Paris Je t'aime! Day Two Highlights

* We wake up and realize it's Sunday, which means most of Paris will be closed for the day. This is a tad problematic as said closures include supermarkets and several restaurants. So I flip through some of suggestions shared by Parisian-based blogger Jordan of Oh Happy Day! and we opt to hit up the open market.

*Mere and I metro over to the Eiffle Tower to find the market. We find instead several break dance performances (I find out that Mere was a breaker in a past life. Who knew?), the remanents of the something called the Paris-Versailles Le Grande Classique, and something else called the Famillathon.

*We even come across the pools in front of the l'Ecole Militaire, which appears to be quite popular with the locals.

*What we don't find is the market (which, I figure out later, was at least one stop before the Tower. Sorry, Mere!) This doesn't change the fact that we're both starving, so we sit down at a local cafe for brunch. Mere has an AMAZING dish that consists of artichokes and chanterelle mushrooms lovingly bathed in butter and chives, while I did into a salad and a roasted avocado.

*We walk back towards the tower. On the way, we come across a photography exhibit outside along the Seine. We take our time looking at each country's contribution.*Home again! Of course, it's a bit unnerving when we pass some 4 or so vans full of armed police en route. They're just standing around for the moment, chatting. There doesn't appear to be any crisis. For now...

*Since cooking at home is out, Mere and I take a look online for some dinner ideas. We find a place suggested by another blog, HiP Paris. The restaurant is actually open on Sundays. Hooray!

*What the hell is that noise? Mere and I look outside. So that's why the police were out and about: There's a street protest taking place! 

*Apparently, there's a fellow named GBagbo who may have been unjustly detained (and taken into custody by French military) in the Cote de Ivoire. The protest is over and out of ear shot within 20minutes.

*Time for wine!

*We make our way to our dinner selection for the evening: Tien Hang. It's hole-in-the-wall joint that serves some 60 vegetarian items, all of which can be prepared as vegan entrees upon request.

*Holy crap this place is AMAZING! I have a black pepper "steak" clay pot that brings a tear to my eye it tastes so good. I also have an order of steamed dumplings and split a spicy papaya salad with Mere. Coconut juice with large shreds of coconut meat to drink. Sticky rice on the side. It's way, way too much food for one person but I persevere.

*We roll out of the restaurant and walk a bit just to aid the digestion process. Also pitching in: a glass of cognac ordered at a bar near the Bastille (Mere opts for champagne). Time to metro home before I fall over again. There's an accordion player at the metro stop. Nice.

THINGS I HAVE NOT SEEN IN PARIS:

1. Mimes
2. Unshaven Ladies
3. Berets

THINGS I HAVE SEEN IN PARIS:

1. Smoking. SO. MUCH. SMOKING.
2. Fashion shows (more on that later)
3. Public Protests
4. Crazies in the Metro/on the Metro
5. Little Dogs
6. Couples mid-Makeout Session
7. Naked Rugby Players on TV (more on that later, too)

Paris Je t'aime! Day One Highlights

*Spend the flight squished into my seat. The other seats are occupied by a nice, though portly, elderly couple who are apparently new to international travel. I show them how to use the in-flight entertainment system correctly. Twice. As sleeping becomes increasingly less of an option, I decide to watch Midnight in Paris (yay!) and Something Borrowed (not so yay) instead.

*I make it through customs (which, seriously - do they even bother checking for banned items?)  and onto the train. At the metro station I ask a young girl for directions to the Rue des Fontaines du Temple. No luck. I ask again. No dice. I figure my French can't be that bad. I ask an ice cream truck vendor, who (1) corrects my speech and then (2) points me in the right direction. I start walking and realize that I've managed to surface from the Metro right into a Deaf-rights awareness rally. It seems I was using the wrong kind of French in this instance.

*Finally make it to the apartment Mere has rented for the week. We hug and realize that we're wearing matching outfits. Huh. I desperately want a shower, but that may send me straight into a coma so I opt for a change of clothing and we hit the streets instead. We stop for lunch at a cafe, where I place a garbled order for an omelette and a glass of rosé. People watching ensues.

*Commence project Keep Adrienne Awake to Fight Jetlag. Which consists of more walking. Lots more. At least it's nice out - Paris is experiencing an unusual break in the weather this week. Fine by me! We pop into a sports bar quickly so I can ask about the France v. All Blacks game. (Which my team won, thank you very much!)

*We end up at Notre Dame de Paris, which is very cool. And extremely crowded. 

* More walking. We explore the Latin Quarter. I almost buy a handmade animated music box for 72 euros but sanity stays my hand. We eventually stop for caffeine and beer, which made sense at the time.
*We start to walk towards the Bastille. We're a few blocks away when my feet start to really, really hurt and I'm having trouble staying awake while standing, which is a new and unpleasant experience for me. We metro back to the apt and I cat nap for a few minutes.

*Using what has to be the slowest Internet connection in the Western world, we find some vegetarian places to eat dinner and some bars to drink in afterwards. Time to put on our fancy clothes before hitting the town!

*Dinner is ...not good. But the drinks - now those are impressive. We first stop at the Experimental Cocktail Club near Montorgueil. It's tiny and there are a LOT of people crammed in there, but the music is all kinds of fantastic. And the cocktails are off the friggin chain. I have a Brunette, which contains something like 6 types of liquor (I'm estimating based on how loopy I felt after just one), while Mere has something called the Experience. All I know is that it contains lemongrass. And a hefty dose of deliciousness.

*The next place is a Brit-rock-like pub. There's no other way to describe. We're definitely out of our age group and the top shelf liquor appears to be Jack Daniels. I settle for a whiskey and make Mere watch some of the soccer game that's played on a big screen in the main room. All kinds of 80s and 90s Brit rock and pop is coming out of a smokey room on the side, which we check out. I last all of 6 minutes before heading for the exit.

*We stumble around some more before I pull a full pumpkin and beg for a cab. We manage to find some in front of the Opéra de Paris, which is beautiful. However, I am just too damned tired to care at this point.

*We make it back to the apt, but Mere is hungry. This proves problematic as (1) it's after two in the morning and (2) Mere is vegan. Most of the kitchens we find serve either meat or cheese (seriously - even the one salad we were offered was a cheese salad). We finally find a fried chicken joint that for reasons I don't quite understand has a veggie burger on it's menu. SOLD. It's a crappy burger, but mine comes with fries and a Fanta, so I'm good and happy.

*FINALLY- we make it home! We watch a dubbed episode of Supernatural and I enjoy another 1/2 glass of wine before completely crashing.

*It's the end of my first Saturday in Paris and I'm equal parts exhausted and stoked.

*I still need that shower though...

A Word from Our Faux Sponsors

A mini-post before I start recapping Paris...

BHE and I are preparing to celebrate our favorite holiday. The one where we met. The one where it's not only acceptable for us to be simultaneously loaded on booze and refined sugar, it's actively encouraged. The one where we get to throw the kick-butt costume party.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. It's time for Halloween!

Now, BHE and I already have our costumes picked out, but I thought I'd share this article from the Hairpin to inspire others. 

Big costume plans this year? Do tell!

Till the, enjoy!!

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Take This Halloween Costume Idea ... Please

By The Hairpin @ 1:00 pm

Cecilia Rebecca Ziko: One year my brother's friend dressed up as The Best Man: disheveled and in an ill-fitted suit, top buttons and tie undone, shirt half untucked. Maybe missing a shoe. He spent the night standing on chairs making toasts, spilling his gin and tonics, putting his arm around people and telling them awkward stories. Doing the worm. Whenever someone asked who he was suppose to be, he would act all offended, "What do you mean 'Who am I?' I'm the best man!" I think he ended the night passed out in a closet.

Drew Zandonella-Stannard: One of my old coworkers once went as a garden gnome. She basically just dressed herself as a gnome (very comfortable and warm) and carried around a plot of fake grass that she would stand on from time to time. Sort of brilliant! This could easily be reinterpreted as a "sexy" garden gnome, but really, who can beat wearing a cozy drinking suit AND having a clean place to plop yourself down?

Jane Marie: The best one I ever saw was on a stranger BUT all my friends were with me so it would be lame for me to copy it. Here's what it was: a door guy. He was a dude dressed up like a regular juicebox wearing sunglasses, and he had a velvet rope, complete with the metal stand thing (where did he get one?) and a clipboard. The best part was that he never broke character and he was such a jerk and kept stationing himself in busy places like in front of the bathroom door. Luckily, his "guest list" had every single "sexy" costume on it: Sexy Nurse, Sexy Vampire, Sexy Zombie. I was Suri Cruise that year so I got in to the bathroom as "Sexy Baby."

Jaya Saxena:  There was a girl in an engineering school that went as "Sexy Transistor" and wore a nude bodysuit with this design all over it.

Helen Rosner:  My all-time favorite was worn by a UChicago grad student (of course). He had on a t-shirt with a silhouette of the continent of Asia on it, and was wearing one of those forehead flashlights. Get it? ASIA MINOR.

Marie Lodi: Mormon kid on a bike — white button up shirt, bike helmet, backpack and name tags.

Lili Loofbourow: The God of Small Things sported a toga made of a sheet with lots of tiny items pinned onto it: tiny scissors, miniature saw, buttons, etc. Princess Leia hair topped by a crown of laurels.

Bianca Turetsky: My friend Kristen has been trying unsuccessfully since college to get a Donner Party together. Everyone in the group would be wearing ripped and dirty pioneer-style clothing. Some people would be missing limbs and maybe someone would carry a heart on a stick or be eating ribs.

Abe Sauer: My favorite, that I attempted last year but ran out of time, is perfect if you have babies. Dress yourself (dad) up like the Empire State Building. Tall hat with Empire State Building characteristic top. Cardboard flat sides with windows on them (open a few and hang Barbie dolls out for extra awesomeness). Baby dressed as a gorilla (suits are available for this) hangs on the front of the the dad dressed as Empire State Building, as King Kong. Baby King Kong also holds blonde Barbie (obvs). On top of hat, use hard wire to make two or three biplanes circling. Extra credit: Other child (old enough to walk) is dressed as one of the biplanes. Kind of like this, but with an old biplane look to it. That child then runs around the Empire State Building and King Kong. HIGH CONCEPT!

Molly Shalgos: The best one I ever saw was the one my babysitter wore to take me to a costume party in third grade. Not sexy, not sultry, 100% awesome — she came as a gumball machine. Red leggings, red turtleneck, and a little red pillbox hat, and she'd cut arm holes into a huge, clear plastic bag. She tied off the bottom of the bag, and then filled it up with tiny multicolored balloons, and taped a cardboard 25c sign on the front of the bag. The pictures still crack me up.

Erin Sullivan: I’m aways a fan of a conceptual costume, and one of my favorites was A Lightening Victim, where a girl teased the S out of her hair, smeared dirt all over her body, and charred her clothes.

Lisa Richey: The Morton salt girl.

Allie Pape:  A was a guy wearing a T-shirt that said "Go Ceilings!",  a hat with a big C (might have been a Cubs cap), and a big foam finger with "#1” on it. What was he? A ceiling fan!

Danielle Roderick: The best I've ever seen was "the woman who wants your slot machine." This was a couple of years ago, so she had a big plastic cup full of quarters, some NICE Oscar de la Rentas, and a thriftstore warm up suit, complete with fanny pack and cigs.  It was fun because she got to wear major makeup (big lips, mascara city, fake wrinkles), and another dude had dressed up as her husband, who was always circulating the party looking for his crazy wife, who said she was going to the penny slots, but now he can't find her. He had on suspenders, faux belly, and was smoking a cigar.   They would shout at each other across the party to shut up, and to meet at the buffet.

Kathleen Walsh:  Sexy Gorilla (gorilla suit with bikini on top, high heels).

Katie Heaney: My friend and his group of friends once went as The Baldwins and basically all wore leather jackets and then made duck lips/Blue Steel faces in every picture.

Megan Dietz: Unladybug. Ladybug costume plus cigarettes, ripped stockings, and a bad attitude.

Josh Duboff: A few years back, my friends and I for some reason decided to go to the Halloween parade in Chelsea. On our way back to our friend's apartment afterwards, a beautiful man dressed in a tuxedo (a red rose in his lapel!) biked in front of us. He was holding a white sign that had "I'm sorry" written on it. We all shouted some variation of "What are you?!!" at him at the same time. "I'm... a formal apology," he responded, and we all swooned as he biked off into the distance.

Megan Collins: My favorite — and maybe this has been done, but I thought it was clever? — was a guy dressed up as a kissing booth. I have no idea how he rigged it up, it was kind of like a cigarette girl thing, where there was a strap across his neck and then the flat surface in front of him, but it extended up on both sides and connected at the top where the sign was.

Edith Zimmerman: A sexy lamp. Gold bodysuit, lampshade on her head, tassel coming down from her ear or somewhere. Amazing.

Arianna Stern: A few years back, my brother dressed up as grapes. He stuck a safety pin through the stubby knot-end part of inflated, purple balloons, and attached them to an all-brown outfit. The nice thing about this dirt-cheap getup is that it's able to accommodate hot or cold weather. Beware, though: In a tell-all email, my brother wrote, "People kept running up to me throughout the night and trying to pop them or pull them off.  By the end of the night I was literally pushing away drunk strangers."

Nozlee Samadzadeh: The best costume I've ever seen was Miss America in a Parade: the girl in question wore a leotard that she'd bedazzled to look like the top of an evening gown, a sash with MISS AMERICA 2006 written on it, elbow-length white gloves, nude pantyhose, and gratuitous heels. Her hair was upswept, hairsprayed, and tiara'd and she wore a ridiculous amount of makeup. And...there was a tiny papier-mâché red convertible hanging around her waist, with a clear windshield, little doors painted on, working headlights, and everything! She spent the entire night smiling really big and waving with her white-gloved hands.