Paris: Food

Perhaps my favourite part of Paris was the food we enjoyed there. I already mentioned our gourmet food experience - at Laduree, just around the corner from Fauchon, we purchased this delicious praline:


I was continually impressed by the pastry selection. Edinburgh does not do pastries well. The British tend toward pies and other savoury items, which I suppose have their time and place, but when in France, there are a variety of delicious sweets on offer. Needless to say, we enjoyed a variety of croissants and pains au chocolat.

During one of our dinners, I indulged in the escargot, which I did not consider particularly interesting, other than their somewhat earthy taste. Kellie refused to sample this cuisine. I can't say I blame her.

On the advice of Kellie's friend Monica, we sought out falafels at L'as du Fallafel, which is apparently the best falafel place in Paris. It was not easy to find, and involved multiple subway transfers in order to get to the La Marais area of town. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that we had already checked out of our hotel and had to lug our luggage around the busy Metro system. Nevertheless, we found the place and were well rewarded.


Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the baguettes. Oh, the lovely baguettes! Everyone in France, it seems, must have on their person a baguette at any given time. This is not a stereotype, mind you, but a fact. Indeed, Kellie and I enjoyed many baguettes in France, as we decided to have a number of picnic lunches of baguettes and cheese. A good move on our part, to be sure. Truly, this is the perfect lunch; the French really are on to something.

Paris: An Overview

Our recent trip to Paris and Reims was our first major foray into continental Europe. A couple of months back, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to travel and when we wanted to go, when I suggested that we head down to Paris for our first anniversary. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and in fact, it was. The trip began with something of an inauspicious start. Our flight out of Edinburgh was delayed, so we did not arrive in Paris until about 10:30pm, after which we still had to take the commuter train into town, transfer to a subway, and find our hotel near the Saint Lazare area. The short version of this part of the story is that we got very, very lost. I generally have a good sense of direction, but apparently all my instincts are wrong in France, and so after wandering around the streets of Paris with our luggage for nearly an hour, we finally arrived at our little hotel room at close to 1:00am.

Day one in Paris was mostly occupied by the obligatory sightseeing. We walked from our hotel down to the far end of Champs Elysees at the Arc du Triomphe and decided to walk from there to the Louvre, stopping to see the sights along the way. For breakfast, I successfully ordered a muffin (in French) at a Starbucks. The funny thing, in most of my attempts at French interaction, was that I would always have planned in advance what I was going to say (e.g., Je voudrais une croissant), and would do my best to speak clearly and use proper French pronunciation, but almost invariably the shopkeeper or waiter would nevertheless respond to me in English. Oh well.

We had walked down most of Champs Elysees and made it to the Invalides area when we first caught sight of the most Parisian of all sights, the Eiffel Tower itself.

After all the obligatory Eiffel Tower photos, we proceeded on to the Tuileries, where we had a small picnic in the garden. After that, it was off to the Louvre for some culture and then back to the garden to enjoy some wine and relax.

Enjoying this particular wine was actually something of a challenge. In the UK, we have become accustomed to screw top wine bottles. Naturally, the wine in France was much more sophisticated, and thus we found ourselves with wine, but no cork screw. Although this problem was quickly remedied, upon opening the wine we discovered that our plastic cups, taken from our hotel room, had been somewhat crushed during our day of walking. Thus, we were able to enjoy a relaxing, if rather wet and messy, bottle of wine in the park.


The rest of our time in Paris was slightly less intense than our first day, which frankly left us exhausted from the miles of walking. We took one morning to go gourmet food shopping at Hediard and Fauchon, which was a truly delicious experience. In the afternoon, we walked up to the hill of Montmarte, which overlooks the city, and saw the Basilisque du Sacre Coeur,

and then walked just down the street to the Salvador Dali museum. Dali, it turns out, was a very, very odd fellow, and it was fascinating to learn more about him and his crazy mustache.

Cramond, in video form

And now, a video of Cramond...

Cramond

I meant to post this some time ago, but here are a few pictures from one of our trips to Cramond, a town just north of Edinburgh.  There's a lovely little seaside village and an island that you can walk out to when the tide is low.  A very relaxing place to spend the afternoon...

when the tide is low. A very relaxing place to spend the afternoon...

Oh no, the Haar!

Yesterday was perhaps the nicest day I've seen since living in Scotland.  The sun was out, it was warm enough for shorts, there was no wind, and few clouds.  Today, however, the haar rolled in.  Haar, in the Scots language, refers to a cold sea mist that rolls in off the North Sea.  It was a striking constrast to yesterday's sun, as this morning we could scarcely see down our own street.  Oh, the haar.  The horror of the haar!  Here's hoping that it will not be a haary weekend.

(Mostly it's just a funny word to say.  It's not actually that dramatic.)

Spiders

We were watching the news last night when Kellie suddenly gave a little yelp and jumped back.  An enormous spider, probably the biggest non-daddy long legs, non-tarantula spider I have ever seen, was crawling across our kitchen.  This was not the first spider we had encountered, but it was by far the largest, and like a good and dutiful husband, I dispatched the creature with haste.  Naturally, this incident led to a hasty and parnoid search of the flat for more spiders, which fortunately proved fruitless.  Nevertheless, neither Kellie nor I wanted another spider encounter, especially not one of this magnitude, so I emailed the flat manager to request pest control.  Under the circumstances, this seemed to me a reasonable request: spiders are indeed a pest, and there is no reason why I should expect to have them crawling about.  Plus, we don't know which species are poisonous and which ones aren't.

The response I received, denying my request, is perhaps the most unintentionally funny email to ever grace my inbox:

From: XXXXXX
Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 9:54 AM
Subject: RE: Pests
To: Brian Dees

Dear Brian

Unfortunately we do not consider spiders to be a pest nor something that
Pest Control would deal with. Spiders are common throughout all properties
and as they do not present any risk or danger to everyday life they are
something that we all deal with in our own individual way.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Regards

I am going to spend the rest of the day in quiet meditation, trying to discern my own individual way of dealing with spiders.  Peace.

Dunsapie Loch

Dunsapie Loch, originally uploaded by bcdees47.

We took a walk this afternoon around Holyrood Park, on the high road the winds up around Arthur's Seat. At the top, as you round a corner, you come to Dunsapie Loch, just a small pond with some ducks and swans. But what it cool is that, because you are so high up, when you stand at the far end of the pond and look out, it looks as if the pond drops off into the sea. It is a gorgeous view. Enjoy.