Expensive Cocktails, and the Minions as a Teaching Tool

We’ve been out of the States for a little over two weeks now, and there have been some major and minor adjustments we’ve had to make.  Most are the latter, but there have been a couple of big changes we’re getting used to.

Among the minor stuff:

• A tiny refrigerator and kitchen.  We knew going into this that in France we would probably have to shop every day, and although I thought I would be massively resistant to it (batch tasks for more efficiency, people!) it actually hasn’t been bad.  We have two markets, a Monoprix and a Marks & Spencer, right down the block, and other little markets all over the place, so we’ve found it easy to shop nearly every day.
• It’s 10 pm and still light out!  This was a total mindf**k the first few days.  Because we’re at a more northern latitude than in New England the days are longer here in the summer, and we totally screwed up bedtime for B the first few nights.  We’re still screwing up his bedtime, mind you, but now it’s because we’re having too much fun.
• Walking everywhere.  I thought I was in shape, but apparently I wasn’t in “walking in the city every goddamned day” shape.  The first week we were beat, and it wasn’t just from the jetlag and redeye flight.  We just weren’t used to walking everywhere, and I in particular was not used to walking 2-4 miles a day with a 40-pound toddler on my shoulders.  It kicked my ass.
• Portion sizes.  There’s no such thing as a gallon of milk here.  We were lucky to find a half-gallon last week, and I’m not sure we’ll get it again.  Not that we could fit a gallon in our Lilliputian refrigerator.  A quart of blueberries?  No way.  Here, have a box with about 20 blueberries in it.  A 2-pound container of ground beef?  Or chicken?  No, a pound is as big as you’ll need, thank you very much.  Fortunately I was in the process of experimenting with counting macros before we left, so my portion sizes have decreased significantly, but it’s easy to see why obesity is not much of an issue here.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  It’s been fun to realize our assumptions are being challenged on a daily basis.  That’s not something we experienced regularly when we were living in our comfort zone.

The one major adjustment that we’re still getting used to is our bed.  At home we had a top-of-the-line California King (which is now sitting in a storage unit in Rocky Hill, CT…sniff) and here we are making do with, horror of horrors, a full-sized mattress.

So Juliann and I are figuring out how to sleep without driving each other crazy, and so far we’re making progress.  I think.  For the full picture you should talk to her, and for all I know she might tell you that it’s like sleeping in a hammock with a bison on a CPAP machine.

Oh, and the quaint old wooden floors in our apartment creak like crazy.  So when I get up in the middle of the night I end up waking my poor wife.

But there are worse things in life.  We’re working with it.  And we’ll only be in this apartment for another couple of weeks, and then it’s off to the next few towns in France.

Glamor Sunday

Sunday we decided to spend a day doing some glamorous stuff in Paris:  check out L’Arc de Triomphe, (ok, not really glamorous, but let’s pretend) walk down the Champs Elysees, check out Louis Vuitton, and stop by the Four Seasons on Avenue George V.

We got the boy excited about the Arch by telling him about Napoleon, the little guy dressed in blue on the horse in the Minions movie.  We told him on the Metro ride that Napoleon had a huge arch built in Paris because, well, he could.

Braeden was interested, but he really perked up when we told him he could climb it.

“Daddy, how high is it?”

“It’s big, buddy.  Not as big as Notre Dame, but bigger than our apartment building.”

Silence.

“Is it bigger than this train?”

[Aside:  I love toddler logic.  I love the fact that it doesn’t adhere to conventional wisdom, or physics, or reality.

Except when we’re doing a puzzle together.  Then it drives me crazy.  HOW THE HELL DO YOU TRY TO PUT AN EDGE PIECE IN THE MIDDLE?!?]

We found the Arch without difficulty, climbed to the top, spent some time admiring the views, let the boy run around like a madman while I freaked out whenever he got too close to the 6-foot unquestionably impenetrable security fence, checked out a photography exhibition that they were having in one of the rooms up top, and explored the base of the Arch for awhile.

It’s a thoroughly impressive monument, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a must-see after listening to Dan Carlin’s “Blueprint for Armageddon” podcast about WWI.

[Aside:  If you’re at all interested in history, be sure to check out some of Carlin’s podcasts.  They’re incredibly entertaining and educational to boot.  Really good stuff.  You’re welcome.]

Suggestion:  if you visit Paris, see the Arch before you see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.  It suffers a bit in comparison, but it’s not quite fair.  It’s a huge, beautiful, intricate monument that deserves its fame.  It just ain’t Notre Dame.

We left the Arch and set off down the Champs Elysees, and since we were hungry we decided to plunk down at a sidewalk cafe and have some breakfast.  Well, lunch for me, since I already had breakfast (I’m not a piggy little hobbitt, so I refused to call it “Second Breakfast”) and breakfast for Juliann.  And probably snacktime for Braeden, since, when in doubt, he’s probably up for a snack.

The service was great, (restaurant service has been great here in Paris, without exception) the food was excellent, and the experience of lounging at a cafe on one of the world’s most famous streets was pretty cool.

Juliann had coffee with toast and a croissant, and I had the boef bourgogne.  The boy snacked off of both of our plates and loved everything.

After a relaxing meal we continued our stroll, stopped into a Toyota dealership to check out the beautiful concept car they had in the window, then rolled on into Louis Vuitton.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Louis Vuitton, or if I have I’ve blacked out the experience.  It was like a carnival of the ridiculous with women of all shapes and colors lining up to buy $11,000 purses that I’m pretty sure were made in Bangladesh for $15.

Dr. Seuss could have done it justice.  I can’t even come close.  It was entertaining to watch, though, and I enjoyed watching the salespeople trying to figure out if the scruffy trio of Americans were backpackers who took a wrong turn or some superrich New Yorkers in Paris for the weekend.

We left Louis Vuitton and headed to our final destination for the day:  The Four Seasons.  We walked in like we owned the place, took a few wrong turns down some wildly opulent corridors, and ended up at a lovely terrace restaurant where we were politely told that tables were only for hotel guests with reservations and wouldn’t we like to enjoy the hotel bar instead?

It turned out that yes, we did want to enjoy the hotel bar, so we found it, stepped inside, and sat down on some insanely plush couches to order cold drinks.

The maitre d’ brought over a coloring book and colored pencils for the boy, and the bartender took our order and set about making our drinks.

We knew we were only there for one round, so we made the most of it, although the boy was nearing the Zone of Danger so we didn’t stay as long as we would have liked.

We enjoyed for as long as we could, then we bid adieu to the Four Seasons.  We would have loved to stay there but the tab for two nights is about the same as our monthly accommodations budget, so that ain’t gonna happen.

It was a beautiful place, though.

Taking It Easy

The past couple of days have been quiet and lazy.  Paris has finally gotten warm (today it was 95 degrees) so we’ve been staying local in the Latin Quarter and trying to keep cool.

We found a couple of splash pools in the Jardin du Luxembourg down the street so we hit those yesterday, then did a little shopping and had dinner.

Today we had plans to go check out the Galeries Lafayette for a little shopping and A/C, but the boy had a little diarrhea episode at the playground in the morning and we didn’t want to chance being too far away from the apartment should disaster strike yet again.

Instead we ran some errands.  Juliann wanted to pick up something from the good old American Body Shoppe down the street, we went to the local Orange store to top up our SIM cards, (where for the second time we were treated rudely…at the same store) and hit a boulangerie to grab a baguette.

[Aside 1:  I was formerly a Paleo, macro counting, CrossFit athlete in the States.  Here I count how many bottles of wine we have left in the apartment and I eat nearly a baguette every day.  When in France….]

[Aside 2:  We went into Orange (the equivalent of Verizon in the States) where we had purchased SIM cards two weeks before.  The salesperson, Ephraim, who was a dead ringer for Liam McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, was rude and uninterested when I greeted him and asked him in French how we could top up our SIM cards.  We completed the transaction and we left with the codes that we had to enter into our phones.  20 minutes later I tried using the codes at a playground where Braeden was terrifying local French kids.  J’s worked, mine didn’t.  So I went back, already annoyed that I had to deal with Ephraim McPoyle again.

I walked in and I could see that he wasn’t happy I was back.  I explained that the code worked fine on J’s phone, but when I entered it on mine I got an error.  He shook his head.

“I cannot help you.”

I inhaled deeply.  “What do you mean?”

“I cannot help you with this,” he retorted.

“I’m sure that I’m doing something wrong.  How can I get help?” I asked.

“You must call customer service.”  He stared at me.  I stared back.

“What are you?’

“I am sales,” he replied with a shrug.

I was furious at this point but I wasn’t going to let him win.

“Can I show you?” I asked in French, holding up the phone.

He shrugged again.  I followed the instructions on the sheet he had given me and typed in the code.  The phone did what it did before, it just hung, spinning its “Wait” icon endlessly.

After about 15 seconds he grimaced and asked, “Is this what happened before?”

“Yes.”

He reached for the phone and I gave it to him.  He exited the signup process, and typed in some numbers that weren’t in the instructions I had received, then typed in my access code.  The phone connected and confirmed the top-up.

“There,” he murmured, handing me the phone as if it were dipped in dogshit, “it works now.”

“Thank you, I appreciate your help,” I said, and we turned and left, but not before I pointed out a sign behind the cash register to Juliann.

It was in French, and it read, “Verbally or physically assaulting employees of this store is a crime.  Offenders will be prosecuted.”

“There’s apparently a good reason that they have that sign,” I told her.

So the moral of the story:  if Orange doesn’t straighten out their employees, go to a competing phone company the next time you’re in France and need a SIM card.

Which will be soon, right?

Thus endeth our epic aside.]

This week we’re planning another visit to the Louvre and hopefully we’ll get to Versailles as well.  It’s supposed to cool off a bit and we’re looking forward to getting back outside.

In the meantime, we’re very much aware that we only have two weeks left in Paris.  We’re loving it here so far, but we’re looking forward to driving around France a bit and seeing some other, less urban places.   And Lake Annecy is calling.