the St. Paul metro station at 7:30.

Then we easily found the Rue Saint Paul and the apartment house (except that they had repainted the front door light green instead of burgundy). We got through the first front door but then couldn't open the second door to the apartment building. We tried phoning Penny but the phone number didn't work on Fernando's Iphone. We were planning our next breaking and entering strategy when a woman came down to walk her dog and let us in.

Fortunately at this early hour, Penny was still in the apartment and welcomed us with open arms (and later showed us how to open the second door with a kick to the baseboard (actually it was a glass door).

Then we went out to buy croissants, pain au chocolat and another small sweet bread to serve with the Peet's coffee someone had left. (I will buy some Illy coffee at the Monoprix when it opens at 9 am just to be european). Now Penny is taking a shower and we are catching up with email on our computers.

Penny Arrives in Paris

Penny arrived in Paris on schedule Sunday, March 5, but Cathy & Fernando weren't so lucky. Their flight from Pittsburgh was cancelled after several false promises. Penny found her way to the apartment, turned up the heat, took a nap and headed out to rediscover the Marais and Iles St-Louis and de la Cite and walked a bit around the Right Bank She had her camera for company and an omelette for dinner at the local Tabac.

Wi-Fi or not?

We've become a bit concerned about the wi-fi in our apartment - will it work, how do we sign on, etc., etc?  A query to the rental company resulted in the advice to bring an ethernet cable...just in case.  So now Cathy has 4 feet of cable to add to her electronics packing.  And I, who had forgotten all about the ethernet cable, just checked out free wi-fi hotspots.  About.com Paris Travel has a list of the city's free wi-fi hot spots by arondissement.  But apparently these only broadcast during the day ?!
And here is a Spotted by Locals site with a goggle map even more populated than ours showing free wi-fi - and that's from 2009 so it should be even more crowded now. "In every part of Paris, there are many free wifi-access points via “Paris Wi-Fi”. In many public spaces, such as parks, gardens, city halls, librairies and museums you can go online wireless for free.
Jessica has been so kind to provide a short tutorial on how to connect to the Free Paris network (source: Paris.fr)
1. Find a point on the map above. Go to it. It will tell you it’s WiFi by the symbol you see in the picture, which looks like purple blobs with the words “wifi” written in it.
2. Select the “Wifi ORANGE” network on your computer. This is the reason no one was having success before with this!!! “Free” is actually the brand name of an internet provider, NOT a description of what it is; hence why it wasn’t working for people. ORANGE is what you’re looking for.
3. Open your browser, type in an internet address, and you will be redirected to the access portal. You can switch to English in the orange box. From there, it’s easy! You just type in your name and email address, and there you go. Two hours of free surfing!"
But let's really hope the wi-fi works 'cause it's a little cold to sit on the grass with our laptops

The Schedule

Juan wanted to see our day by day shedule... Like his and Mandy's for Japan. I told him we were staying put in Paris and didn't have to catch any planes or trains except back home... But for what it's worth, here's a tentative layout of our plans. Penny, let me know if you can't edit this and if so, I'll let you post it.

Sunday, March 6
Arrive Paris. Meet at the Sheraton Hotel above the trains to Paris and then take the train/bus and then metro to the Apartment, where we will drop off our luggage.
Go to the Marché Bastille (open 7am-3pm) just right on Rue Saint Antoine to the Bastille, north on Boulevard Beaumarchais and then right on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. Pick up cheese, milk, butter, fruit, eggs, sausages, whatever looks good. Stop at the Monoprix for coffee, sugar and salt and whatever looks interesting. Drop our provisions off at the apartment.
Explore the neighborhood (Marais, Ile Ste Louis?), find a place for dinner (L'As du Falafel? - closed saturday not sunday), stop at the Pompidou in the evening? Upload our photos and finalize our schedule for Monday.

Monday, March 7
Wake up early and rush up the street to a boulangerie to buy bread, croissants, pain au chocolat to have with our coffee au lait. Send Fernando up the street to buy a newspaper at the kiosk on Rue Turenne.
Explore the Ile Saint-Louis and Ile de la Cite. Maybe have a Berthillon ice cream cone (check here for a list of flavors - I think I'll have Fruit de la passion and Rhubarbe).
Continue exploring into the Latin Quarter - maybe take Toms Strange and Interesting tour on the left bank and if our legs are very strong, Montparnasse. Have a big dinner.

Tuesday, March 8
Since it is supposed to be sunny, take a walk to Montmartre, going through the Marais on Rue des Francs Bourgeois, up Rue Montorgueil and then up Rue Montmartre, checking out the food and cookware stores. In Montmartre, up the little side streets and into the Sacre Coeur. Maybe down the east side through the fabric district. Shall we pay our respects at the cemetery? Where shall we have dinner?

Wednesday, March 9
A museum day. Louvre first thing in the morning? and the classy department stores over in that neighborhood? Printemps and Galleries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann? and the Au Nain Bleu toy store? Wander in the Palais Royal area - Orangerie if we get the museum pass. Would this be the day to eat at Au Pied de Cochon?

Thursday, March 10
Go to the Musee d'Orsay and admire all the Impressionists. Have a pastry and then head over to the Rue Cler. Check out the Italian Grocery that serves choucroute garni. Walk over to the Tour Eiffel? If we visit, is it better early in the morning or in the evening?

Friday, March 11
OH! our vacation is almost over!! Decide what we have missed. The Marché d’Aligre and le Baron Rouge for the wine and oysters? Or should this be done at the beginning of our stay so we can stock up on wine? Make sure we have seen the BHV basement and other places in the neighborhood. Keep walking.

Saturday, March 12
Run around like madmen seeing everything we missed. Find the fountain to drink from so that we are guaranteed to come back. Or does one have to eat escargots for that guarantee?

Sunday, March 13
Catch the metro/bus to the airport for our flights home.
An official day of mourning...
But wait till Isabel sees what we got her!

Craft Shopping in Paris

I ran across another Paris walk at Townmouse's Craft Shopping in Paris. She starts out at the Viaduc des Arts and then goes over to the Marais to Entrée des Fournisseurs, 8 rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003. This looks like a little fabric and sewing notions store that Camila might love. Look at those darling embroidery scissors!

Then she walks up to La Droguerie, which I assumed was a drugstore but instead is a Paris institution for knitting and crochet. Since it appears to be next to Au Pied de Cochon, we might as well stop by. And then there is one last shop in the area, Des Fils et une Aiguille at 1 rue Chabanais, 75002. What is that? "Sons and a Needle"?

Finally she goes all the way up to the Marché St Pierre in Montmartre (2 rue Charles Nodier, 75018) which we might pass by on our walk up there. So there you have it and I bet Camila wishes she were coming along.

Rendez-Vous With French Cinema

Yes, Penny, you are missing the 16th annual Rendez-Vous With French Cinema presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance, which runs from March 3-13th, because you'll be in Paris. It opens with Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve, one of the few people who are older ("an ageless 67") than we are. Of course it also stars my favorite Gérard Depardieu (born in 1948 like me!), playing her communist ex-lover rather than her husband. I guess we will not be seeing Catherine Deneuve in Paris this time since she will be appearing at all three screenings of the film in New York! Je suis desolée!!

At least the list of French films will give us something to look for on Netflix. And Unifrance has its trailers on YouTube so we can get an idea of what the movies are about before we put them in our queue. Of course, Penny, maybe you could catch Potiche tomorrow night when the film festival opens.

Viaduc des Arts

We had a very nice talk with Diane yesterday and she mentioned that one place they went to that wasn't in the guidebooks when they were last there was the Viaduc des Arts which runs from the Opéra Bastille to the Jardin de Reuilly in the 12th arrondissement. In the 1850s an elevated Paris-Strasbourg Railway (the Viaduc) was built that ran to the Place de la Bastille. By the 1950s it was no longer used because the RER A replaced it. In 1979 they began to think about what to do with the SNCF train station at Bastille (it became the Opera) and the Viaduc which starts at rue de Lyon and follows the avenue Daumesnil. They decided to make the Viaduc into a mile-long planted promenade and rehabilitate the vaults below into shops for artisans and artists; the first section of it opened in 1989.

You can watch a Geobeats video about the Viaduc des Arts. Oh, golly, it's been such a long time since I've watched these Geobeats videos on Paris! I completely forgot that they existed! I'm going to have to go back and review them before we leave!

It would be great to walk along the Promenaded Plantee and then come back along the Avenue Daumesnil. There is even more information at Paris Walking Tours with lots of great photos. I think we should make this trip when we go to the Marche d'Aligre and Le Baron Rouge!

Best Place to Meet at Charles De Gaulle (CDG)

I did a Google search on this and came up with lots of people with the same question. On TripAdvisor, KCNAT from Kansas City (he must be a Pittsburgh transplant) recommended the EASY CDG website for help. Easy CDG has pdf maps of the various terminals, including an overview map and one of Terminal 2E - where Fernando and I are supposed to come in at one of the gates from E28-E47. Penny, it looks like you could take the CDGVAl (CDGVAL, métro automatique gratuit, fonctionne 24h/24 et 7j/7 entre les terminaux) from terminal 1 to the Gare TGV, which looks like it is right next to Terminal 2E. So should we meet you at the CDGVAL station next to the Paris by Train? Rick Steves says the RER and TGV stations are below the Sheraton Hotel, but he also recommends taking the bus... Did we ever buy Rick Steves Guide?

Le Rubis and Le Baron Rouge

Since this is still winter, maybe we should think about oysters. Evidently this is when the oysterman comes with his truck to the Baron Rouge to sell them on Saturday and Sunday. Girls' Guide to Paris has a nice posting on Le Baron Rouge and his oysters, and then goes on to mention a similar restaurant Le Rubis, which is a wine bar. They say "The food is as unpretentious as the wine. Saucisse with lentils, hot saucisson, sauté of lamb with white beans, tripe and tête de veau."

The Girls' Guide says:
In a nutshell: Le Rubis is where to fulfill your fantasy of old Paris while refilling your wine glass.
Price check: Main courses are no more than 12 euros. The only way to overspend here is by drinking too much.

La Chaîne Météo

I just went to Figaroscope and they had an ad from their local weather channel for the forecast for the next 12 days. It looks like there is no rain in the forecast. When we arrive on Sunday there is one cloud (that must mean partly cloudy?) and 10°C (now I have to go look that one up. Maybe I have an app on my iPhone...) which is 50° Fahrenheit. Then it goes up to 13°C (55.4°) on Tuesday and then 12 (53.6) on Wednesday with two clouds. At least that is an improvement over the forecast for tomorrow: "Averses ou intermittence de pluie et neige mêlées; min 0°C ressentie -4°C; max 6°C ressentie 2°C; Vent modéré de nord." The "ressentie" is the "feels like" temperature. Weather in the 50s?? Maybe I won't need that wool coat afterall.

Practical Information in case I lose my notes

Places Fernando wants to go:
1. The Louvre: 10 euros for access to permanent exhibitions; 14 euros for access to that and temp exhib. Closed Tuesdays. 9am-6pm, W&F to 10 pm.
2. Musee d'Orsay: 8 euros. Closed Mondays, crowded Tuesdays. 9:30am-6pm, Thurs til 9:45pm. Entrance C for ticket holders.
3. Eiffel Tower: Lift to 2nd floor 8.10 euros; stairs to 2nd floor: 4.50 euros; lift to top: 13.10 euros. Open every day 9:30am to 11 pm. Lift to 11:45 pm; stairs to 6:30pm.
4. Ile de la Cite - Notre Dame. Free. Daily from 8am to 6:45pm. Gregorian chant concert tuesday, March 8th 8:30pm.
Ste. Chapelle: 8 euros (11 with the Conciergerie) 9:30am-6pm, closed 1-2 pm weekdays. The concerts there are 29-30 euros so maybe the one on the 11th is out.
5. Montmartre.
6. Assiette de Fromage somewhere. L'assiette aux fromages at 25 rue mouffetard? A diner on chowhound says "If you want just a cheese dégustation, try some of the wine bars-caves à manger."

Oh look what we are missing! The Salon International de l'Agriculture runs from February 19-27th and they are supposed to have lots of cheese in Hall 7... I prefer paris has a posting on the Salon d'Agriculture in 2009.

Paris Cookbook Fair

Penny alerted me to the fact that the weekend we arrive in Paris is the last two days of the Paris Cookbook Fair. She sent me to an article in Publishers Weekly that was much too long for me to digest so I had to hurry out right to the source: Gourmand International's Paris Cookbook Fair website. Their website is a bit challenging but I did learn that the Fair is open to the public the last two days (Saturday and Sunday, March 5 & 6) and only costs 8 € for a one-day pass. They have a nice little video about the fair, interviewing participants from all over the world. I had to do a Google search to figure out where in Paris it was taking place: at the new art center Le 104, Cent Quatre, at 104 rue d'Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondisement near the Peripherique (Paris' beltway). You can tell it is far from the Île de la Cité because the metro stops are off in Russia: Stalingrad or Crimée stations.

Eventually I discovered that the French version of the cookbook fair: Festival du Livre Culinaire is a heck of a lot better with loads more information. So I will peruse the site for fun, even if we don't get to the fair that Sunday we arrive. I wonder, though, if they have bag sales of the books they didn't sell at the fair...

Frommer's 24 Great Walks in Paris 2nd edition

My hold on the second edition of Frommer's 24 Great Walks in Paris came through on Monday and I've been quickly perusing it. I was looking for a walk on our neglected Montparnasse and the very last walk "Painters' Paris" covers it. His (or their?) walks are pretty short: the longest is the Iron Lady of Paris at 2.4 miles and 3 hours. So that means we could do 3 a day and if we are there for 6 days, that's 18...whoops, I guess we'll have to do 4 a day.

Walk 3 is "The French Paradox" which allows us to eat at "Au Pied de Cochon" and then have a pastry at Stohrer's. There are quite a few walks in our neighborhood (as though I don't already have plenty of walks scoped out on the right bank). Maybe I'll take it along with us since it isn't due until the 14th. They have 3 walks from the first edition up on the Frommer's website but apparently they are trying to sell all the copies of the first edition before they advertise the second edition.

Bon Appetit's Snob-Free Guide to Paris

I just picked up the March issue of Bon Appetit, the one with the Macaroni and Cheese on the front, and I should ask here if anyone out there subscribed me to it because I don't think I did. But to return to the subject at hand, Bon Appetit has an article on Paris restaurants highlighting a "new generation of fine spots with drinks (natural wines preferably), snacks (from well-sourced ingredients), and a relaxed ambience." Fortunately it is written by Clotilde Dusoulier of the Chocolate and Zucchini blog; unfortunately there are no prices. But it looks like most of them are wine bars (caves à manger) for the young and fashionable crowd and 3-4 of them are further out than one would walk - one might actually have to take a taxi (she doesn't give a metro station). Clotilde doesn't mention that experimental cocktail bar and the strawberry alarm clock so I don't know if we can trust that it is really truly her list. The website has a downloadable pdf to print out and take with you to Paris, which is actually just the magazine pages. I think I'd rather have pastries... or an assiette de fromage.

Vintage Postcards from Paris

If you love Paris, you’ll love this exhibit. Higher Pictures gallery was showing a collection of postcards from the 1920s by photographer Pierre Yves Petit.  As this was a New York City exhibit  I have no excuse other than the fact that I just discovered it.  But you can appreciate all the postcards from the gallery website, and I'll take my amateur camera out in Paris and see what I can do.

A $100 Weekend in Paris.

Just in time. The New York Times published The $100 Paris Weekend by the Frugal Traveler. That was precisely 74.29 euros and accommodations were excluded - the author crashed with a friend. Hm. I'm not sure I'd follow his suggestions but maybe we can duck into the Musée Carnavalet since it's not far and is free. And maybe we could check out a Chez Papa nearby, except the nearest one seems to be in the second arrondissement and they also seem to have an awful lot of duck. But he does go to Le Temps de Cerises which is a zinc cafe near our apartment - although he only has a coffee there. We'll have to report on our own $100 weekend, beginning with a Marché, and what does it matter that there are 5 days between our Sunday and Friday night.

Evidently there are more than one Le Temps de Cerises. The one the Frugal Traveler went to is on 31 Rue de la Cerisaie in the 4th Arrondissement. But there is another one that looks more interesting, Le Temps des Cerises on La Butte-aux-Cailles in the 13th arrondissement. The Paris Traveler says it is "a worker’s co-operative restaurant run by a number of people all taking turns doing different jobs." Sort of like Ithaca's Moosewood Restaurant. The Parisien Salon also reviews this restaurant but didn't mention the workers.

Where to meet at CDG?

The Chaparros arrive March 6 at 8:20 a.m. at terminal 2E
The Kaplan arrives March 6 at 7:35 a.m. at terminal 1 (like as I can figure by searching todays flight).  Terminal 1 is experiencing heavy renovation to be completed 2009?...was it the one that collapsed?

Here is a map of 2E http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/air-france/paris_charles_de_gaulle_airport/cdg-terminal-2e.htm

RER seems to be close to 2E.....so perhaps I should meet you guys at 2E.  See what you can figure.  My this is time consuming.   I'll go get another electronic device and see what Rick Steves has to say.

Paris Webcams

The closer we get to takeoff, the more interested I am in the Paris weather. Here it is 66 degrees at 1 PM while in Paris, at 7 pm it is 37 degrees and misty. You can take a look at the weather from the Westin Paris Webcam, which is not quite the view of Paris that I am looking for. In fact, it looks downright dreary.

There's another webcam at Paris Webcam Live but it is equally dreary. What does one expect so late in the day? I'll have to research this early in the morning!

Parisian Cemeteries

I don't think there is another city besides Paris where tourists so regularly visit the cemeteries. The cemeteries of Pere-Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse seem to be in every guidebook. Afterall, they are the resting place of many famous people: Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Colette, Marcel Proust, and Edith Piaf in Pere-Lachaise; Stendhal, Berlioz, Degas and Offenbach in Montmartre; Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Citroen, Saint-Saens and Man Ray in Montparnasse. And they are all fairly accessible from the city center where the tourists stay and my DK guide to Paris has a nice layout of each one.

On the other hand, I remember how fascinating we found the headstones in the cemeteries in Switzerland and how I spent a morning walking through a cemetery in Munich, watching people cleaning and decorating family graves. Perhaps it is like a park and gives the tourist respite from the hecticity of the city.

But what prompted this posting on cemeteries (I did one before on Pere-Lachaise) was a posting on SoundLandscapes about the Cemetière-des-Batignolles called A Parisian Disgrace. In the city's effort to join the modern car culture of the world, it built an encircling Périphérique or beltway around Paris in the years 1958-1973. And they built it right over the cemetery. It is this posting that leads me to believe that Des Coulam, the recorder of SoundLandscapes is a woman:

Just think about it – at some point a city official, a fonctionnaire – overpaid, over-holidayed and over-pensioned – decided to attach his (it could have only been a man!) seal of approval to the building of a multi-lane ring road – known as a beltway in the US I believe – or the Périphérique as it’s known here in Paris, right over the top of the graves in this cemetery.
It is simply outrageous and a disgrace!

And, as you can see from the photo, it is outrageous. On the other hand, we should be thankful they did not just dig up all the bodies and throw them into the catacombs...

Parisian Sounds

I stumbled across this blog called Sound Landscapes which has a posting on La Cour Damoye, a charming alley/courtyard off the Place de la Bastille, that you will miss if you don't know where to look (through the archway of N°12, Place de la Bastille - or in the photo here, the other entrance at 15 Rue Daval). The blogger is Des Coulam, who has been recording sound on and off for the last fifty years and subtitles his/her blog: My World in Sound – Exploring "that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed": Robert Doisneau.

Go to the SoundLandscapes blog to hear what the Place de la Bastille sounds like (just click on the little soundclip arrow). I hope our apartment doesn't sound like that! (It shouldn't since it faces a courtyard and it is on a small side street.) You can also hear what La Cour Damoye sounds like. You hear people walking by and some traffic in the background. Turn up the sound and maybe you can catch their French! And then go on to explore other postings, such as La Coupole and the Parisian Café to hear what it sounds like in a Paris café.

For the spiritual side - some saints you may encounter in Paris

St Genevieve (Sainte Geneviève) (Nanterre, c. 419/422 - Paris 502/512), in Latin Sancta Genovefa, from Germanic keno (kin) and wefa (wife), is the patron saint of Paris. She was a peasant girl who became a nun, and moved to Paris after her parents death to live with her grandmother. There the young woman became admired for her piety and devotion to works of charity, which included corporal austerities, and a vegetarian diet which allowed her to sup but twice per week. "These mortifications she continued for over thirty years, till her ecclesiastical superiors thought it their duty to make her diminish her austerities," She is invoked against plague, fevers and disasters. And her life style hardly seems appropriate for Paris today!

Saint Denis (also called Dionysius, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250. After his head was chopped off on Montmartre, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way making him one of many cephalophores (head carriers) in hagiology. Denis is invoked against diabolical possession and headaches so I’ll keep him at the ready.

And when you were reading previous blog entries you may have noticed a church behind the Stravinsky Fountains. That’s the Church of Saint-Merri (Eglise Saint-Merri), located on the busy street Rue Saint Martin, on the Right Bank. The church is dedicated to the 8th-century Abbot of Autun Abbey, Medericus, who went to Paris on pilgrimage and later died there. In 884 Medericus, also known as 'Merry' was acclaimed patron saint of the right bank..   I love the name, but can’t find why one would invoke it.

St. Rita is one of my favorite saints as she is the saint of lost causes. There is a blog entry in Peter’s Paris (remember the Swede who blogs about Paris). “Just across the street (Boulevard de Clichy) from Moulin Rouge, you can find a very modest chapel, devoted to Saint Rita. The chapel is actually just the ground floor of a building where the great Moulin Rouge promoter Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have lived and worked a couple of years.
Rita is the Saint of “lost cases” and obviously also adopted by prostitutes... The modest chapel, which has just been renovated, is much frequented by representatives of the local professions – we are in what commonly is called the Pigalle area.”

Shopping for Kids

Oh, my, I guess I should be exploring this a little before we get to Paris. Looking at the map around the toy store that Penny mentioned, Au Nain Bleu, I ran across a branch of the kids clothing store: Du Pareil au même or DPAM. Their website is in English but I think the company is French but the clothes seem relatively inexpensive so they are probably all imported. DPAM has three lines: DPAM kids, DPAM baby and DPAM shoes (sort of like a French Kids-, Toys- and Babies 'R Us) and they have many locations in Paris, one over by the big department stores and one up on rue St. Antoine. They even have books in French for kids. I better make sure I know Isabel's sizes!

And, oh golly, looking around for advice about kids' clothes in Paris led me to this website: Les Coulottes Courtes - essentially a guide and blog to children's fashion: what's up and coming and where to get it. For instance, you can check out the Junior Gautier collection for this summer.

Vingt Paris Magazine offers another list of clothing stores for kids: Kids Clothes for the Fashionistas.

I was walking in Shadyside today (2/15) and went into the small children's boutique called The Pickett Fence to browse. They have clothes from Deux par Deux and they are quite nice. Unfortunately it is a Quebec company and they don't have a boutique in Paris.

Toy Stores and more shopping

We must not forget to bring back toys for Isabel and #2, and perhaps some for the grownup children as well.  I'm told by About.com Paris Travel that some travellers visit Tumbleweed every year.  In case you can't do that here is a video to tempt you

And here is another one:

Au Nain Bleu ,5 Boulevard Malesherbes, 75008 Paris, France
Frommer's Review This is the largest, oldest, and most centrally located toy store in Paris. More important, it's probably the fanciest toy store in the world. But don't panic -- in addition to the expensive stuff, you'll find rows of cheaper items

So then I Internet stolled over to BHV to check out their toy department and stumbled instead into more Parisian fashion "The Ten Never-Ending Trends of Parisien Shoppers" on Parisien Salon
But the most interesting was the P.S. Musique

So click and listen to some Parisien musique as you get some Internet exercise (with apologies in case this has been posted before - seems sort of familiar?)

St. Merri Quartier

The day we arrive is free museum day, and I really want to walk over to the Pompidou and take the escalator up to the 6th floor to see the view over Paris, especially at night (I think we already have a full itinerary so it should be twilight before we get there).  My old Michelin guide has lots of brief walking tours and they mention the Quartier de  Horloge - La Defense du Temps.  It's "an usual brass and steel electronic clock with a Jack known as the Defender of Time.  On striking the hour, the life-sized figure armed with a double edged sword and shield, confronts the animals symbolizing the elements: a dragon (earth), a bird (the air) and a crab ((water).  So I was looking for a picture and found that About.com Paris Travel has a photo gallery Pictures of Beaubourg so we can tour the area before we get there.  The Stravinsky fountains are wonderfully wimsical and..guess what ?? !! there is our favorite BHV!!!

BHV (Bay Ash Vay)

Maybe this posting should have come before the Quincailleries since I'd heard about the BHV basement with all the do-it-yourself items a long time ago. But I had to explain BHV to Fernando so I thought I'd explain it to my blog readers as well. Plus I got a new laptop computer that I have to get used to before the trip. (My, the type is SO small - do I dare change the resolution?)

In any case, BHV stands for the grand magasin (department store) called Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville. It is located next to the Hôtel de Ville, Paris' City Hall, and very near our apartment. It is famous for its basement which contains a hardware store and even a hardware-themed cafe. By the way, it is owned by the Groupe Galeries Lafayette which also owns the Galeries Lafayette department store and the Monoprix supermarkets.

Why would we want to go to a hardware store? Well, supposedly they have key chains with paris street signs on them. And I think they have other signs in French, like Chat Bizarre and beware of dog.

And they have Paris themed playing cards, if you need souvenirs for someone who plays bridge. They have the Cris de Paris, which apparently are cards with backs illustrating the ancient peddlers and hawkers in a Parisian street market who would cry out: "Herring! Pickled herring! Peaches! Turnips! Look at my berries, my fine wild berries!"

I learned about this from
Colleen's Paris: Made in Paris which also mentions a couple other stores we might want to visit (although they are on the left bank). One is La Tuile a Loup, with handicrafts from throughout France, and the other is Artisanat Monastique, with handicrafts from over 250 French monasteries.

Quincaillerie

I was out strolling in google maps in the vicinity of Crêperie Bretonne at 67, rue de Charonne in the 11th arrondissement (east of the Bastille) because it was one of David Lebovitz's favorite crêperies and I wanted to check out the neighborhood to see if we could come up with some sort of walk over there. In the street view I noticed a store with all sorts of nameplates and latches in the window and thought it might be worthwhile to visit some hardware stores (besides the basement in BHV) just to see what we couldn't live without. If you do a "search nearby" for "hardware" on a google map location, it will pull up a bunch of quincailleries (and no computer stores -- imagine that!). If you want to know how to pronounce that, go to Forvo and you can hear what it sounds like. If you want to get an idea of what sorts of treasures we could find in a French quincaillerie, check out this one: A la Providence Quincaillerie Leclercq, where there are all sorts of knobs and handles and hooks to choose from. TimeOut Paris even has an entry for it. And there's another one down the street: Le Jeune Freres, which specializes in decorative hardware for furniture and doors from the sixteenth century, just in case you have any of that hanging around.

I'm not the only one enthused by quincailleries. Paris Postcard has a posting: Why I love my quincaillerie.

Gmaps Pedometer

Gmaps Pedometer is a mapping utility that you use in conjunction with google maps to trace out a walking (or running for the more spirited) route and calculate the mileage. When we walked the Pittsburgh half marathon two years ago I used it to calculate weekly training routes that Fernando and his GPS always claimed were longer than Gmaps Pedometer said. I've mapped a couple of Paris walks here from Tom's Strange and Interesting Walks. Now maybe Penny can map Rick Steve's walks...

16 rue St. Paul to the Arc de Triomphe
5.1 miles. It makes a detour up rue Montorgueil on its way to Montmartre that we could cut out and go straight down the rue de Rivoli or a parallel street. Do I want to go to the Arc de Triomphe? I do want to see les grands magasins Printemps and Galeries Lafayette.

16 rue St. Paul up to Montmartre
4 miles. This follows the above route but continues up rue Montmartre to Montmartre.

Tom's Walk of the Iles and the Left Bank
5.5 miles. This goes through the little back streets of the Latin Quarter and down to rue Mouffetard. We'll really need Tom's commentary for this one since it switches streets a lot.

Bastille, Marche d'Aligre, Viaduc des Arts
3.2 miles. This starts from the apartment and goes to the Bastille, up to the restaurants on rue de Charonne, down past the hardware stores on Rue Faubourg Saint Antoine, over to the Marche d'Aligre and Le Baron Rouge, and then down to the Viaduc des Arts. And then back home.

16 St. Paul Street

No, this isn't 16 rue Saint Paul in Paris but 16 Saint Paul Street in Pittsburgh! We'll have to go visit.

Enough Choucroute!!

After our Super Bowl dinner last night (which ended in mourning), in which we ate enough bratwurst, kielbasi, pierogies, and sauerkraut for both teams, I can only say "ça suffit!!". I don't want to see another plate of sauerkraut and sausage until the next Super Bowl! I've had my fill and now we can move on to more French-like dishes and leave Alsace behind. When we go to Au Pied du Cochon, I'll just have French onion soup like Penny. Will they allow us to order only onion soup? Maybe that and dessert? Where was that photo of the crème brûlée that looked so rich and creamy with a nice crackly top?

And, oh my goodness gracious, looking for that photo of the perfect crème brûlée, I came across Paris-Bistro.com that has a list of bistros by arrondissement. Here are the bistros for the 4th arrondissement in the St. Paul area. We are going to have to decide which is "our" neighborhood bistro.

Now all I have to do is pig out on pastries so I'm driven to say ça suffit and then we can bypass all the patisseries. Although I took some pastries from Moio's to Will and Jen's on Saturday night and we ate them all up without reaching that point. Of course, I had a good deal of help eating mine from the little munchkin. Hm. What kind of pastries will customs allow us to bring back? I know that Pierre Herme has macarons packaged to go but I don't think I want to pay 76 euros for 40 of them. Of course it is cheaper than the 4 euro individual price...