Monday afternoon Kyle and I decided to cap off our wonderful Easter weekend (French get Monday off for Easter rather than Good Friday) by hanging in the park for a couple hours with our friend Kelly. Pretty much everything about the Champ de Mars is relaxing - staring at the Eiffel Tower, the breeze, dogs playing, everyone lounging around drinking wine. The exception to all this loveliness are the annoying people that come up to you every 30 seconds trying to sell you something or get money out of you somehow. In the short time we've been here, we have already become immune to these people and simply wave them away when they come near us. So, when a group of kids came up to us trying to pull one of their scams, we told them to kick rocks and ignored them, always keeping an eye on our bags. About 30-45 seconds passed when I realized my phone was gone. We immediately got up to find them, but they had completely disappeared.
There are several things about this incident that make us angry...
* We are trying REALLY hard to ignore any negative feelings we have about our move and our new city. It's hard to ignore things like this though.
* No one does anything about all the people that are out to get you here. There is no sense of community - people see you're being robbed and they turn a blind eye. As long as it's not happening to them, they don't care. "That's France" is the response we get. Well, it doesn't have to be that way, people!
* These are CHILDREN! I'm talking eight or nine years old. This is what their parents are sending them out to do all day?!
* It's put a bad taste in our mouths about our neighborhood park :(
* We already spent 600 euro to buy two new phones when we got here (about $890). Now, since we are already in a contract we will have to pay full price if we want a new iPhone, which is 699 euro for one (that's about $1035 for ONE PHONE!). Meanwhile, these kids are making maybe 20 euro on it. What winners.
The main thing though, is that it just emphasizes the thing that we have been trying to pretend isn't a problem... there is a real lack of friendliness here. I'm trying to put it as delicately as possible, because I certainly don't want to generalize an entire city. However, I can speak from my experiences thus far, and those experiences have taught me that these people are no Texans!
WELL, that is enough venting for now! Let's move on to the things Kyle and I do to ignore the negatives and enjoy the wonderful things about Paris!
Easter Weekend
We met Julie on Friday night for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, O Chateau. This is the place I took Kyle the day before his birthday, with the chef from Top Chef France. Julie shares our love of wonderful food, which is fabulous. We love Julie :)
Dinner was amazing. All we could say the entire meal was "Oh my gosh, it's so good. It's just so good". There were no truer words to describe it. The chef creates a different tasting menu each day that consists of several bites of pure deliciousness. See for yourself...
Curried Shrimp, Bruschetta, Duck Breast with Pistachio and Mushroom Cream Sauce, Tomato-Basil Sorbet with Prosciutto, Fois Gras Ravioli, Savory Pastry Thingy, Chicken with Eggplant Puree, Salami, Fantastic Cheese. WOW
And for dessert, an assortment of sorbets with Madeleines.
Picture time at O Chateau!
Saturday was pretty low key. We had to travel across town to get some fans for our apartment (no A/C = yikes!) then walk back home with them. For dinner we decided on old faithful, Cafe Constant. Then, ended the night at O'Briens, the local Irish pub where Kelly works.
The weather was gorgeous on Easter, so we made a full outdoorsy day of it.
Waiting for the Metro, on our way to the 11th arrondissement.
We had lunch at a great little Cuban tapas place. You know, traditional Easter food ha!
I guess Kyle thought I needed a picture with the Plat du Jour sign...
Then we went for a stroll around the neighborhood. We hadn't spent much time in the 11th before, it's really cool!
This is Place des Vosges. It's a fun area with lots of art galleries, a park, live music. It's where the home of Victor Hugo is, the author of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
This little buddy was enjoying the live music so much, he didn't want to leave.
Really, he wouldn't get up!
Next, we walked to Bastille.
Then moseyed our way through a garden...
and along the Seine...
to visit Notre Dame.
Check out all those people waiting to get in!
Once again, we wrapped up the day at the park.
These were taken at 9:45 pm - isn't the light crazy?
(Oh, for those we haven't told, our flights are booked for our June visit for the Dupuy wedding! We arrive on Saturday, June 18th.)
xo
Maygan
