N and R played petanque

Petanque is a french game similar to italian bacci ball, where you have these heavy metal balls that you throw to get as close as you can to a smaller wooden ball. It is kind of like horseshoes, except in this game you can knock other people's balls out of the way. While I was introduced to it in the US, I was really excited when R decided to buy me my own petanque set while we are here in Paris. Apparently, getting a true french-made set of petanque balls is pretty tough in the US. Anyways, I was really excited to have my own set, which looks like this:


There are places to play petanque all over paris, and unfortunately many of them are occupied by old french men who are very good at petanque and rather intimidating. We decided to go to the Luxembourg gardens, a really great garden on the grounds of the Luxembourg palace, in search of petanque grounds. After finding go carts and pony rides and table tennis and just about anything else one might want to do in a park, we eventually found the petanque area, which was mostly occupied with some pretty serious petanquers. Serious petanque looks alot like old people standing around, aka this:





I asked the friendliest looking among them if the courts were reserved or if we could just play, and he directed me to the ones that were ok for commoners like me and R. R and I got started, playing petanque according to how we've played petanque at lab picnics every year for some time now. Within five minutes an old french man lumbered over grumbling at us about something or other. I quickly assumed he was coming to kick us off the spot, but then he stopped grumbling, and seeing i was confused, asked in french "should I speak French or Arabic?"

Unfortunately, when I suggested English, it turned out that was not an option. Luckily his french was quite clear, and he basically told us we were playing all wrong. He then proceeded, in a very hands on way, to show me the correct way to throw a boule (the metal ball). Before I knew it he had one hand firmly on my wrist and the other pinching the nape of my neck, and he pulled my arm through the motion of a proper boule toss. I was struggling with keeping a straight face, while R was not even trying to. Nonetheless, it was great to actually get lessons on petanque from an expert. I'm guessing he was an expert because when he went back and sat down by the reserved courts, lots of players would come over and shake his hand and say hello. Anyways, it was pretty comical and the type of random experience that only happens when you stay somewhere for more than a couple days. I feel like our trip has been full of experiences like this (for example being invited for drinks at a real florentine palace) and they're the types of things I wont soon forget. R and N trying to play petanque look like this:




Finally, a few days later I cam across Place de Dauphin, a really charming little park that is close to all the tourist spots, but somehow appears completely undiscovered by tour groups. It was really quaint, quiet, and best of all....full of people our age playing (and often failing at) petanque! Some were even worse than us. So tomorrow we are planning to go there to play petanque with people our own age. Because it's a younger crowd, it is totally normal to show up with some beers and maybe a baguette or two, and make an afternoon of it. Place de Dauphine looks like this:

N and R are troubled by a new trend in tourism...

In our previous years of travel in Europe, we've seen alot of pigeons and alot of tourists. But it was not until this year that we saw the two come together in a very wierd way. Both in Italy and in France we've now seen multiple times tourists feeding pigeons....not in the conventional way, but by hand! Since I consider city pigeons to be alot like rats with wings, I was pretty grossed out by this. Tourists with pigeons look like this in Venice:


And tourists with pigeons in front of Notre Dame in Paris look like this:

Happy May Day!

I'm still not sure what May Day is all about here. It is a national holiday so everything except places of food and drink (which is basically everything excluding museums) are closed. So really that's just leisure as usual. But I do know that the French May Day tradition is to give the lady in your life a bouquet of "lilies of the valley." Had I not known this, I would have figured it out within minutes of leaving the apartment this morning for my coffee, as I passed nearly a dozen people on the street selling them...school children, gypsies, even the fake-tan orange guy who is usually seen on the subway yelling at people to buy his pineapples, all were selling this flower. I bought some for R, and they look like this:

They dont look like much but they smell quite good. Anyways it was the first day of great weather in a while so we, like everyone else in the city, took advantage. We spent the morning in the Luxembourg Gardens playing a french sport called petanque (a post will follow with pictures), then had a small picnic for lunch in the Tulier gardens in front of the Louvre. Both gardens were packed with people, I would guess that not a single parisian stayed in doors today, everyone was out relaxing in the great weather. We walked around some more, had drinks at a cafe, then got falafel for dinner from what is supposed to be the best falafel in Paris (L'As du Falafel). It was messy and garlicky and quite good. We ate them as they are supposed to be eaten, standing in the street with sauce all over your face. While we enjoyed them, I'm partial to our falafel place in philadelphia. Anyways it was a really nice day and I hope the weather stays this way, at least for the next 12 days.

N and R have a Parisian picnic

As soon as i bragged on the blog about how great the weather has been....it started to get rainy. But two days ago, before the rain showed up, the weather was perfect for a picnic, so we headed out to the Tuilier gardens, which are the grounds of the Louvre. Picnicking is at its best here, because so many French specialties make for perfect picnic snacks, like olives, cheese, pates, and breads. All of these things came from my favorite Parisian grocery store, Le Grand Epicerie, which I wish we could afford to shop at regularly, but its too pricey for every day food. So we only go about once a week to pick out some things to treat ourselves with. Even though its so pricey, I could spend hours just walking around the store looking at all the different things they have there.

We had many delicious things. Our olives were from Provence, they were nice and spicey, and looked like this:

We also had a tartine de poireaux (egg and leek tart), chevre rocamadour (a cave aged goat cheese that is smelly but very flavorful), pate de campagne poivre verte (country pate with green peppercorns), Bordier butter (Bordier is a bretone man who makes the most amazing butter i've ever tasted....it is a waste to cook with this stuff, it is best enjoyed just spread liberally on bread), fresh baked cereal grain bread...and pringles and M&Ms.

Tartine poireaux looks like this:

Bordier butter spread liberally on cereal grain bread looks like this (mmmmm):

Chevre fromage on cereal grain bread looks like this:

The pringles were hard to resist, since they have so many strange flavors here like goat cheese and ham. Our pringles looked like this:

Finally, Paris recently outlawed public consumption of alcohol, which had been legal until then. But drinking is a big part of the way of life of parisians, and it turns out that this law was really only passed so that they could crack down on homeless drunks. This means they don't actually enforce the rules if you look like a decent person. A few years back we were picnicking in the lawn of the Eiffel tower, and a police came by to tell me i cannot drink (i had a beer), and when i asked if i should dump it out, the police replied in french that if it were him, he would just drink it quickly. So with our picnic, I had a nice belgian beer, triple karmeliet and R had a diet coke. Our drinks, in their coasters looked like this:

N and R usually enjoy the best bread they've ever had

It's well known that the french are serious about their baguettes, but it's only after spending some time here that you really understand how important this bread is, and why. The why is simple, it is really, really, really good....the outside is a thin crisp layer that crunches and crackles when you press it, and the inside is soft and full of flavor. The baguette is so important here that they insist you should only enjoy a baguette within 6 hours of baking, and after that it is too late. We've been sticking to this pretty well, as in the morning i go down the street to my favorite baker (boulangier) to pick up a baguette for the day. It's about two feet long and costs less than a euro! Breakfast is a piece of baguette with butter or chestnut butter or jam. Lunch is bread and cheese or butter sometimes with a thin slice of ham for flavor, and by dinner it's time to buy another baguette!

At any time of day you can see parisians walking around carrying a loaf or multiple loaves in their hand. The funny thing is that Europe and France are pretty different in their thinking on hygeine compared to the US. Usually when you buy a baguette, they pick one out of the basket and put it on the counter, no paper sleeve, no bag. Then you just pick up the bread and walk off...I've seen people sitting on park benches with their baguette sitting unprotected on the bench next to them, baguettes strapped naked to the back of bicycles, and so on. People also will just walk down the street eating their two foot long baguette for a snack, as if it is a candy bar. I've taken to doing this on the days that i show up and the baker and am handed a baguette that is still hot to the touch.

Anyways, I had a funny experience earlier this week. Sunday was easter, and monday in France is a national holiday, so everything was closed. But even when everything is closed, Parisians (and N and R) still need their baguettes. So i wandered around until I found the only bakery open, and it is one i knew is bad from previous experience, but what choice do i have? So I went in. Something I've not even seen in the US before, the baguettes in this place were all mis-shapen and ugly looking. Everyone in there buying them was really angry! Each person got to the front of the line, saw the baguettes and started complaining about how awful they were, saying they wanted a real baguette. Then they were told that is all they have, and the people would buy the baguette and storm off angrily, complaining under their breath. It was pretty amusing to see how bent out of shape everyone gets when they don't get a good baguette. To be fair, the baguette was pretty disappointing. A mis-shapen easter holiday baguette looks like this:

Happy Easter from N and R

This is a little chocolate cake i picked up from the baker with our baguette for the day. It's supposed to look like a nest with a few eggs and a hatchling in it, but my picture did not come out great. Anyways, happy easter, hope everyone is having a nice day.

How have N and R already been in Paris for a week??!

Time is passing all to quickly as we are now only 3 weeks away from returning to the real world. Our first week in Paris has been great. In seven days we have not yet seen a single cloud.

Our apartment is in the 14th Arrondissement, in a neighborhood known as Montparnasse. It is a nice neighborhood because it is removed from the tourist central part of paris (about half hour walk to either eiffel tower or notre dame). It is a very friendly neighborhood, and is known among Parisians for two things: movie theaters and crepes. The area is mostly populated with people from the part of france where crepes and galettes (savory crepes made with buckwheat flour) come from, Brittany. So we have been eating alot of very delicious galettes and crepes. Tomorrow I will try my hand at cooking some french cuisine, making galettes with vegetables and herbs i bought at the market today. Our apartment is really nice, and looks like this:

One great thing about our apartment is that, technically, we have a view of the Eiffel Tower! Our view looks like this:

And the street we live on looks like this (when there is no market):

or like this (when there is a market):

Some of the things bought from market look like this:

We have not done all that much sight-seeing yet, since we've been to Paris a few times before now. We've mostly just been enjoying the weather sitting outside at cafes for a drink or coffee, and of course there has been much shopping (mostly R) and much eating great Parisian and french food (mostly me.....there are not a great deal of vegetarian options to be had here). More to come...