SoJo & Co.

Saturday morning, we located a nearby bakery that we frequented the rest of our mornings on the trip. I have to confess that I had terribly unhealthy breakfasts while in Paris, but they were incredibly delicious! Each morning I had a slice of quiche Lorraine and either a pastry with dark chocolate chunks or a chocolate eclair. And yes…one day, I had all three. Oops.

We then went across the street from out hotel to the mall. Uhhh, it was disappointing. It was desolate and the clothes were either really expensive or really ugly or both. They had a GAP, which I was excited about, but the Paris GAP must carry different clothes than in the States, because I cannot imagine the general American demographic wearing most of the clothes they had in their women’s section. The trip to the mall wasn’t all bad, though. We found a cool little market in one corner of the mall, which had European Dr. Pepper! John had told me that it tastes different than American DP, but I wanted to try it for myself, so we got a can. We also bought some delicious looking strawberries. Unfortunately, they molded within a day. Gross!

After our leisurely morning around our hotel (which was near the Arc de Triomphe for those of you familiar with Paris), we took the metro toward the Louvre area for – get this – a wine tasting! It was basically a beginner’s wine class, and John and I really enjoyed ourselves. The “teacher,” Sebastian, was entertaining and informative, and then wines we tried (accompanied by a variety of cheeses and breads) were all delicious. That 2-hour wine tasting was enough to turn both of us into French wine snobs. Seriously. I now have the urge to check the color, legs, bouquet, texture, etc. of wine. I also don’t like calling them “legs” anymore. The French word translates to “tear,” which I much prefer. It’s a much better description of what they look like. Oh…and in France, it’s socially acceptable to make this kind of “gurgly” sound with your wine the first time you take a sip. It helps get in all the flavor since most of your flavor-sensors (I can’t think of another word for them) come from smell. John and I both like doing this weird thing with our first sip, and I have a feeling we’ll get a few looks for it over here as well as back home in the States (someday).

Overall, the wine tasting was a great experience, and I highly recommend it if you’re ever in Paris. The one we went to was very small and intimate. There were only 4 other couples and one single man there.

Following the wine tasting, we stopped off in the biggest Sephora ever before we meandered toward the Seine and found a cafe to grab a small lunch. When we were finished, we walked across a bridge and enjoyed the viewed before heading back toward the cafe (we decided we wanted to walk around the Louvre area). On our way there, we found our anniversary gift to one another.

See, we couldn’t figure out what to get since money is kind of tight and the traditional first anniversary gift is paper. We agreed that we would just try to find something in Paris that we could buy together as a keepsake. Well, on our walk to the Louvre, we found it! There were several little vendors set up along the Seine and several of them had small art prints depicting different Parisian landmarks. It suddenly dawned on me that these prints were on paper, and we should get a paper gift! We ended up getting 3 prints, which only cost 5 Euro! I can’t wait to get them framed and hung up in our living room. They will be a great reminder of our first anniversary in Paris.

Moving on…we walked through the Louvre area and the Jardin des Tuileries, where we stopped to see children pushing boats around a fountain area with sticks. One of the children fell in. We missed it, but I think it would have been pretty funny (she was ok). My sister and her husband stopped in Paris on their honeymoon and did this boat thing, and she’s wanted us to stop there since the last time we went to Paris, so we did this for her.

Next we tried to go to the Musee d’Orsay, which houses artwork by Monet, Degas, Renoir and Cezanne. Unfortunately, the line was dreadfully long, and we didn’t have that much time left in the day. Instead, we decided to go to Montparnasse and get a good aerial view of the city. It was a great alternative to the Eiffel Tower, which we toured during our visit in December 2007. Of course you have to go up in the Eiffel Tower if you’ve never been before, but I also recommend Montparnasse. There were NO lines (as opposed to the 4 hour line in the rain and cold at the Eiffel Tower) and it was inexpensive. Additionally, the elevator took something like 37 seconds. In the Eiffel Tower, you have to take a couple different elevators and they take awhile. However, in the Eiffel Tower elevators, you do get a good view of the city, where as the Montparnasse elevator is just a normal elevator.

We went back to our hotel to get ready for dinner after we finished our tour of the top of Montparnasse. We had reservations at our favorite Parisian restaurant – Le Procope. (Isn’t it weird that we have a favorite restaurant in Paris?) Le Procope has been in business since 1686! We were lucky enough to be seated upstairs near the small balcony. They were wonderful seats! We ordered the same thing we got last time – coq au vin. We also got a wonderful glass of red wine – I believe it was from Medoc (love wine from this AOC!).

As you can probably tell, by the time dinner was over, we had had a very long day and were ready to go back to the hotel to get some sleep.

I will post the photos from this day of traveling later this evening. I don’t have access to them right now, so come back later today for another dose of SoJo Blog.

- Sarah