#Paris

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Leaving Nice for Paris

We sadly made sure all our stuff was packed and ready to go for our 6:30 am taxi ride to the airport to go back to Paris for day 4 there.

I had thoroughly loved Nice. My go fund me campaign suggestion wasn’t getting any traction at all so we grudgingly shut the apartment down and went downstairs to wait for our cab. Maybe my love of Nice came from it being a mini vacation on my vacation. Or, more likely, I just really enjoyed it there.

Our flight was delayed over half an hour after we were all in the jetway waiting to board. We all lined up a 2nd time (So much for Speedy Boarding). While we were all waiting, a couple of police officers came up to the front of the queue, huddled with the ticket agent and scanned the crowd. The line barely started moving when we again stopped and the police were leaving with 2 men from the front of the line. They didn’t seem happy to go but they weren’t in handcuffs. As the line moved, 2 women got out of line and walked in the same direction the men had gone. Maybe we’ll have an empty seat beside us. (No)

Well, we are on the plane this time so maybe we’ll be on our way soon.

And sure enough, we were soon moving.

I think it’s a hotel. It’s really big whatever it is.

It’s so easy to just use my cell phone that I kept it out for the flight and never did take my camera out.

Soon we were off the ground and turning over the sea to clear the area.

I miss it already

By now we were heading north and I could see mountains. All I saw was clouds on the way down so it was a much more interesting flight going back.

One thing I couldn’t help but notice was the lack of alpine lakes. Living in Canada spoils you to the amount of water we have. Most of the water I saw was reservoirs and not actual lakes. It seemed really weird to me.

The mountains gave way to flatter ground.

Soon, Paris came into view and as we made a turn to line up with the runway, I caught site of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

As we were taxing to the gate, many people got up to get their luggage ready to disembark. (Even with the fasten seatbelt sign still being on.) We stopped and the announcement was made to exit through the front door. But no one was moving and time was ticking by. Suddenly it got light behind us (we were 5 rows from the back) and people were going out the back door. So, Lynda and I followed the small crowd. After crossing the tarmac and climbing the stairs, we were with the people who got out the front door.

It was a nice easy exit from the airport with no bags to wait for and soon we were in a taxi to Lucille and Curtis’ place.

The had taken their cats to the vet so it was a quiet, empty apartment when we got back.

They were back soon enough and we headed out for lunch and ended up at Le Circus.

I tried a Spritz. While not terrible, all I taste in it is the wine so not really my thing.

I tired their burger. Not used to being ask how I would like it cooked though. Even asking for it well done, it was pretty raw in the middle. It tasted good but was really different than I’m used to.

We walked to a local fruit and vegetable market. My wife got in trouble for touching the avocados (The sign on them started “Ne touche pas …” The lady there asks you when you plan to use it and she’ll give you on with the proper ripeness. In Lynda’s defense, we aren’t used to such large avocados and she was pretty excited to try one. (It was good, for an avocado.)

We headed back to the apartment for the afternoon until supper time came around.

We were going to try the new hot pot place – The X Pot – that opened at 6:45 pm. We walked over and arrived around 7:00 pm. We hadn’t booked a reservation so they had no available space for us.

It’s not like you can’t find food in Paris so we walked over to Italie 2 mall and tried Hippopotamus Modern Steakhouse.

I had a glass of champagne and a glass of Coke (No, I didn’t mix them together).

We ordered chicken nachos and a chicken skewer. Lucille was ordering in French and we all heard her ask for poulet and she pointed at the photo on the menu. The waitress asked how she’d like it cooked and with a questioning tone, Lucille said, “Pour poulet?” The waitress answered, “Oui.” So we all said, “Well done.”

And when the food came, it was boeuf, not poulet. Weird tasting chicken they have here in France. It was good, but not what we ordered. Lynda and Curtis got their drinks for free and we got a couple of apologies from the waitress and hostess.

At least it wasn’t something none of us liked.

Stopped in the grocery store at the mall on the way home and I have never seen a grocery store with ceiling so low. Usually there is a whole lot of room over the shelves but I felt a bit claustrophobic in there.

So apparently I didn’t take any photos in Paris today.

I got 14k steps in though

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Paris, 2022, Day 3

Woke up at 5 am and didn’t get back to sleep. Laid around in bed waiting for Curtis and Lucille to go to work/school so not to be in their way.

After breakfast we threw a load of laundry into the washer/dryer combo. I didn’t set it properly so it wasn’t drying.

We were going to venture out on our own but it kept raining on and off so it was already after noon when we got out the door all by ourselves.

We walked through the tail end of a sidewalk market. (Might have to look for them next week.)

We checked out a few Pâtisseries and Boulangeries as Lynda was looking for pastries and I was looking for real food. We settled on Entre Potes Cafe. We had the Plat du Jour which today was a salmon quiche with a side salad and a bit of baguette. It was really good.

I’m trying stuff outside my comfort zone while on holidays. I’ve had weird meat, cranberry juice and seafood (I do actually like salmon though).

We walked up the street some more and wandered through a small park. I liked the look of the building in behind it.

We walked back the way we came so Lynda could stop for pastries. (They were really good.)

We headed back to the apartment to wait till it was time to go out and get supper.

Lucille and Curtis were getting their hot water heater replaced so we were all waiting around for the new one to arrive. Even though someone had come and measured what they had, the crew showed up (3 hours later than scheduled) with one a foot too tall to fit the space. So, down to the truck for a smaller one. Of course, it’s smaller than what was there so new piping needs to be installed. By now it’s well past time to go out and get supper so we ordered tacos in on delivery. They were huge. We finished eating before the hot water tank was installed. Still didn’t have 10k in steps so we went to the store for some Ginger Ale. That was only about 400 steps there and back so still not there.

Not many photos today obviously. Hopefully I’ll get my steps yet tonight and maybe I’ll get more photos tomorrow.

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Paris 2022, Day 2

Woke up at 5 am. Fell back asleep at 6 am. Woke up again at 9:30 am and promptly fell back asleep until 11:00 am. Now my back was sore so I had to get up.

Lynda and I got showers and breakfast out of the way before Lucille got back from school. She says French classes are going slowly but she’s still got a whole lot more of a vocabulary than I do.

We headed out for a light lunch while we waited for Curtis to get off work.

We walked a few blocks to Le Bobillot Cafe.

We sat in the shade and ordered a meat and cheese charcuterie. I wanted coffee but it was pretty late for that so I went with a double décaféiné, Lynda ordered a glass of champagne and Lucille had vin chaud. The waitress confirmed she wanted hot mulled wine in the heat. (She did)

We sat and watched the people while looking.

Église Sainte-Anne de la Butte aux Cailles

We walked up towards a mall while we were waiting for Curtis to catch up to us. We ended up waiting at Place d’Italie across from the Town hall of the 13th arrondissement of Paris.

The important looking building that we have no idea what it is

We crossed the street(s) to Café Jules.

Lucille and Curtis ordered Crepes for supper with a Porn Star to drink while I shared a crispy chicken cesar salad with Lynda and I had Sexual Healing for a drink.

It was a pretty good meal and the drink had a bite.

We stopped at the grocery store for some ice cream for dessert to save some money and the vanilla bean Lynda picked was very good.

We again got our 10k steps in.

We visited for a while and were up well after Lucille and Curtis went to bed. It was after 11:00 pm before we got to bed. (Lynda was half asleep by the time I was a little bit tired.)

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To Paris, France

But first, a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

When I booked our trip way back in November of last year, I booked a direct Calgary, Alberta to Paris, France flight with WestJet on their 787 Dreamliner.

In May of this year, WestJet cancelled our outbound flight and offered us a short 2 hour stopover in Halifax if we flew on the 737 Max-8. We would be leaving Calgary earlier in the day and arriving in Paris before lunch time instead of mid afternoon like originally planned. As much as I wanted to avoid flying on a 737 these days, I really didn’t want to fly another day and I figured Halifax would be a lot easier to navigate than if we had to land in Toronto so I agreed to the change.

It was a full flight out of Calgary under blueish skies on Saturday, September 10th at 1:20 pm. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air so even at altitude, the sky wasn’t it’s usual shades of blue.

Somewhere east of Calgary
Steerage Class

It was dark when we got to Halifax at 9:00 pm local time and were glad to survive the really hard landing we had. With only a 2 hour layover I didn’t try to get any photos of anything.

11:00 pm had us back in the air winging east towards the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Europe.

We tried, and failed to get any real sleep on the flight. Between the air traffic and fog, we were almost an hour later than our scheduled 10 am local time arrival on Sunday, September 11th.

Getting through Customs and getting our luggage took over an hour ( I think the 3 mile walk to get there took the longest) and the cab ride to my sister’s place was over half and hour so we “arrived” around 1:00 pm.

My sister, Lucille and her husband, Curtis were waiting with bated breath, not so much to see us, but to be able to go have lunch.

We jumped right into it by walking over to the #21 bus and heading towards Notre Dame.

We had lunch at Galway Pub; an Irish Pub near the right bank of the Seine. The waiter we had, Matt, had an Irish accent, but is actually French American. It’s a weird combo but he was a nice guy.

After lunch we trekked along the river and crossed over to see Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Well, what we could see of it as it’s still closed since the fire in 2019.

Notre Dame rebuild progress.
View opposite Notre Dame.
Notre Dame rebuild progress side view from across the river.

We meandered along the river taking in the sites.

Wow, a bike lane in the city. Who would of thought it was possible?

A small musical group was finishing up their set as we walked by.

We made our way over to Hôtel de Ville. It’s a whole lot bigger and nicer City Hall than what I’m used to seeing in little ole Red Deer.

It was too big to fit in 1 photograph.
The Bubble Man was quite a popular guy.

We started heading towards the subway to got back to the Moffat’s apartment.

Apparently the Saint Jacques Gothic tower is the last remnants of a big church that got demolished during the French Revolution.

I took a few photos of the building along the way. (Surprising, I know. Or, as the locals would say; “Quelle surprise.”)

I liked the orange
Cool little Pharmacy in an old looking building
A lot of the graffiti is on the rolling shutters so not to get erased

We were back at the apartment for a few hours before heading out for supper at an Italian restaurant; Le San Giovanni. I didn’t take a photo of my spaghetti bolognaise but I can tell you it was a whole lot better than the spaghetti I ordered on my first night in Beijing back in 2015.

I did get a photo of my drink though.

Ange Bleu

It was only a short walk to and from the restaurant but Lynda and I managed to get our 10k steps in. (Unlike our flying day)

We crashed hard for the night around 10:00 pm and sleep came quickly.