Last Dinner with Patrice

After a long day of running around, I had plans to meet Patrice for dinner at Les Marroniers. Don and Gina were really tired so they stayed in for the evening packing and stuff.

Patrice is off on holiday this week to London and the South of France, so I'll probably not see him again on this trip. Dinner was good, and we had the cheese plate for dessert again, even though I always have to end up eating most of it.
But thanks again Patrice for being such a great host and for the very nice champagne start-of-the-evenings on your awesome roof. I don't think I would have seen the port, the Royal Palace, the covered arcades, and the bar with the nudie shower show without your fantastic tour guide abilities. Au Bientot Patrice!

Just Sunday

Sunday after Versailles, I went to church with Sunny, Rachel, Don, and...dum dum dummmm...Paul. Sunny had run into Paul on the stairs, and having assured that he had alternative plans, she invited him to come along. He inmediately changed his plans to join us.

Church was good. We went to St. Etienne and it was better experience than at Notre Dame (though people fainted at both- Stendahl Syndrome or just too hot?).

Afterwards, Sunny and Rachel were heading to the Carnavalet Museum in the Marais. Paul was just standing there. Waiting. Like an alligator in pleated shorts. In order to avoid any akward situations, Don and I just said we were "heading for coffee. Have fun", leaving the women to deal with Paul.

A few hours later after coffee and a visit to the medieval garden at the Cluny Museum, we ran into Rachel back at the dorm. She didn't want to hang out with Paul, so she faked a headache en route, and abandoned poor Sunny to the mercy of Paul. God bless.

They decided to have a picnic at Luxembourg Gardens as a goodbye for Sunny. And there was a little drama because she had invited Paul, but everyone cooled down and decided togo anyway. It didn't matter to me since I already had plans.

Later that evening, I met up with Patrice. We went for walk in Montmartre, and he showed me some really cool sites (like the statue of the man who walks through walls). Then we went to dinner at Le Marroniers, where we met some weird choir professor form Redondo Beach. Then to a couple of bars including Raidd (where they had a live shower show) and Banana Club. He leaves on vacation soon, so we'll try to have diner again before that.

Patrice's Apartment

I went to meet Patrice for dinner and he invited me up to his apartment first for a drink. He gave me the door code and I got in okay, but that's as far as I got. The inside was really three buildings connected by little metal bridges. Patrice came down and we climbed up six flights of stairs and accross two of the little bridges to his apartment.

The building is a refurbished 16th century structure, and the stairs and beams in Patrice's apartment are made up of the original 400-so year-old wood. He also has a rooftop deck, which he warned me was small.
Small it was, but with a view of the neighboring rooftops, the Louvre, the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Pompideu Center, and in the distance, Sacre Coeur Church. With a glass of champagne, and that view, who cares about small.


After, we went to the Les Marronners in the Marais for dinner, and it was a great place for people watching. I had salmon tartare and a baba-au-rum for dinner, ordered by me, in french that fooled no one.

More Walking

...nowhere really. By the time we got to Hotel de Ville, Patrice called uncle. In all fairness we had been walking for about 6 hours. He mentioned he could see how my sister would be upset at me after all the walking I made her do when we came last year.

We walked past the Hotel de Ville, which was hung with blue banners in honor of Ingrid Betancourt's release and Paris visit, and headed back in the direction of the Louvre.

Patrice asked if I wanted to have dinner the next day, and with instructions on how to buzz up I headed home.

Thank you to Patrice for being such a gracious and fun host!

Marais Gardens

The Marais is full of little restaurants and shops and it's a half Jewish, half gay neighborhood. We looked around a few shops, since all the stores have sales in July. But since I'm trying to be good and I am, as they say, between jobs, I only bought some Mariage Freres Marco Polo tea, and that was purely because I ordered some online two months ago for chunk before I knew I was coming to Paris and it's so much less expensive here. Stupid shipping and handling.

From there, Patrice showed me a couple of hidden gardens in the area. One being in the back of the Swedish Museum and the other behind a toilet showroom that's housed in an old mansion (but don't tell anyone). They were really pretty and surprisingly quiet considering we were in the middle of a very busy neighborhood. And from there...
first is the Swedish Museum Gardenand second is the toilet mansion garden. But it smells like roses.

The Very Long Walk part un

Oi! Today I walked just about 12-15 miles (it's hard to track what with all the winding streets and all) and saw a lot of different things, so I'm posting in chunks.

This morning was a little rainy, so I set off umbrella in hand to meet David's friend Patrice by the entrance to the pyramid by the Louvre. Along the way, I managed to send a poor American woman in the wrong direction when she asked me where she could find the Creperie St. Germain. Ooops! And she was only half-a-block away too.

I met Patrice, and off we went. He was an extremely great guide and, after telling me in perfect english that he couldn't speak english well (and with instructions from David), really encouraged me to practice conversing in french. Let's see, he works for the government, is a native Parisian, and likes Washington DC.

He started off by showing me the grounds of Le Palais Royal, which were really beautiful, with long walkways canopied by trees. The gardens used to be a popular place for prostitutes, but it's been cleaned up and is surrounded by luxury boutiques and very expensive restaurants. It was very quiet and empty, which is nice considering we were close to the Louvre, which was filled to the brim.
From there we walked a little further and through some covered shopping arcades specializing in antiques, trough St. Eustache, to the Rue de Monterguell...