Since I am hopeless at French (Jenna says I “butcher the language”), I wanted to keep Jenna close at hand. We got a decently-priced hotel room to call homebase in the 9th Arrondissement (district). Once we had settled in, we thought it would fun to stroll around the Latin Quarter and find some dinner. We went over the famous Pont Neuf bridge and saw Notre Dame in the middle distance.
It was a beautiful Saturday night in Paris. The weather (for the whole weekend, but especially this night) was gorgeous, and there were throngs of people walking in the Latin Quarter, stepping into a brasserie for dinner or admiring the fishmongers’ oyster shucking skills. Jenna and I combined these two popular activities by sitting down at L’Atlas brasserie right next to said fishmonger. There was a menu chock-full of delicious French food looking me in the face. Before Jenna and I could coordinate my tongue to not sound dumb (meaning most likely staying still whilst Jenna ordered for me), the waiter apparated next to us to exact our orders. We ordered the prix fixe, which amazingly is NOT called a prix fixe in France. That confused the hell out of me. I ordered hot chevre on toast, a sausage (tube and cured meats are my weakness), and chocolate mousse(!).
Jenna's French onion soup
When my sausage came, I cut it open and started chewing. It was tasty, but to my surprise, it was filled with various offal (I suspect cow stomach and tripe were in there). Now, let me tell you, I like my variety meats a lot, I just wasn’t expecting it to be in the sausage. I can’t read French, and I was rushed into ordering. No complaints here, though. There were no complaints all the way through the mousse, which was rich and smooth. Jenna enjoyed a very respectable order of steak frites and yummy apple tart.
It was dark by the time I made the inaugural use of my Laser Card from Bank of Ireland, so we thought the romantic thing to do was walk hand in hand along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. So we did, even though it was a lot farther than we thought it was. It like climbing to the top of an MC Esher staircase. We made it soon enough and saw the orange-ish glow radiate from the monstrous proto-steampunk monument. THEN we saw it start twinkling with white lights. On the hour, just like church bells, the Eiffel Tower lights up like a Christmas tree. I remember hearing that the Tower was not really that spectacular, but they must have been lying. It was huge, metal, and sweet. It is right up near the top of my favourite monument list. Right next to the Rabbit Thinker at Wash U (note the tongue in my cheek).
My camera battery was being bratty, so I don’t have any pictures, so I am stealing them from Jenna’s blog for the rest of this episode.
There was an iceball’s chance in hell of us walking up the tower at this point, so we bought a ticket for the elevator. That elevator was a strange contraption. It was almost like a hybrid of Disney World ride and enclosed ski-lift. We got up as far as we could (the top was closed on that particular day) and looked at a nearly-endless sprawl of city. All the sights worth sighting were there – Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, Saqrue Coeur, La Defense, the Imperial City, and many more. After coming back down from the mammoth metal monument, Jenna and I laid on the lawns next to the Tower and relaxed before embarking on a trip to the find the nearest Metro station. We got to the hotel and I was a pooped puppy. End the scene entitled “Alex’s Awesome First Day in Paris.”
No comments:
Post a Comment