The last mango in Paris

So sad. it's our last night in paris. what a wonderful city. we've been here a week and there's still plenty to do. we both love it here.

today, we went to the louvre and saw all the masterpieces. that place is so huge, it has 12 miles of galleries. no joke. it takes up blocks of the city. hard to imagine that was a residence of kings at one point. how long would it take to sweep the floors???

after the louvre, we climbed to the top of notre dame. we finally had nice weather, so the view was great. we got up-close and personal with the gargoyles, a bell named emanuelle, and the roost of quasimodo. it was 422 circular stairs, but this was a breeze compared to the vatican, where the walls curved in on you.

on to montmartre after that. the place where renoir, van gogh, and many of the master impressionists brooded and became inspired through wine, women and song. the famous moulon rouge (means red windmill) was just down the hill, but we didn't go. primarily because it would have meant walking back up the hill.

we had a delectible dinner tonight on a typically paris veranda. a huge, ancient wisteria grew over the eating area and a bass violin player set up just across the street. it was so typically paris, it was almost cliche. but i don't care. the wine was the best i've ever had and the waiter actually had a sense of humor. good times.

now we're heading back to the apartment to pack. again, so sad.

see you soon. we took 18 rolls of film. don't worry, we won't make you look at all of them.

au voir!

dinner

just a quick note. we ate at a jewish restaurant for dinner. the kitchen is right out in the restaurant, no barriers. the cooks and waiters were singing "Golddigger" by Kanye West and Jamie Foxx.

who knew?

A return clue

It's the same, but it's not.

8 22 5 15 24 9 5 12 2 21 12 8 8 22 13 22 5 20 26 5 22 19 7 21 12 22 8 5 26 24 22 25 22 9 26 5 12 2 12 19 4 4 12 13 16 7 12 13 12 23 15 15 18 7 8 18 8 22 12 19 8 9 5 12 2 21 12 9 12 15 12 24 22 19 7 9 12 22 20 26 9 22 5 22 25 20 13 18 13 9 12 14 26.

versaille

today, wednesday, we went to versaille. we were both disappointed. maybe it's because of the cloudy, rainy, cold weather. maybe it's because none of the 300 fountains were on. maybe it's because there were no flowers and the hall of mirrors (where the famous treaty was signed) was under renovation. i just wasn't enchanted.

i got that the place was huge. i also got that the garden was massive. and that's about it. the 13 gift shops weren't even that interesting.

i'm not saying we shouldn't have gone. i just think we should try it again on another trip, hopefully with better weather.

i remember (with tim's help) what we did yesterday. we went to a little street called rue cler. it had the most wonderful little shops--cheese, wine, fruit, meat, fish (pee-yew), olive oil, chocolate, bakeries, flip-flops, etc. the visa card got a work-out there!

after rue cler, we headed to napolean's tomb. that place is huge. it really gives new meaning to having a "little guy" complex. sad how he ended. there was a museum of military history attached and we would have liked to have seen it, but us stupid americans couldn't figure out how to get in. the staff tried to help but they just kept waving their hands in the direction of moscow and said "that way." oh, well. just another reason to come back.

oh, we ran into patrick, the man who owns our apartment, today. what a nice guy. he introduced us to the little old granny who owns the antique shop next door. (who knew that was an antique shop?) that lady was so thrilled to meet us. i thought she was going to pinch our cheeks and offer us warm cookies and milk. we'll have to poke our heads in and say good-bye friday.

oh, good news for me. i'm pretty sure we're staying in the purse district. every shop on our street sells purses. wholesale.

tim is truly becoming european. yesterday he put on his orange and yellow striped shirt with his gold cords. so far so good. until he added his green sweater. don't worry, i took a picture. he's also getting into panhandling. there are alot of musicians here with their hands/hats/instrument cases/cans out for coin. yesterday, while i was trying to figure out where we were, tim decided to get entreprenurial. he stood on the corner, with his hand out, just whistling whatever came out. no tune in particular (at least not that i could tell). unfortunately, it didn't pay off anything, but it was fun.

speaking of panhandling, yesterday we found an orchestra playing a concerto in the subway. it was probably 8 violins and several violas. they sounded great. they've been playing that metro stop for 15 years and have 3 cds. so we bought one. too bad there's no cd player in the apartment.

now we are on the hunt for the fabulous falaffel we had a few days ago. we're in the jewish quarter right now. tim fits in nicely.

au voir.

je parle francais

sorry for the infrequent posts. believe it or not, there is a dirth of internet cafes in paris. the ones that i can find, don't load the blog for some reason...

yesterday we had the most fabulous dinner at a tiny restaurant run by a family. the daughter took the orders and helped us decipher the menu while the bother cooked. mom greeted regular customer with those oh-so-french air kisses on each cheek while she fussed with the centerpieces on each table. it was probably one of the best meals i have ever had. i started with a puff pastry with a cheese sauce (it had a fancier name) while tim tried the escargo--which he loved. then we had our main course. i had a type of beef stew slow simmered all day and so tender a knife wasn't necessary. it melted in my mouth. tim had a meat we can only assume was duck. he said it was delicious. we ended with dessert, of course. i had an apple dish with homemade caramel sauce (and homemade ice cream) and tim had the cheese plate. it is customary here to end meals with an assortment of cheeses.

i have to say, i've never been much of a drinker, yet i find myself drinking wine with every meal. and it is always wonderful. the wine here is cheaper than buying a coke. party.

we also took a night cruise on the seine yesterday. the whole day was cold and rainy and the cruise was no different. it was nice, though. i don't think i'd do it again, though.

for the life of me, i can't remember what we did before dinner. it must have been a good night...

My husband, the poop head

Howdy to all from the City of Lights. Sorry it has been so long since my last post. We arrived here on Saturday morning and met a friend of mine at the Louvre. My friend, Coen, and his girlfriend, Lucinda, stayed in our apartment this weekend. Boy, did we have a great time. L is fantastic and it was great to see Coen again.

We toured the city with them and saw many of the big sights: the arche de triumph, montmartre,the champs elysses, the tuolleries, luxemburg gardens, notre dame (we were there during mass; the choir sounded heavenly); and finally the eiffel tower at night. they had to catch their bus back to Delft, so they could not go to the top; but tim and i did. it was beautiful. at the top of every hour, the tower shhimmers with hundrededs of lights. it reminds me of champagne.

today, tim and i visited the apartment where jim morrison died, his grave and many others (including chopin and oscar wilde) in the pere lachaise cemetary.

our little apartment is quite the place! it was just completely overhauled, so everything is new. i think we are its first inhabitants. we love it here.

now, i will explain why my hubby is a poop head. a pidgeon, oh yes, pooped right on his head. let me tell you, it must have been a pidgeon the size of a teradactyl.

time to go. this keyboard is backwards and i need a crepe.

au voir!

the most amazing thing happened...

we have been useing the guidebooks of rick steves to get us around. we have his dvds and we try to watch his travel shows on pbs as often as possible. in short, we are fans.

so, today, in milan, we visited the duomo. a beautiful cathedral (the 4th biggest in the world and took 500 years to build). i was listening to the audioguide while tim was taking pictures. we came around the corner of the church and there was a film crew. tim jokingly said, "look, its rick steves." and low and behold it was.

immediately we start giggling like boy band fans. here is our travel god right in front of us. he is the one who inspired the one carry on bag. he is the one who suggested lucca. and the 500 year old hotel in florence. and the wonderful restaurants. and how to skip the line at the coleseum. right in front of us.

tim went over and asked if we could take a picture. he was very nice to us and obliged. he is much taller in real life than on tv. ricks cameraman took our picture for us, while he was taping. they were filming a special on how they film their specials. we might be in it! the whole meeting was on tape. we acted like blightering idiots, though.

its kind of funny. until today, there has not been one photo taken of tim and i together on this trip. we are too weary to ask someone to do it for fear of the camera being stolen. now, the only phot of tim and i together on this trip (we have used about 10 rolls of film) has rick steves in it.

funny how things work out.

so, for the rest of the day, we will bask in the glow of meeting our travel hero, eat canoli, and wait for our train to depart at 11 p.m. we have a sleeper car tonight and we will wake up in dijon, france around 5:30 tomorrow morning. from there we will take a train to paris and our little apartment in the marais district.

caio!

the masterpieces

we visited the uffizi museum today. michaelangelo, leonardo, titan, botacelli, the list goes on. they were all beautiful. our guide, barbara, enlightened us on the techniques and meanings behind the paintings. her english was great, but she pronounced some words amusingly. like the word naked. she said nakt. and tired was ty-red. she was great.

we have hot water now. who knew you had to turn on the water heater with a switch that is 7 feet off the floor hidden by the hairdryer?

its our last night in florence. i hate to leave. this city has so much character and history. for dinner tonight we got some fresh tomatoes, basil, cheese, rolls, grapes and a piece of cake and sat out on our verranda overlooking the city and countryside.

we are off to milan tomorrow. we will only be there until midnight, then we take a night train to france.

caio.

the cooking lesson

so today was my big cooking lesson. and all i can say is that it was fabulous. we made a fava bean and mint bruschetta (pronounced brew-SKAY-tah), homemade gnocchi with pesto sauce, veal and artichokes and for dessert an orange custart tart with almonds.

there were three students in the class, including me. the other two were a couple from denver, who were very nice. the chef, barbara, was also great. she was, of course, fluent in italian, but she also spoke english with barely an accent. we complimented her on her english and she said, "it could be better." then she used the word oxidized.

our little palace in firenze is not all it is cracked up to be. there was no hot water this morning. that is one of the primary things that can turn my mood in a snap. and i ran into the table and chairs in the middle of the night on my way to the bathroom and nearly scared tim out of the bed. but, now we have learned how to turn the water heater on, so we are hoping for a warm shower soon.

we also visited the academia museum today. it was very anticlimactic. the david was, of course, awe inspiring, as were the prisoners, but the rest of the museum only rates an eh. most of the paintings are copies. i should probably explain the prisoners. they are unfinished marble statues michelangelo did not complete before his death. many look like humans trying to emerge from the rock, but cannot. hence the name the prisoners.

tim is well on his way to becoming a gelatto connesiour. he is talking about having a well rounded gelatto experience, so no more chocolate for him. he is on to the unpronouncable flavors.

time for some beauty sleep. we have to be at the uffizi early tomorrow. we are also going to try to get to the medici palace and the piti palace.

caio!

ah, firenze

firenze, the italian way of saying florence, is just like rome, siena and every other italian town. only this place has more character. we got here this afternoon and checking into our hotel (we still have not gotten the station to hotel time under 45 minutes). pensione sorelli is a huge, 500 year old mansion with an amazing view of the city and the tuscan country side. the ceilings in our room are probably 14 feet high. actually, the room is almost as big as our house. the senor who owns the place (a slick, cigarette smoking, i'll do anything for you kind of guy) raced us down two flights of stairs to our room 9. this palace of a room sleeps 5 comfortably. he said, "look, you even have a view of the duomo." and we do. out the bathroom window.

it really is an adventure here. you can not be afraid to try new food or adapt to a new way of living. when we first got here, we thought we would starve to death just eating a roll and tea for breakfast. that's not the case at all. we're really enjoying this adventure and were sad to discover it's half over.

well, i'm sitting here in an internet cafe, looking out at the arno river, just next door to pont vecchio. i think i'll go explore.

stay tuned. my cooking lesson is tomorrow! caio.

tim is bummed about the wings. we've been following them on the web, so now he's pouty.

oh, one more thing. the bathroom is so huge, it echos in there. not good if you're rooming with tim. "beeutiful. what an echo!"

bye bye lucca

i loved lucca. we biked the ramparts. ate fabulous food every night. had a hot shower every day.

there was a soccer stadium *stadio football* just outside the 100 foot thick city walls. we could hear the fans cheering, chanting and singing the team song. sure beats any team spirit we have back in the u.s.

oh, the food. we found this great restaurant with the most charismatic owner ever. he actually mock scolded you if you did not finish your meal! he looked a little like a mad scientist. i call him alderto. i have no idea what his real name is. he just looks like and alberto. i named the bartender eddie.

we climbed a 10 story tower that overlooked the whole town and the tuscan country side. it was beautiful, but a little rickety. we also saw several weddings proceeding to the 1,000 year old church there. the facade had byzantine mosaics. it is hard to believe that the people who live there are used to ancient works of art.

the graffitti in the town was a little disconcerting, though. the whole country is full of graffitti, but i never felt very threatened, which i owe to the fact that i do not read italian and therefore do not know all the good swear words. however, i do recognize a swastica when i see it. and i can also pick out a hammer and sicle, too. i also know what pisa merde means. here is the foreign language lesson of the day. CAUTION do not read this part to small children. merde means shit.

the birds here are annoying. they sound like giant squeeky toys the size of jason. and the music here is hysterical. it is all american. we just heard its raining men.

we loved lucca. but we had to move on.