Paris: parte deux

We took the Thalys train to Paris and met John at our hotel in north west area of Paris. It was getting late so we dropped our bags in the rooms and set out to find a few drinks. We found a quaint little wine bar a couple of black away and we split a bottle or red and a bottle of rose. I'm not generally a wine drinker, but hey, when in France...

The next day we slept in until 9:30 or so and Kelly, Gudrun and myself ate a late breakfast in the hotel. John was tired so he slept while we ate. We brought him back some coffee though. (Kelly mentioned that we wanted to take a cup of coffee upstairs for our uncle and by the time we finished with out breakfast there was a whole pot of coffee on a tray with every sort of bread and jam/honey/marmalade they had) We took an easy schedule and when everyone was ready to leave we ambled towards the Arc du Triomphe. Specifically, we went to watch the traffic go round and round the round-about there. I've been told that there is no fault in an accident there. Drivers are equally accountable and damages split 50/50 because this particular spot is complete anarchy. There's room for 5 or 6 car widths to circle easily, but there are no lines laid down and no apparent rules for merging or exiting. Every man for himself. They really should install cameras and broadcast it at some sort of extreme sport.

Next stop was the Eiffel tower making a few side tracks along the Champs-Elysee for coffee and shopping. There were something around 668 steps to the second platform of the tower and a lift to the top. Taking a long rest on the first level and a short rest on the stairs (there were few people climbing the stairs that day so it was no trouble to stop) we climbed every one of those. It was cold and windy but the view was worth it and because of it the crowds were pretty thin. The third level, the one that is enclosed by glass, was obviously a bit busier but not bothersome. There were signs all around you labeled with city names accompanied by the distance from that spot to that city. I doubt that I'd ever be inclined to climb it again, but it is definitely worth doing once for sure.

We had dinner at a cute little French restaurant by Saint Michels. Of note there was the french onion soup. It was quite amazing (though I should tell you all that I've never come across a bowl of french onion soup I didn't fall in love with).

On Sunday I slept in while everyone else went to breakfast and we left somewhere around 11ish. John was interested in tracking down an antiques shop and then the plan was to go to the Picasso Museum. While I was looking in the tour book (for lack of better resources) for an antique dealer, I happened upon a listing for the world's largest flea market. Well who could resist that? We immediately scraped the museum plan and decided to spend the whole day at the flea market. We stopped at an Italian restaurant in the area there where I had the best pizza. It was a plain white pizza with fresh rocket leaves piled high. The contrast of the hot chewy pizza with the cool crunchy greens was awesome. The market was on the far north side of the city, quite out of the way. It is tough to describe quickly and in detail so suffice it to say I had a blast.
After we walked around a bit looking for a fancy place to have a cocktail. We found the Hotel du Louvre had a lovely lounge so relaxed there for a bit. I tried my very first Rob Roy there. It is, as far as I know, a bit old fashioned but I quite liked it. Made me feel fancy! Hehe

Well, check the date on this post and you'll see that this Sunday just happened to be Superbowl Sunday so we all went back to the hotel for a nap, had dinner at this great little cous cous restaurant down the street from our hotel around 10 and were back to the hotel before kick-off at 12:30. We opened the Belgian beers I had brought with me and watched the Superbowl in the hotel. John explained beforehand all the rules of American football to Gudrun who was super excited to watch her first American football game. I must admit I went to sleep early in the game but they watched the entire thing drinking (what Kelly dubbed wussy) Belgian beers and listening to the announcers in French.