Day 6, by Stephanie
Our apartment in Paris is located close to Vendôme, the center of high-end fashion and exquisite boutiques. Karen & I were the first to be ready, so we ran across the street to @Noir coffee shop to get a petit flat white with delicious scones and muffins. We started our day’s journey to get a picture of Karen with the Tour d’Effiel to honor her recently deceased friend, @TravelWithKim and see famous sites such as the construction of Notre Dame and a Museum. I found myself walking behind Kasey as she wandered like a drunken tourist, her head on a swivel, through the city of her heart. She looked so happy.
It’s surprising how closely located the world famous buildings and places of history are together. The Louvre, Versailles, museums, Parliament. It felt surreal to stand at Place De La Concorde, where an Onlisque stands to honor the location where many famous people (Marie Antoinette, King George???) were killed. We look down Champs D’Lysee and see Arc d’Triumph. Princess Diana was also killed close to that area. We decided to discover Paris on the other side of the river, the “Left Bank”.
We stopped to enjoy the artwork of a local street vendor and make some exciting purchases, only to be disappointed that we must pay cash. This led to our next adventure, finding an ATM! But first, lunch. We trailed off away from the common tourist area and found Cafe ?!! Where we were quickly seated in a Parisian designed back room and ordered Processco. We were hankering for green salad, but most “salads” don’t have lettuce in them! Kasey ended up getting an appetizer of smoked salmon with toast and I got a side salad. We mixed half of the other plate and each got a salmon salad. Perfect! I love the balsamic dressing and ravaged the butter (bread is a carrier)! Karen ordered the traditional Ceasar and Kelly’s salad included an enormous amount of bacon and mushrooms… it was hard for her to find her salad greens!
After lunch, we were back on the streets to accomplish our goal of finding cash Euros. It’s strange how few are available. We felt like we were in a comedy show – the four of us Americans trying to figure out how to get into the vestibule and use the machine. We could see the bankers peering at us, not sure if we were up to something nefarious or just plain clueless and goofy!
With Euros in hand, we decided to split up. Karen and I did some tourist shopping and Kelly and Kasey treated themselves to the Musee d’Monet. Of course both groups stopped for a traditional cafe and treat. I have a tradition with my family to always get a picture when I’m in France of me chomping onto a true Parisian Eclair, and the @Cafe Concorde had a fantastic praline one for me to get that shot!!
Our dinner was a lot farther away than we had anticipated, but the Uber driver took us swiftly through jammed pack traffic to arrive ontime @SorzaInParis. We tried the soufflé and French Onion Soup. Both were fine, but again we acknowledged how Kelly’s cooking is so much more outstanding and flavorful! I was trying to speak French and was embarrassed to order raspberry panecotta dessert as, “Une panacetta et quarta forks”. The problem is, I said “one ham” , vs Panecotta and used the Spanish word for the number four! We laughed our heads off and started to expand our dinner conversation to the couple sitting next to us, Ed and Patricia. They live on both coasts of the US and come to Paris a number of times a year. Patricia and Kelly really hit it off and we started planning our next journey… possibly to visit Patricia’s sister-in-law, @Nora in Oaxaca?
Who knows, perhaps another Foodie adventure awaits…
