Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Shopping in Paris

Friday May 25, 2007

I get out of bed at 10:00 and go down to the bakery, to purchase 1 ancient baguette and 3 chocolate croissants. For breakfast we have polenta (grits), chocolate croissants, baguette, cheese, strawberries, and cheese.
IMG_1023 (Small)

We head out to the Metro. We are going shopping at Galleries Layefette.
IMG_0448 (Small)
We go to the roof top observation desk to see the city. It is a hazy day.
IMG_0463 (Small)
We purchased a few items in the food halls and a few clothing items. We head back to the apartment to drop our stuff off and have lunch. We stop at the local fruit and vegetable seller. For 5€ We got 4 potatoes, a bunch of French green beans, and 2 huge figs. I fix smashed potatoes with butter, green beans, zucchini and carrots. Sam went back out and got another baguette. Dessert was figs and strawberries.
IMG_0500 (Small)

After lunch we head via the Metro to the Concord. We stroll down the Champs. The clouds are building and I tell them that it will be raining by 18:00 - in 30 minutes. Sure enough about 18:05 the sky is pouring buckets of water. We duck into the nearest Metro station. It is full of people. We stayed down for about an hour. When it slacked up a bit we ventured out on the street again. We stood in the doorway on a Mercedes dealer for another 30 minutes, it finally stopped and we continued our journey to the Arch. It's 19:30 and the sun does not go down till 21:30, so the lights are not on the Arch yet. We walk back down the Arch a bit to get a different view. We took pictures of the Elesse Star hotel where we stayed 20 years ago. It has gone up scale. 360€ for a double. Continuing down the Champs, we are getting hungry and decide to get pizza at a place we thought we had eaten at before. We get inside the Bistreo Romain - they do not server pizza. We decide to stay, I have Pappadelle with marinated chicken; Rhonda, Lasagna Verdure, and Sam Grilled Salmon with potatoes in balsamic vinegar. Rhonda tell me not to try these potatoes at home after tasting them. After I got my dish I thought this might be fresh egg pasts. I ate it anyway. All of the dishes are good 49.70€..

IMG_0587 (Small)
Pappadelle with marinated chicken

It’s now 22:10 we walk back to the Arch for our night time shots then it's on to the Tower. The place is packed with street vendors selling light up towers, flying birds, and crepes. We finish off our meal with chocolate crepes. We start to head to the nearest Metro around 23:30 and we depart the station around 23:50. I tell Sam about my suspicions about the pasta and tell him we will know by 04:30. We arrive at the Saint-Paul station 00:10. It is 00:30 before we are ready for bed.