waving our stars and stripes

Since living in Europe we have MANY times thought that we need to carry around tiny American flags to wave whenever we do something tacky or that makes it obvious we "aren't from around here." The flags were needed many times on this trip as well:

As soon as I stepped off the plane into the Paris airport I was reminded that Parisians wear BLACK. I knew this before but colorful-England had made me forget. I instantly felt out of place in my bright blue coat! If that wasn't bad enough, I walked around with my camera around my neck pretty much the entire time. It was safer and handier, plus I figured I might as well embrace the tourist role. *waves american flag*





There were a few instances when, though trying to speak in the native language, talk quietly and be polite, we were forced to wave our flags high and ask our waiters how to eat the food we had ordered.

Brandon attempted to get this concept across to the waiter after ordering Escargot: "Ummmm, excuse me HOW do I eat these?" *waves american flag* "They are covered in butter, extremely slippery and have only a tiny opening. I see that you have given me these two metal tools but I have no idea what to do with them. Thanks.... er I mean... Merci."

After we figured out how to eat them, I tried one.  When I attempted to scoop the slug out of the tiny opening in the shell with the tiny fork while holding it in the little tongs it kept spinning around and I couldn't get it. So I squeezed the tongs more thinking it would clamp down tighter on the shell. Instead the tongs opened and the snail dropped into my soup with a big PLOP, splattering soup about!

The scene of the incident:


As we were getting up to leave the café I accidentally closed my coat around one of the water glasses and the waiter saw it. As he was saying "FAITES ATTENTION!" I turned to try and figure out what he was referring to and knocked it onto the floor, shattering it everywhere.  *waves American flag*


Then, in Italy, while we were at our nicest dinner of the week, Brandon ordered stuffed mussels and they came slimy and slathered in sauce, but this time there were no metal utensils included. So Brandon had to try and ask our waiter (who basically spoke no English (hello and thanks but other than that he spoke to us in Italian and we spoke to him in English and it somehow worked really well)) how to eat them. The waiter responded by just holding up both of his hands. Brandon held his in the same way and asked "with my hands?" The waiter seemed to confirm it. Brandon observed that he was getting very mixed signals from the restaurant about it's standards of behavior.



So, I wanted to let you all know that you can be encouraged. We are over here continuing to proudly represent the USA and encourage American stereotypes everywhere we go! You're welcome.

pardon my french

When we arrived in Paris, I quickly realized that my high school French was nearly gone entirely. I can remember a lot of words and useful phrases, but could only understand random words from conversations, and if a waiter started to talk with me while I was ordering I would have to admit I did not understand.

Having Marie there with us was extremely helpful. She explained how things worked and what things were (especially in relation to menus). As the week progressed I was starting to feel more confident about speaking in French and starting to remember more.

At the Monet Museum I took a trip to the loo, which had two stalls. One of them was occupied and I realized that the other one didn't have any toilet paper. So I was standing there waiting when another woman came in. She looked at the empty stall, and back at me, and back at the stall again in a questioning manner. I anxiously wanted to communicate the situation to her and especially to warn her of the lack of toilet paper, so I composed a French sentence ON MY OWN and told her that there was no toilet paper. 

She looked at me in an understanding manner and nodded, then after a few seconds went into the stall anyway. I thought that was sort of strange but assumed she must have had kleenex in her purse or something (a common and wise practice when using European bathrooms). 

I was SO proud of myself for thinking fast, speaking in French (all on my own) and actually communicating with someone! As we were leaving I was excitedly telling Brandon the story and Marie asked me what I had said to her. I repeated my sentence and Marie started laughing hysterically. Afraid, I asked what I had said and Marie told me, "you said, 'The door is not made of toilet paper!'"

So, I guess the lady was probably a bit confused by my excited declaration of nonsense. Oops!

dear french food, i love you.

French food was one of the best parts about Paris. Early in the trip we decided our souvenir would be our gained weight. And we went for it, so this is going to be a long post. But it will be almost entirely pictures with an occasional explanation.

mornings.

my standard breakfast was pain au chocolat and an espresso.



but then there were others...







and so you have an idea of what we were choosing from,



lunchish.









kind of scary.

steak tartare (raw ground beef),



escargot (snails),



dinnerish.

lamb with eggplant,



duck with potatoes on top - delicious,



some kind of steak,



crepes.

our first crepes were from this stand. the crepiteer put four times as much grand marnier as normal, without flambeing it. so it wasn't great,



this was the bretonne creperie, amazing. the one pictured had ham, cheese and egg,



dessert.



each of the pastry pieces has ice cream in it,



meringue with caramel,



amazing chocolate mousse,



dessert window shopping,

welcome to paris

The first part of my visit to a big city makes me acutely aware of being a small town kid. Pella, my hometown, is a safe, clean and relatively affluent place. The first leg of our vacation landed us just outside of Paris, trying to figure out which train to take into the city. After finding seats, we were followed in by an older man with a wine bottle. He stayed on the train and walked up and down the car asking for cigarettes and money. He was polite to us, but began to pester some of the other passengers. Eventually he stuck to a family made up of a woman and her two teenage kids, one boy and one girl. Not knowing French, we couldn't tell if he was being offensive or just obnoxious. The twenty-something, well-dressed Frenchman across from us could understand him though. After the mother had yelled at the man to leave them alone, the Frenchman, calmly and deliberately, placed his book back in his bag and took out his earbuds and put them away. He then turned around and gave the drunk man the evil eye.

This was noticed and drew the drunk guy away from the family, towards the Frenchman. The first couple of back and forths were calm, but eventually the Frenchman yelled at him. The drunk man moved back for a bit, but he shortly resumed his efforts to offend. It worked. The Frenchman stood up and gave the drunk guy a shove. The drunk guy changed his grip on the wine bottle from "hold-as-to-drink" to "hold-as-to-swing-at-guy-who-just-shoved-me" and began to put it to use. This was met with gasps and "no, no, no," stopping the swing. The Frenchman stood his ground while the drunk guy walked away, muttering until he got off at the next stop. It looked something like this,

After he got off, I clumsily asked him if he spoke English. He did, and he explained that the drunk guy had been saying crude things to the teenage girl. He had been looking at us to for reactions to see if she was alright, but since we had no idea what was being said we were fairly useless for that. It turns out our Frenchman does not regularly deal out street justice; we thanked him and got off at our stop. 

Skip ahead to the next morning, we headed to montmartre where a pigeon pooped on my head. With these two events, Paris welcomed me.

april in paris: overview

How to blog about our trip. That is the question. We have decided to give a brief overview of each location followed by separate posts telling more specific stories. So that's what you get. :)

* PARIS *



My French sister Marie (whose family I stayed with when I went to France in high school and who stayed with my family one summer) invited us to Paris for the week, put us up in her brother's awesome apartment and was our exquisite personal tour guide of Paris and of French food!

We were in Paris for 6 days and here is an outline of what we did:
(I apologize if this is WAY more information than anyone else cares about, this is for our moms!)

Wednesday, March 31
- Arrived in Paris - met up with Marie (when we EVENTUALLY found her). Went out for our first tasty French meal. mmmm.

Thursday, April 1
- Montmartre - Ate pastries and drank coffee a sidewalk café, wandered around Painter's Square, went into Sacré Coeur. Love that neighborhood. Walked from Place de la Concorde up the Champs-Élysées, went under the Arc de Triomphe, bought lunch. Took our lunch to Trocadéro and ate it by the Eiffel Tower! Sunned ourselves in the Jardin des Tuileries, saw the Louvre. Met up with Marie's sister Claire for pastries then went to church at Notre Dame des Champs. Ate crêpes for dinner.

Friday, April 2
- Had the day to ourselves. Went to Notre Dame and Île de la cité. Explored the Latin Quarter and had lunch in a little café. Saw the University of Paris - Sorbonne (where Aquinas was!). Started pouring so we decided to go to a museum. Walked to the Musée d'Orsay but the queue was half way around the city. Went to the little Musée de l'Orangerie instead, and saw Monet's water lilies. AWESOME. Saw a rainbow over Place de la Concorde. Walked up the Champs-Élysées and went to a movie. No butter for popcorn. Ate pizzas and pastries from the little Patisserie by our apartment for dinner.

Saturday, April 3
- Ate an AMAZING huge authentic French brunch for over 2 hours. Went to Musée Jacquemart-André in gorgeous Parisian home from the 1800s (looks like Versailles on the inside). Walked around Paris and went to the "covered streets." Ate dinner at a café with a view of Notre Dame. Went to the 3.5 hour Candlelit Easter Service at Notre Dame. Event of a lifetime.

Sunday, April 4
- Patisserie for breakfast with Marie. Monet museum. Wandered the Jewish quarter. Lunch at a café. Wandered le Marais. Saw Picasso's house. Passed the Centre Pompidou. Went to a neighborhood of old crêperies, and had an authentic Bretonne (from Brittany) meal (Marie is Bretonne). Had the best crêpe on earth!

Monday, April 5
- Another A & B day. Pastries in front of the Eiffel Tower. Back to Montmartre to hang out. Lunch on Painter's Square.  Relaxed on the steps of Sacré Coeur. Met up with Marie. Had crêpes. Sat at a café. Just B and I went down to the Eiffel Tower and sat on the ground in front of it for over 2 hours to watch the sunset and to watch it sparkle. Ate pastries on our way home.

Tuesday, April 6
- Breakfast and goodbyes with Marie. Flew over Paris and the Swiss Alps and the Mediterranean to Italy.

we're HOME (away from home)!

We made it safely back to England from Paris and Italy, and my does England feel like home now that we're back! It is so quaint, tidy and proper here, and it's soooo nice/useful to be able to communicate. We had an amazing trip and it seriously felt like we were gone over a month. Planning a relaxing and leisurely vacation has a lot of benefits one being it makes you feel like you were away longer.

Here are some teaser photos until I can sift through the 2, 941 photos that I took (wow, that number sounds weirdly small, I better go back and get some more).