The adventure, part 1

I'm back in Toulouse (well since Sunday night) from my whirlwind weekend in Paris, but I feel like I haven't gotten back into my schedule yet.

Last Thursday I took an afternoon train to Paris (5 hours) and my friend picked me up at the train station since the RER A was on strike. Friday morning he dropped me off at a train station in south-western Paris on his way to work and I met up with my cousin and her husband at their hotel. They had visited the Louvre Thursday afternoon after they got to their hotel about noon, so I suggested heading over to Notre Dame. The metro closest to their hotel stopped at Chatelet, which I figured was close enough, so we got off there. We unfortunately got all turned around while trying to exit and ended up walking through the Les Halles shopping center and finally exiting near St Eustache. We visited that, then headed towards the Centre Pompidou on our way to Notre Dame, but of course the Centre Pompidou was closed for the strikes.

So we headed straight to Notre Dame and visited the inside and outside. I couldn't believe how many tourists there were for December! Noon Mass was going on while we visited, and I remembered how I went to a Mass with my aunt years ago when I was in high school and I was frustrated that I didn't understand much of anything. The priest was talking about converting to Catholicism though, so not especially palpitant.

We crossed the bridge and walked around some of the small streets near St Michel that have lots and lots of restaurants. They were kind of touristy, but also cheap for Paris, so we had crêpes (and my cousins didn't know they could be anything but a dessert).

Next, visited Musée Cluny, which was free for me (yeah for free for -26!). There was an Asterix exhibit which I didn't get to really look at because my cousins didn't know what it was of course and I didn't want to make them wait for me. After that we took the metro over to Musée d'Orsay. Closed for strikes.

My cousin and her husband paid for my lunch (they're also 40 years old, not in their 20's), but I didn't want them to pay for everything for me like they were my parents, so I offered to pay for coffee/tea/pastry in the afternoon. In front of the closed Musée d'Orsay, my cousin's husband starts talking about going to the Champs Elysée next and having our goûté there. Gulp. Um, coffee on the Champs Elysée?? Should I tell them I can't really afford that, even though they probably can?

After a little metro ride we walked around a bit, took pictures of the Arc, stopped in at Cartier, Swatch, and maybe another place. There was a Brioche Doré that my cousins spotted and suggested and I tried to sound neutral about it : Oh yeah, we could eat there. They have coffee and pastries. They looked at what was available though and decided they didn't like it though. We tried a side street, but there was a cleaners, a bar, and a sushi restaurant, so we headed back to the Champs Elysée.

Then they spotted Fouquet's.
One chocolat viennois, two teas (what kind, I don't know, they didn't ask what kind of tea to serve), one large chocolate eclair, one belgian waffle with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and creme de marron.... for 49€. I think my hot chocolate was 9€ and I'm pretty sure each pastry was 12€. Plus the service was horrible!! The server acted like we were a huge inconvenience for him, and didn't even ask what kind of tea my cousin and her husband wanted (like I mentioned). I tried to always speak French with the servers at restaurants so they would think there was at least one French person in the group and that they couldn't just do whatever they wanted, but it was hard to interact like a French person with him (letting him know that his attitude was insupportable), and an American with my cousins. I would basically say never go to Fouquet's.

After our expensive snack, we took the metro to Opéra and walked over to Galerie Lafeyette to see the Christmas tree inside as well as the window decorations.

Next task was finding a restaurant, but the only restaurants I knew around Opéra were all the specialty Japanese ones. We started walking, but my cousin's husband had blisters from walking all day, so he just wanted to find something quick. Not having a guide, a real map, or an iPhone, I first stopped into a hotel to ask for a recommendation and then I called B to look up the neighborhood online. We found the restaurant recommended by the hotel, but it was fully reserved (of course), so we ended up eating at a random brasserie-restaurant that was nothing to write home about.

After that we went our separate ways with my cousin and her husband heading back to their hotel, and me to Gare St Lazare to get back to the suburbs and my friend's apartment.

The rest of my weekend To Be Continued!....