Paris, Days 1 & 2

We arrived in Paris just in time to celebrate the New Year--we were literally in the car on the way back from the train (it took just a little bit longer than anticipated with the train situation...), but we got to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle and all of the people celebrating everywhere.


Abby and Stéphane have been wonderful hosts and we have had a lot of fun spending time with them over the holiday. The meals that they made--risotto, verrines, tartiflette, galette des rois--were awesome!

As we arrived in Paris late on the 31st, there is not much to tell from that day, other than that we got to ring in the new year looking at the most beautiful thing in the world AND with great friends--that is an amazing way to do it!

On the 1st of January, not much is open in Paris, so we decided to go to St. Cloud and Versailles. St. Cloud was a royal residence that was destroyed during the Commune in 1870, but the parcs that surrounded the chateau are still there and they are beautiful. It is an immense place and it's awesome to see the artistry of Le Nôtre (the landscape architect that designed gardens at Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte) at work there.





We also went to Versailles to walk around a bit. It was closed, but it was quite interesting, actually, as that meant that we could have a clear view from the inside gate, without a million people walking around in front of the chateau.





Stéphane et Abby said they were going to act like "Parisiens"...


Jerry and I acting like Americans who are just happy to be in France.








The fountains were also quite beautiful because they were frozen, which made everything look very peaceful.





After this, we went tried to go to La Durée for some macaroons, but the line was so long that we decided to go to another place instead. We ended up going to a cool place that was very different than what we would see normally in the States--a car exhibition on the first floor (some prototypes that probably won't be sold, some that will be sold), with a café above. There are several on the Champs Elysées; this one was the Renault showroom, called Les étoiles de Renaut:





Today (Sunday) we accidentally slept until 1:45 PM! We were so jet-lagged, so I think we must have needed it. There are some excellent blinds on the window in the room at Abby and Stéphane's house, so it seemed very dark outside. I heard, in fact, both of them walking around outside the room, and I was worried, because I thought that perhaps there was a family emergency or something--I couldn't imagine why they would be up "in the middle of the night"! It was actually around 10:00 AM or something like that. I felt sooooo ridiculous! At any rate, they had set out an amazing Epiphany feast, complete with a "Galette des Rois"--kind of like the King Cake for Mardi Gras. None of us found the baby though...

Since we started the day so late, we didn't really have time for any museums, so we went walking down the Champs Elysées. It was so beautiful--they have light blue lights on all of the trees, plus these straight ones that seem like falling stars. At the end near the Ferris wheel, there is a Christmas market with trinkets and little foods. It turned out very well that we got to go today--I know it was at the top of Jerry's list of things to do, and it was neat to see the market since I've never known about it before.




You really can't even capture how beautiful it is in a picture, but we tried...



I wanted to go look around the huge Louis Vuitton store (notice I just said LOOK), but there was a line a block long to get in!



My favorite Christmas decoration was actually an advertisement to travel to Alsace for the holidays--the corner and sides of the building were covered in Christmas trees, lights and longs swatches of green and pink decorations...



After our walk, we came back to the apartment to meet our wonderful hosts and we went to dinner at a very cool restaurant called La Gare, which used to be a train station...




We had a great time and a great meal. Tomorrow we are going to check in to the hotel and then we are going to try to go to La Conciergerie and Ste. Chapelle...