Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Member of the Communist Party

June 17th, 2011 | Uncategorized

June 12 ‐ Paris

Today we slept in. It was marvelous.

Zelda and I really like the apartment we are staying in. It has a kitchen fully stocked not only with every kind of dish I could possibly think of, but also with non-perishable goods! I made us lunch – couscous. And I know that a lot of people cook, like, every day. But I was really proud of myself for the cooking actually good food – and it was actually good.

Ingredients: couscous, cherry jam, garlic, tarragon, honey, rock salt and nutmeg
It was good. No really, it was actually good. The honey and the garlic and the jam and the tarragon were a good combination. Zelda got seconds after she knew what I put in it.

We walked over to the Sainte Chapelle. The Sainte Chapelle was your standard old church, and there was a pretty long line and it didn’t seem all *that* impressive, so we decided to skip it for that day. They do have concerts there regularly, so we’re hoping we can catch one before we leave.

On our way to the Notre Dame we stopped at an ice cream stand called Berthillion. Now, if you yelp “Paris, France” with no specifications for what you’re looking for, the top rated thing to do in all of Paris is not the Louvre. It is this ice cream stand.

I love hazelnut gelato, but I don’t know how to say hazelnut in French. But the menu had something called “noisette,” which sounded like a kind of nut… so I went for it! And it was delicious. Zelda got caramel, which also looked good. We are definitely going back to this stand.

After we devoured our ice cream, we headed on to the cathedral of gargoyles. The Notre Dame was pretty darned cool.

We only walked around the outside, but the architecture was beautiful. Zelda tells me they will take you into the basement to see all the beautiful gargoyles up close, which I definitely want to do some time.

Zelda decided that she wanted to jump at every major monument while we are in Paris.

We also were concerned before that we lost the tourist … well, we found them!

Aaaaand we saw someone feeding the pigeons — directly next to the ‘do not feed the pigeons’ sign.

However, we didn’t stick around too long at the Notre Dame today, because we had a concert to catch.

The Sainte Eustache Cathedral, it turns out, is the church where Mozart held the funeral for his mother. And they have one of the largest organs in the world! And they hold free afternoon organ concerts on a regular basis.

I can see why organs are the church instrument. The range is amazing, and the notes echoing off the high vaulted ceilings made the notes seem to vibrate all around you at once.

As it turns out, they have free afternoon organ concerts on Sundays because they have them right before mass.

We also wandered around a bit. As it turns out, Sainte Eustache Cathedral is not your normal church. It is secretly a museum.

I was very impressed by the fact that the entire cathedral was painted on the inside in all sorts of beautiful colors.

After that, we wandered the gardens outside the cathedral, where one man heard us speaking English, and was very excited to practice his English with us, and then tried to convert us to communism. And then we left the gardens. (Although we walked past a really neat looking sculpture themed on light refraction).

Zelda and I had been talking about getting steak frites at a French cafe for about 3 days straight. I really wanted to get this because it sounded delicious, and Zelda really wanted to vicariously order this famous French dish since she doesn’t eat meat.

So, with the use of trusty yelp, we went off in search of steak fritte. (The place we found was on a street called Rue Monseur le Prince! Is that the best street name you’ve ever heard or what?)

Except that I didn’t get steak fritte…

In a surprising turn of events, I got duck fritte (because, how can I turn that down?). It, like all the French food we’ve eaten, was delicious.