LOL - "in a fit of giddiness" - that's my Nikki! :)

I love old French buildings with their lack of right angles. Room 501 at Les Degres is the attic floor room & is like that.

Oh, you were near Le Coupe Chou! That's funny. Pixfield took photos of it &amp; so did I! :) I've been meaning to tell the story of this place for quite some time (in some old thread on this resto). According to Thirza Vallois (<u>Around &amp; About Paris</u> Vols. 1, 2, 3 &amp; <u>Romantic Paris</u>) during le Moyen Age a butcher had a shop here &amp; used to kill people &amp; make them into sausage, hence the name Le Coupe Chou.

Sorry you got yelled at in the jazz place! But your art gallery story sounds nice.

overtly &amp; covertly - hee hee ;)

Nikki, I have a photo of the ad for Chopin at St-Julien-le-Pauvre.

Did you like Cafe de la Mairie?

OK, I got as far as the GTG - glad you had fun as it was my 1st time going to &amp; hosting a big GTG! Will read more later. You're every bit as witty &amp; entertaining as you are in person, Nikki! Can't wait to read the rest. :)

InSicily, I'm fine with the airport thing, that was Alya cringing (and she wasn't even there).

Marsha, As a mid-fifty-something myself, I loved the area, didn't feel out of place at all. And everyone over thirty is Madame, so don't let it bother you.

Beatchick, OMG it's Sweeney Todd! The barber whose girlfriend made his customers into meat pies in London- just saw the wonderful Broadway production last month. And you're telling me that my very building in Paris was used by a butcher to make human sausage. I think I'm happy I didn't know that before staying there.

And I just watched La Femme Nikita. Had I seen it before going to Paris, I might have been less relaxed at dinner there, especially knowing you picked that locale with the movie in mind.

I had a nice omelet at the Cafe de la Mairie, and a citron presse. Sat upstairs overlooking the Place St. Sulpice.

Well, Nikki, I might have an explanation for your waiter's aloofness at Le Petit Prince: this restaurant is one of the oldest gay restaurants in Paris...

Great report. Can't wait to hear the rest of it. One question - which phone card did you buy, I've had good and bad luck with them so if you remember the name of it (and where you got it) I'd appreciate it. Looking forward to the rest of your report. I leave for paris in 13 days!

Art, yes, I had heard that, but I wouldn't call the waiter aloof at all. Very friendly and engaging, actually. Just busy at the one moment. I love the relaxed, casual atmosphere in this place.

Isabel, I still have the phone card in my wallet. It is a carte telephonique universel. There is a logo saying 365, tous les jours avec vous (which is also what the recorded message says when you use it). I bought it at the tabac at Gare de Lyon.

Dinner Wednesday night was at Le Pre Verre at 8, rue Thenard, a couple of blocks from our apartment. This is a great place with creative modern French cooking. I had the menu for 25.50 euros, starting with crab cakes with mango sauce, then suckling pig over cabbage in some kind of milk or cream sauce with wonderful bread for soaking up the sauce. Some kind of dense chocolate torte for dessert. My daughter started with delicious coquilles Saint Jacques (this incurred a 3 euro supplement) and followed it with roast cod with smoked potato puree. There were cookbooks for sale, written by the chef.

Thursday was our last full day in Paris. Still so many things to do, places to eat, neighborhoods to explore. So we picked things from our respective to-do lists and the rest would have to remain undone. One thing on my to-do list was a meal at the caf&eacute; down the street from us, La Methode, which had been recommended to me and which I had somehow overlooked last year while staying mere steps away from it. So we went there and ate outside in the enclosed patio, which had heaters over the door. It seemed warmer when we were standing and deciding whether to eat inside or outside than it did once we sat down. Heat rises, right. But we stayed outside and enjoyed the passing student and professor types while enjoying our lunch. My daughter had nice warm onion soup, a good choice. I had nice cold salad with shrimp and grapefruit, a tasty but less clever selection. I went inside to pay for lunch, mostly to warm up, and it was a nice warm atmosphere in there. Next time.

We took a bus to the Bastille, a neighborhood that has been on my list to explore for some time. Lots of big stores on the rue du Faubourg St. Antoine. I noticed a Habitat store and wanted to go in to replace some glasses I had bought a couple years ago which had broken in my luggage. Yes, I know Crate and Barrel is a whole lot like Habitat and they have plenty of nice glasses there, but I had a sentimental attachment to these. They were glasses I had sought out because they were in our rental apartment three years ago and I really liked them and noticed the Habitat label. Only one survived the plane trip. This time they didn’t have them in the size I wanted, so I bought four in a smaller size, just to remind me of the apartment and the subsequent trips to find them.

I walked past an alley filled with furniture showrooms and decided to take a detour down the street. There was a truck backing in with barely enough room and several guys calling out directions. I squeezed past the truck and took some pictures of the colorful old street, completely lined with furniture shops. A salesman standing by the truck called out to me in both directions, asking if I had found what I was looking for. Well yes, I guess I had.

Nikki, we watched <u>Point of No Return</u> last night &amp; I told the kids, &quot;now this is the restaurant scene where, if it were <u>Nikita</u>, would be the tables we ate at.&quot; ;) I've been meaning to rewatch Nikita for some time! Nikki, Nikita. I see some play on words there. Mmm hmm.

We turned onto rue de Charonne and window shopped. We passed a jewelry store that looked very appealing but it was closed for lunch until 3:00, which was just about what time it was when we got there. We browsed some other stores on the street and came back fifteen minutes later, but the jewelry store was still closed. So my daughter had the excellent idea of going somewhere and sitting with a drink for a while until the store opened. We went into the bar at Les Portes, 15 rue de Charonne. The atmosphere was warm and inviting, so we had soda and hot chocolate and talked for an hour or so until the power went out. Time to leave.

We walked back to the jewelry store, Metal Pointu’s, at 9, rue de Charonne. We both really liked this store and I bought my favorite souvenir of the trip, a fascinating necklace, as well as something for each of my daughters. According to the bag there are other branches of this store at four locations around Paris.

Leaving the jewelry store we wandered and shopped our way down the rue de Lappe, crossed the Boulevard Richard Lenoir and made our way into the Marais. At the Place des Vosges, there were several art galleries along the North side of the square, and we wandered in and out of them. We walked along the rue des Francs Bourgeois, with many little interesting shops, until the shops all closed at 7:00, at which point we took a taxi back to our apartment, carrying our treasures and resting my feet.

Supper that night was an item off my daughter’s to-do list. When we had visited Paris three years ago, she had been impressed with the Chinese food we got from takeout places near our apartment in the Marais. So we found a Chinese restaurant not far from our apartment for our final meal in Paris. This was Mirama, at 17, rue St. Jacques. I had a great noodle soup with roast duck and then a roast pork dish. My daughter had excellent chicken and broccoli.

We walked back to our apartment in the cold. Well, I walked, she ran. We watched the Olympic women’s skating finals and enjoyed for the last time the experience of watching commercial-free, personality-spotlight-free, complete Olympic events. Packed our bags and slept. Took a shuttle to the airport and flew back to Boston.

And we thought it was cold in Paris.

Reflections after being home for a week: The more I go to a place, the more I want to go back. This makes it hard to get to new places, but it makes it easier to get to know the old places better and better. My mother, who has traveled quite a bit, always wanted to go to a place she hadn't seen yet. I like going to new places, and I'll go if I have a reason or even on a whim, but I miss the places I know the best. So the more I go to Paris, the more I want to explore it.

I feel amazingly fortunate that I have had the opportunity to get to know so many places well, and most recently I have been extremely fortunate indeed to be able to indulge my fantasy of making Paris a place I can claim to know well. But I find that the more I know, the more I am aware of what I don't know. The better my understanding of French becomes, the more glaringly obvious are my shortcomings. The more I read about the city, including the amazing depth of knowlege on internet message boards and the vast resources to which they have directed me, the more I realize there is to do, to experience, to know.

So much to know, so little time. And that is my discourse for the day on the human condition.

Maybe you would like to drop into one of Rick's &quot;meetings&quot; at www.metropoleparis.com

Nikki, your &quot;discourse on the human condition&quot; put into words (wonderful words) just how I feel about Paris. Thank you!! As always, I enjoy your reports.

Nikki - I really enjoyed reading about your week in Paris with your daughter. I envy you her interest in artistic things. My daughter is an electrical engineer and a trip with her to Paris would be quite different. I have been able to convince my DH to visit museums with me on our trips there, however.

We also ate at Le Train Bleu and loved the decor. Quite surprising for a train station. By the way, where was this circus you attended? Sounds interesting

Thanks,

Carmenr

Nikki, it sounds like you have a fabulous trip even with your husband having to stay home. I think we took advantage of the same sale on AirFrance that you did-we leave on the 14th for a week in Provence and 4 nights in Paris. I agree that the more you visit Paris the more you want to return. We also feel that way about Provence hence the split trip. Thanks for the wonderful trip report.

kerouac, thanks for directing me to that interesting site.

chloer, I know I am lucky that my daughters share my interests to the extent that they do. Before I had children, I was afraid that when I did, they would become cheerleaders and we would have nothing in common.

But I have gone to Paris with a friend of mine who is an environmental engineer, and we had a great time too. I even offered to go with her on the sewer tour, but she decided she didn't need a working holiday in Paris. She enjoyed the museums and the music as much as I did. In fact, many of the people who play in the community musical groups that occupy my evenings are engineers; there seems to be some connection.

AGM and gomiki, you have much snow down there? Thanks for the nice comments. And I've actually taken advantage of the same May sale two years running. What are the odds it will come around again this May?

Have a great trip AGM. I love the French countryside also, but in the winter the city seems to be a more natural choice for a vacation.

The site that kerouac directed you to, metropoleparis.com has recently been revamped and is still in the process, I believe. When it is fully operating it has great photos (editor is cartoonist,photographer,writer)and lots of info about Paris. They do have a &quot;club meeting&quot; every thursday at the Corona across the street from the Louvre. My husband and I went to a &quot;meeting&quot; back a few years. The &quot;editor&quot; then writes up a meeting report with pictures and posts it on the website. I told my family to watch for me to make sure I had arrived in Paris. Sure enough, there we were. It was an experience for sure.

Nikki, we like Provence at this time of year because they are starting into spring. One year it was in the 70s and sunny all week-we called it 'the hard life tour' since we were sitting in the sunshine at a cafe having wine with lunch. I just took a look at Nice weather and next Thursday the prediction is for 66 degrees. Much better than the 8 inches of snow we have here.

Nikki, lovely report! My sister is going to Paris with her daughter this summer so I will forward the report to her as she is a wondering if she made the right decision - to bring her daughter!

chloer, I forgot to answer your question about the circus. We went to the theater called Cirque d'Hiver, or winter circus, located at 110 rue Amelot in the 11th arrondissement, between Place de la Republique and Place de la Bastille.

www.cirquedhiver.com

opaldog, that sounds like it could be fun. Was the meeting basically a get-together at a cafe? Did people mostly know each other?

Ronda, I highly recommend the mother-daughter trip. I've done it with both daughters now on different occasions. I never wondered for a minute whether it would be the right thing, but they might have had their doubts.

AGM, I may have to broaden my winter horizons. And eight inches! We only got an inch here inland.