Paris

January 12th-17th, 2017

By Heather Horgen

paris is always a good idea

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, we were on the couch watching TV, and Van said "there's a sale on airfare to Paris." The week before, he started following a friend-of-a-friend on Twitter and just read her tweet about it. I casually looked up flights. Wow, it was a good deal. But only until March. We're going to Vietnam in March. It's winter in Paris. What if we go? Should we go? Just for a long weekend? France has been on my list ever since high school French. We've never been to Paris. We've never been to Europe.

With no idea about where to stay or what we would do, I booked our flights for 45 days later. We're going to Paris!

Our Airbnb was a fourth floor apartment in the Marais neighborhood (actually the 5th floor - the French don't count the ground level). We began to understand how the French eat so well yet don't get fat.

I've been carrying around the French language in my brain for over a decade, so this was finally my opportunity to speak to real, live French people. And I tried speaking French to everyone. Sometimes I could understand most of what someone said, but other times I couldn't catch one word. Although most conversations ended in English, I tried my best and most people were very nice. I loved it.

sit back and relax

We learned the important things fast, like how to sit in cafes and drink coffee - and enjoy ourselves. We watched Parisians meeting friends, taking their children to school, walking their dogs. We noticed how well dressed the French are, and how every single Parisian wore (a very large) scarf. And it's true, everyone really does walk around with a baguette sticking out of their bag.

baguette tradition

The food, oh my god, the food. Every single thing we ate in Paris was delicious. I walked down the street to the boulangerie and bought baguettes and croissants and Orangina. We ate sandwich jambon beurre (ham and butter sandwiches) for lunch. We ate unpasteurized cheese, steak, ratatouille, french onion soup, saucisson (sausage). And macarons, the delicate and sophisticated French confection - I'm a Ladurée believer.

midnight in paris

We had to see Pont des Arts, the bridge where Big told Carrie "you're the one," and which is how Van proposed to me. If that doesn't mean anything to you, it's also a gorgeous view of the city! Pont des Arts is near the Latin Quarter, so we walked over to have dinner. Even though the temperature barely hovered above freezing, the cafe patios were always packed. Although, we figured it was mostly people who wanted to smoke. One night we enjoyed an after-dinner cocktail and charcuterie board (we couldn't stop eating all the food!) outside.

does this gold make me look rich?

Walking through the chateau corridors we imagined what life was like for Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI - the shadowy rooms, tall ceilings, huge paintings. Everything king size. The scale of the grounds and the detail of the palace was impressive. The amount of gold was stunning. Words come to mind like ostentatious, massive, excessive.

I'm glad we visited Versailles in the low season. These photos look like we're the only ones there, but we did wait in line to get in, and unfortunately there were busloads of selfie-taking Chinese tourists. The smaller rooms in the chateau were packed, and it was more annoying that the Chinese were more interested in selfies and taking video on their iPad than actually enjoying the history and significance of the chateau. Sacré bleu!

paris is a magical place...

... where you can drink a bottle of wine and not get drunk. At home, I'll have one glass of wine and be toast. In Paris, it's weird if you only order a glass of wine - you get the whole the bottle. So we did, and we didn't get drunk and didn't get hungover. We like Paris.

I've never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant and really wanted to try one in Paris, where it all began. I got a lunch reservation at Les Fables de la Fontaine, a modern and unpretentious restaurant in the 7th arrondissement near the Eiffel Tower. The dining room was small and cozy but light, and everything was perfect.

Smoked oysters with hay in seawater jelly | Crispy egg yolk with raw haddock and leek vinaigrette

Roast sea bass in zucchini and squid sauce with vegetable pastry | Braised beef cheeks with bok choy

Banana soufflé with coconut center and chocolate ice cream

Visiting the Rodin museum was one of the highlights. Seeing his work in person was inspiring, and even more intriguing was learning about his life - his tumultuous relationship with his mistress Camille while maintaining his relationship to long time partner Rose, who he married the year before they both died. Camille was also a sculptor (she was Rodin's student) but as a woman wasn't able to publish works without Rodin's help, although some speculate he took more credit from her than he should have. She ended up being committed to a mental institution by her family who didn't approve of her relationship with Rodin. Tragic story.

à bientôt

Audrey Hepburn was right - Paris IS always a good idea. Especially when you have an amazing man who shares your spirit for travel. And who's patient when you can't figure out which metro ticket to buy, walks through the mud with you just because you have to see the Eiffel Tower full frontal, and convinces you to get the whole bottle of wine or buy those macarons - which always turns out to be the right choice.