Paris Snow 03-04 Janvier 2010

03 Janvier (Dimanche) - Today was another "meet-up" day. We met Rhino75 at Les Marrioners. We rode the bus over to the Hôtel de Ville stop and walked up to the bar/restaurant. I checked my watch and noticed it was already past the time we had agreed to meet. I called Rhino to let him know we were on our way and just a couple blocks from the place. He evidently was waiting for us to call and tell him we were there before he left his apartment. The place was packed. We barely found two seats. There was an empty table next to us, but when I tried to pull it over, the people sitting on the other side told us they were expecting another to join them, and since they had been there first, we conceded it to them. Rhino showed up a few minutes later, and a few minutes after that, a table opened in the corner by the door, so we sat there. Rhino was good enough to let us have the "inside" seats. They weren't too bad and we were fairly comfortable. We chatted for a couple of hours and he was on his way to wherever. Since it was dark, we headed down to l'Hôtel de Ville so I could get the videos I wanted. Sadly, they didn't turn out any better than the ones I had already taken. Luckily, I had thought to bring my camcorder and I used that, so they should be okay, but I can't download them until I get home. If you want to see the sucky videos, you can look at these: Hôtel de Ville, Skaters, BHV.

Tonight, instead of walking all the way over to Pont Neuf, we grabbed the 76 bus at the Hôtel de Ville stop and rode it to the end of the line. When the driver told us the line was "terminé", we told him we wanted to go to the Birague stop and he very graciously let us stay on. I love the bus drivers in Paris.

Dinner was, of course, at Fontaine Sully. They make a dish they call "Tartiflette Maison", which is, in my humble opinion, cassoulet made with potatoes. It is super delicious.

04 Janvier (Lundi) - I decided I wanted to buy the leather jacket after all, so we bundled up and went out to catch the bus over to rue des Archives. Lordy, it was cold...below freezing. We got off at the Hôtel de Ville stop (everything seems to be right there, doesn't it?) and walked up to the jacket store. It was closed, but the sign on their door stated that they open at 14h00 on Lundi. We walked back to the Open Café and nursed a cup of coffee for forty-five minutes. There was an interesting looking guy seated next to us who kept texting someone, or, at least, constantly checking his phone for messages. A few minutes later, a very cute guy joined him. We learned through listening to their conversation that the cute guy was Italian and was in Paris to complete his studies in pursuit of a PhD. The other guy was an American. The witching hour (14h00) finally arrived and we walked back to Roganel, the jacket store. It was still closed. I remarked to Robb that it was so typically French for them to be closed at the time they were supposed to be open. In better weather I would have waited for them to open, but it was just too cold to do that today, so we took off to get the bus back to the apartment.

Once inside, I swore I was never going out again until the weather warmed up. Of course, that was when we discovered we needed milk.

À la prochaine, mes amis

Paris 2008 - 20 Mai

20 Mai - The day started by going to the marché where we bought way too much stuff that we had to carry back to the apartment. By the way, that group of things in the picture foreground are the Velib stations and the place where you pay. You can see there are only a couple of bikes left in this rack.

After lunch, we caught the bus to l'Hôtel de Ville, from where we walked to rue des Archives. On rue des Archives, there is a very gay-friendly bar/restaurant called Les Marronniers at which we were to meet yet another blogger. A Brit this time who writes under the name of Rhino75. The meeting was scheduled to take place at 18h30 but because we weren't sure of the time on the bus, we got there about a half hour early. This was not a bad thing because we got to take a brief tour of the Marais.

A couple of doors from the bar/resto is what used to be a church. In the courtyard an artist, Ostoya, was having his show. Aside from being interesting in their own right, most of the pieces had moving parts so that you could rearrange them or, like me, just play with them. 1, 2, 3, 4 Number four was my favorite. There were two or three more like it, of varying sizes.

Then we went to the bar, got a couple seats inside and waited for Rhino. He arrived shortly after 18h30, having walked from his apartment not that far away. I think it was an instant mutual attraction. We got along famously, as we have with everyone we've met over here. We chatted for about three hours until Rhino needed to leave to eat the dinner he had already prepared. Robb and I decided to have dinner in Les Marronniers. We both had the l'entrecôte grillée with potatoes and salad.

Unfortunately, it became time for us to return to the apartment. I knew from the last time that we couldn't get the bus on rue de Rivoli, so we walked down to the quai. We had to walk past l'Hôtel de Ville, and I got these shots of the back side and some detail. We also happened past Saint-Gervais. We looked in both directions, but saw no bus stop. We were confronted with the possibility of walking down to Pont Neuf or walking the other way, the direction in which the bus would travel. We chose that. It's too bad the universe doesn't utilize one of those annoying buzzers that buzz when you make an incorrect choice like on the quiz shows on TV. So, we walked and walked and walked and walked. We finally found the correct bus stop and waited. And waited. And waited. We noticed that the time thingy wasn't listing the 69, but we've seen that before and it just meant the thing wasn't working correctly, so we kept waiting. There's that buzzer again. We watched several 76 busses go by and finally one stopped and I told Robb to ask the driver if it went to Voltaire, meaning Place Léon Blum, of course. The driver said the bus would go to Voltaire, but the one of which he was speaking is not the one we wanted. When I realized it was not going where we wanted to go, we got off the bus. Unfortunately, I had no idea where in Paris we were. Or even if we were still in Paris. We started walking back to who knows where, when we luckily came upon a taxi stand. We hopped into one and were off. It turned out we were only a few blocks from the apartment and the taxi ride was relatively cheap.

Plus à venir, mes amis.