Mobile moments: night edition

With company in town this weekend, we spent a lot of time enjoying the three M's of Parisian tourism: Museums, Monuments and Meals! (In reverse order of importance, of course). With that in mind, I thought I'd share another set of M's--Mobile Moments, a special nighttime edition.

After enjoying a three course French meal at one of our favorite restaurants, we led our invités to the center of Paris for a stroll through the City of Lights' best-lit tourist spots. Figuring that I would leave the picture-taking up to the real tourists I didn't bother to bring a camera, but it was such a lovely evening that I ended up regretting it and making do as best as I could with my cellphone.

We got off the métro at Place de la Concorde just in time to catch the hourly sparkling of the Eiffel Tower (in the distance, behind the Egyptian obelisk):

A view of Pont de la Concorde with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
And again, from further away:
Looking down through the leaves onto the quai that runs alongside the Seine:
A misty night by the reflecting pools outside the Louvre:
The famous pyramide looks so much more mysterious at night:

Touring friends 'round the Tour Eiffel

Having guests in Paris is a good excuse to get out and take advantage of all the cool things the city has to offer that I generally ignore as a resident. It's also a cool way to get reinfected with the awe of a first-timer. Laura is the world's perfect tourist: she is eternally curious, easily amazed and all about photographs and souvenirs (LOTS of souvenirs). And she had never been to Paris before. Hearing her gasps as we wound through Montmartre or the hallways of the Louvre made me remember how ecstatic I was the first time I came to Paris. And walking through France with Jason once again just felt natural, in a comforting sort of way.

Their first day here was a beautiful day to be outdoors. We started with lunch in the garden terrace at one of my favorite crêperies, and then we just walked around--through Notre-Dame, along the Seine, past the Hôtel de Ville to Tuleries, the Palais du Louvre and the Opera House. We stopped for mid-afternoon cocktails in sunny, curbside cafés and finally ended up in the multicultural Bastille area for dinner.
The next day took us to the Jewish/Gay district of the Marais--one of the only Parisian districts that doesn't shut down on a Sunday.
In fact, the Marais was so hoppin' that we had to queue to get our hands on a pita from the legendary L'as du Fallafel. It was worth the wait, though, as Lenny Kravitz knows...
Just our luck!--an old man Jewish street band started up just across from the curb where we were sitting munching our falafel.
And then, of course, we had to take Laura to see the Eiffel Tower...
...and climb it...(Apologies for this unflattering view. Laura was my designated ass photographer for most of our trip, as she has a knack for lagging behind and taking "action" (stalker) photos)
...and only a million stairs later, voilà! Can you tell it was windy?
Monday was our day for Museum-ing, which meant that I got to see the Italian Renaissance, Greek and Roman sculptures and Egyptian wing of the Louvre for the nth time. (I really need to make it back there someday when I don't have tourists in tow to see the other parts). I amused myself by imitating artwork. Here I am, posing with Ms. de Milo and a girl who is totally jealous of my mangled limbs/torso:
And now I'm paying patty cake with an Egyptian bear.
And then, of course, we couldn't let Laura leave France without trying escargot. Delish.

Eye spy, musicals and markets

Our first real day in London was devoted to the more standard tourist fare. Luckily, since I'd been there before, Tom was spared the Parliament/Buckingham Palace/Westminster Abbey part of the itinerary, but he was appalled that I had neglected to ride the London Eye. We rectified that pretty quickly, and I have to admit that the view of the Thames and Parliament and the crescent-shaped aquarium from the Ferris wheel pod was totally worth it.



The other big thing I hadn't done last time was go to see a show in West End. Buying half-price last minute tickets was much easier than in New York, and the area was much cuter, more compact and more pedestrian friendly than Broadway but with no less energy or neon. Despite my reservations about seeing a show set in New York whilst in London, we settled on Avenue Q, a parody of Sesame Street complete with muppets, songs and animation, that chronicles the quarter-life crisis following college graduation. I thought the vocalist that played Nickie/Princeton was a little weak, but overall it was a good production and a hilarious show.

Saturday was market day, so we headed first to Notting Hill to browse the antiques and other wares for sale on Portobello road. (In case you're wondering, the picture is of a collection of antique sewing machines). We listened to street musicians as we noshed on a vendor picnic of chorizo sandwhiches, marinated olives and dried fruit, then headed over to the more counter-culture markets of Camden. The crowd there was an odd mix of hippies and goths, dreadlocks and mohawks, but overall a very friendly, easygoing group. With its squat, waterside brick buildings, Camden reminded me a lot of Baltimore (I wonder if B-more's look was inspired by Camden?) We bought a pint of ale from a lock-side pub and drank it under the willow trees beside countless other 20-something couples and friends.

We met up with a couple of Tom's college friends just as the sun was setting for a stroll along the Thames, followed by dinner and cocktails. Perfect weather, perfect day.

I'm back, ol' chap

So I'm just back from our trip to London, which was (happily) unaffected by all the chaos surrounding English travel after the Eyjafjallajokull volcano grounded flights (I totally copy-and-pasted that from another site...I bet news rooms all over the world have reference notes posted on the wall reminding reporters how to spell and pronounce that ridiculous Icelandic name). I had a jolly old time across the Channel, and have revised my opinion of London from a sort of "meh" European city to "I would totally live there some day". I'll be making a few more posts this week to give some pictures and recap of various experiences I had, but for this first one I'll just give my general impressions of the city.

Let's start with the basics: the London Underground (or "Londerground," as it should really be called). If you read this blog often you'll know how much I both love and am critical of public transportation. The last time I was in London I found their system overpriced, run-down and not at all user-friendly. The improvements between then and now blew my mind. The Tube is undergoing major construction (or, for the Brits, "improvement works") and it is now cleaner, brighter and more efficient than the Paris metro. Stations don't smell like piss, ads come in flatscreen TV form, and "Oyster" cards facilitate the day-pass payment process in a way that ends up being pretty cheap (at least if you ride the metro a lot in one day). Trains have also come a long way towards being more accessible--"lifts" (elevators) are still few and far between, but their availability is well-marked on maps, and all trains have a clear voiceover reading out the direction and stops. The downsides: it's still unnecessarily confusing, with line transfers often poorly marked and maps not at all to scale. All the works also mean that they take advantage of commuter weekends to essentially shut the whole system down, leaving you without many alternatives other than the iconic if slow double-deckers to get around town. Whenever I started to get frustrated, though, I was able to find humour in the utter Englishness of it all--from the "mind the gap" and "this train will wait on the platform to even out the gaps in the line" warnings, to the strange names the lines carry. Rather than using colors (like D.C.) or numbers (like Paris), the English opted for rather more arbitrary system of names, some self-explanatory ("Central", "District", "Northern") and some place-based but hilarious ("Bakerloo", "Jubilee", "Hammersmith and City").


The stereotype of the polite Englishman is all too true, and it was charming to be apologized to instead of trampled during rush-hour. London is also delightfully diverse, however, and while it's easy to find pasties, meat pies, fish and chips and tea, they might well be served with a foreign accent. The number of French-speaking Londoners everywhere was incredible; language-wise it didn't feel that different than Paris. Judging purely by accents heard on the street, there also seemed to be a pretty sizable American population (which I suppose explains why the English don't find my accent nearly as 'exotic' as I do theirs). The availability and quality of foreign cuisine was also great, and we had delicious, non-English dinners pretty much every night.

Food and clothing seemed much cheaper in general in London than in Paris (although hotels and housing are apparently much more expensive). Since the pound is at a record low against the dollar right now I spent some of my time while Tom attended his conference on London's famous Oxford street, a shopping mecca with all the major chain stores represented (sometimes multiple times!). I bought some new summer wardrobe fare and also picked up a few choice items that are either non-existent or exorbitantly-priced in Paris (cheddar cheese, Crunchie chocolate bars, sunscreen, toiletries...)

Overall, my favorite part of London was the literary/film/theater associations it brought to my arts-minded brain. Passing through Paddington (the bear) or King's Cross (Harry Potter) stations made me smile, and walking around Fleet Street (Sweeney Todd), Portobello Road (Bednobs and Broomsticks), Notting Hill (the movie) and Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes) put me in the same sort of fantasy world (albeit not that of Madeline, Notre Dame's Hunchback, and Amelie) that Paris used to evoke before it became so quotidienne. Parliament had me pondering Guy Fawkes, and Big Ben Peter Pan, and I found myself chanting "oranges and lemons..." and "London bridge..." and other nursery rhymes under my breath almost constantly. I'm slowly realizing that I must be a little bit crazy to constantly be zoning out and making the connections that I'm so apt to. No matter, though--it's cosy in here.


(That odd-shaped building is affectionately known as "the Gherkin." Tee hee hee)

Tourisister, day sept

Our plan for Nicole's last day had been to visit the catacombs (what better way to celebrate Christ rising from the dead than with a stroll through piles of bones, eh?) but alas, they were closed. Instead, we went North to the hill of Montmartre and its voluptuous cathedral of Sacre Coeur (seriously, it has always struck me as an extremely feminine and sensual building, especially compared to the harsh Gothic towers of Notre Dame). Nicole liked the view over the city but was even more entranced by the street performers and portrait artists. After buying her some scarves (so that she would stop threatening to steal mine, which she had been wearing all week) we continued on to the last stop on our tourist hit list: the Arc de Triomphe, its flame honoring the unknown soldier, and its surrounding asterisk of grand boulevards radiating outwards in the shape of an étoile ("star").

I accompanied her to the airport this morning (early, early this morning) to see her off. Unfortunately, with the new security measures I couldn't follow her any further than the line for the passport station. Left to pace behind velvet ropes as I watched my kid sister pass through to security alone, I understood why saying "bye" to me at the airport has always been a heart-wrenching affair for my mother. "Have a good flight," I said, "and a good rest of the school year." She hugged me: "have a good...um...life in Paris?"

I relished that remark on the train ride home --my life in Paris--as if my sister saying it had made it real. When I arrived in September, it was with a nomadic, "this is temporary" mindset; my academic year in France was a mere a blip in the trajectory of my path before I start Real Life. At the beginning, I bought as few dishes and linens as I could manage, I neglected decoration, and I packed lightly, always conscious of being able to easily erase the traces of my time here and bring stuff "home" to the States. Hosting a visitor made me appreciate how much this city has really become my own over the last few months, and how at home I feel here--to the point that I'm beginning to plan a life here beyond my Master's.

As if determined to prove my French-ness, I stopped at a boulangerie on the way home to pick up a baguette and some breakfast pastries for Tom and I to share. Later we took advantage of the lovely day and warm weather to take a stroll through the blossoming tree-lined streets of the "Chinatown" area in the 13th arrondissement, stopping for some pho and frogs legs at a Vietnamese place. Verdict: they taste similar to chicken (which is to say vaguely meaty and salty, I suppose) but have a texture more like white fish... the muscle kind of flakes apart inside the crunchy outside, and you end up with a cute little pile of frog bones. Dinner: left over ratatouille and a whole kilo of fresh spring strawberries. Vive la France!