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Laura comes to Gay Paris
This week, Iris's good friend Laura was in town, which meant it was time to explore, and time to party. On Monday, Laura I strolled around town finding her old haunts so she could relive her previous trip to Paris. She showed me the upside-down pyramid in the Louvre (that's the one at the end of The Da Vinci Code – and Nat just found a used copy of the book so we can find the other sites around town) which I could never seem to find, although I'm not sure how I missed the entire underground mall - a mall that houses the food court where author David Sedaris says he takes all his guests for lunch. I was excited, and placed myself in many tourists' photos. Smile!
We also stumbled upon a red carpet affair in what I believe was the national archives library. The crew was just setting up, and our curiosity was piqued so we strolled into the sprawling courtyard and Laura rolls right up to these strangers and basically says (in French): "Hey how are you guys? What's going on here?" The combination of politeness meets semi-trespassing was too much to handle and eventually after learning about the event (and Laura inquiring about tickets), we were quickly shuffled out of there.
"What's going on here?"
Iris and Nat joined us for family dinner night where we downed several Amsterdam Navigator beers - 8.4% - that Iris brought along. (As an aside, I discovered a couple of days later that Amsterdam makes an even more potent concoction called the Maximator which clocks in at 11.6%). When the beer was gone, we left the warm apartment and headed to a bar, of course. After emerging from the metro station we realized we actually had no idea where the bar was but Laura needed to break the seal and quickly "navigated" herself toward a nearby church. This cracked us up to no end. She then approached everyone in sight with her now slurred French to get directions or to just tell the crepe-stand man, a perfect stranger, how much she loved him.
Ready to hit the town.
We finally got to the Princess and the Frog and were happily enjoying our pitcher of Ginger Twist homebrew when the group of French boys behind us decided to flirt with the girls in a manner reminiscent of kindergarten. Spit balls torn from coasters soared over the tables until Laura ended the dispute with a perfectly aimed toss directly into their pitcher. Then we all made friends, some more friendly than others, and we chatted (or later they all danced on the tables) during the rest of our stay.
What intrigued me about this adventure was that despite the fact that everyone was quite drunk the French guys were still so quick to correct our grammar and pronunciation. And this is something that everyone in Paris does; perhaps it's a patriotic duty. It's not good enough to attempt to speak their language, you have to be reminded at every corner that you still don't get it. And although it is at most times helpful for me to have these impromptu lessons, it really is quite hypocritical; you know the very moment an Anglophone tried to fix their English tenses (unsolicited of course), the whole country would pack up the language in a heart beat and we'd all be screwed.
Light up the town
Wednesday evening I met Nat on the Champs Elysee to watch the lighting of the Christmas lights. We were rather vague on the details so there was a lot of time spent wondering what was happening. On the way there I stopped at Place Concorde and saw a beautiful white ferris wheel (only 9E a ride, get real!) which is probably there for the season. Later on the Champs I could see that the wheel was placed exactly in line with the rest of the monuments on the Historical Axis. The French are so anal, I love it.
Only 9E. A steal!
Hieroglyphics and amusement rides.
Such precision.
After touring the Christmas Market (quite similar to Vienna in terms of offering) we stood on an island in the middle of the street waiting for something to happen. Hey, other people were already there, so in true mob mentality fashion, we just figured they knew something that we didn't. Really I don't think anybody had a clue but we got to watch several motorcycles drive on the wrong side of the street so they could get ahead of a few cars. We finally left and found the tiny media event where Marion Cotillard (whom we couldn't see) pressed a button an in complete anti-climax, the whole block light up in that cool LED glow. It was pretty beautiful, especially the animating lights meant to look like dripping icicles but which Myra later called bird droppings.
Ooooooh.
Metal sculptures that frost over. Was pretty cool.
Other related items:
Friday we found lights set up on Rue Mouffetard.
Floating chandelier.
Regardez! It's plaster of Paris, in Paris!
Les petites bourgeoisies qui boient du champagne
DISCLAIMER: Photos of mostly-naked men.
So on an ordinary Wednesday night, Nat let herself be transported back to the age of 21 by a trip to Disco Queen on the Champs Elysees, led by none other than the champion party girl herself: Iris! Nat and her MBA friend Peggy (who's from California) met up with Iris, Laura and their friends for Ladies' Night! This included free cover, a free drink at the door, free champagne (at designated times – and signaled by fire torches), great music and male entertainment. We danced up a storm with the girls and partied like it was 1999 – literally. It’s FUN hanging out with 21-year-olds, especially ones with no inhibitions.
At Champagne time, the bartenders would throw plastic cups into the crowd and then pour bottles of champagne into them – sometimes in a rather Freudian manner, or sometimes even straight into the girls’ mouths (or hair! There were a few wet cat situations). The "entertainment" was hilarious too, with muscle-headed, steroid-infested guys up on mini-stages shaking their thing in a wildly provocative manner while surreptitiously handing their clothing items to a nerdy "helper" guy on the ground who collected them. So much for spontaneity! The show didn’t go "all the way" though and so the guys were able to leave the stage with their dignity intact.
A few shows, many glasses of champagne, one trip to the unisex bathroom and hours of great music later, Iris called Game Over at 3:30am because she had a class the next day (how responsible!) and so Peggy and I tottered home in a cab talking about how we should do this EVERY week and we NEED to go shopping for clubbing clothes… let me tell you the next day, I didn’t FEEL 21. Yes, that is actually the difference between 27 and 21: it’s not the ability to have fun, but the ability to recover from a hangover!
La nouveau est arrive
On Thursday a handful of us went out to dinner along the Seine and when we got there Myra informed us that today was the release of the new Beaujolais wine. Apparently the French all go out to celebrate and
But Myra brought up a good point during dinner: what makes offal more disgusting than the flesh that we "normally" eat; why is it "weird?" I didn't have a good answer except to say that the idea of eating tongue, for example, just freaks me out and I could only picture the sandwiches that Bart and Lisa were forced to eat on the Simpsons during their stay at their aunts' house. Nat was more pragmatic suggesting that liver and kidneys are cleansing organs, so by eating those you're basically eating all the crappiest stuff in the animal. Maybe it's really just that offal is generally referred to by its true name (and how can brains sound delicious?) whereas something called a tenderloin just makes my mouth water.
There were no photos from dinner so here's a shot of the Xmas tree in Galleries Lafayette.
So it's all about lunch
On Saturday afternoon we met a very hung-over Iris and Laura for lunch at Le Pre Verre; a restaurant which Iris (and us) tried to go for dinner on her first night in town and a place which we have tried and failed twice more to get reservations for dinner. However Iris managed to snag a lunch spot for the 4 of us so again if it weren't for her, I'm sure we'd have forgotten entirely about this conquest.
Not only does the Pre Verre serve fantastic food - a different menu each day - but the lunch special is an unbelievable value: entrée, plate, glass of wine, and coffee all for 13.50E. People you can't beat this! It took 3 months but we finally learned how to go out for lunch at nice restaurants and enjoy them on a more affordable level. I was tasked with drinking most of the wine since the young ladies were out of commission and the lovely squash soup with cumin sent Laura rushing the men's washroom. I'm really painting a bad picture of Laura's bodily functions in this post but if it weren't for her and Iris, we probably wouldn't have had as much fun this week.
Hooray for lunch.
It probably didn't look this good on the way up.
Touring Amelie
Sunday I dragged Nat out into the cold rain to tour the sites from Amelie, another adventure that has been in the works for, oh, 3 months I suppose. We saw a handful of places and then ended the tour in the Cafe Des 2 Moulins, the coffee shop where Amelie worked. The restaurant looks almost the same as it does in the movie except the tabac counter is missing, the phone booth closet is now a broom closet, and some booths seems to have shifted around, but the vibe is still there. It was crammed with tourists taking photos I enjoyed my crème brulee in homage to Amelie who originally introduced me the dessert.
Our pre-tour brunch.
The Metro station where Amelie drops off the blind man after taking him for a walk.
The opening shot of the movie is on this alley.
The grocery now sporting a "Maison Collignon" sign obviously capitalizing on movie fame.
The sex shop where Nino works.
Deux Moulins Cafe.
All the other ponies were taking photos too.
Fame = overpriced food.
Hot sex scene in there.
The tabac would be there next to the bar.
Also I found many new Space Invaders this week so be sure to check out the gallery. I'm well on my way to the goal of 100.
Week 13 photos on Flickr
