Greetings from Paris

So, we have successfully made it to Paris.

We left boston on the 7:50 flight to Paris. Air France was great; the seats had individually controlled entertainment/video units with decent movie options. Of course, we were trying to get acclimated to our impending time zone shift, so we just ate dinner and went to sleep. But it is nice to have decent entertainment options to look forward to for the long, 7 hour ride back.

We both managed to get a about four hours of sleep on the plane. But it still didn't prevent me from having a splitting "red-eye hangover" today. I don't know if that's an actual phrase, but it should be. It's the physical effect of not getting enough sleep on an all-night flight, and having a splitting headache and overall disorientation as a result.

When we got in to Paris, we took the train in to the center of the city. Terri did a fabulous job with her high school (and a little college) French, and managed to navigate us to all the right places and succesfully negotiate all the necessary human transactions. We made it to our hotel by about 11:30. I took a long hot shower, and felt much more human. While Terri did the same, I took a nap, and we both ended up taking a small nap until about 1pm.

I should note for those of you who don't know, I have never been to France before. Terri has been twice: once on a summer field trip when she was in Junior High, and once when she was doing her junior year abroad.

By then, I was pretty desperately hungry, so we got some sandwiches from a nearby shop (it was just an average shop, but it was really the most delicious ham and gruyere sandwich on a baguette I've ever had; I don't know if it was more because I was starving or that the quality of food is just great here. Probably a little of both.) We ate them in front of a little green space in a nearby street with a monument dedicated to some woman who died in 1846.

Refreshed, we walked through the Marais district and did some window shopping. We headed to a shopping district in the middle of town, where we had to go to FNAC to pick up the tickets to the Interpol show tomorrow. (You thought we were going to go a month without seeing Interpol? Ha!) After actually locating FNAC in a mall, which was a mall like any other mall, down to the Claire's Boutique, I needed a little stop at a cafe. Compared to the states, and with the possible exception of Ireland in the mid-90's, every European city I've been in has a much more established institution of the outdoor cafe. But compared to all those cities, Paris's outdoor cafe scene makes them all pale in comparison. Anyway, it was the first coffee I'd had all day. Considering it was about 3 or 4pm, and I had only slept a few hours on a plane the night before, and considering my usual coffee intake, this coffee was like the nectar of the gods.

From there, we walked through the (exterior of the) Louvre, through the Tuillierie(sp?) gardens, up the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe (I know, touristy, but I had to do it). We had a glass of wine in another cafe near there, and then headed back to our general neighborhood for dinner.

We were pretty drained at this point, and we were trying to find a Thai restaurant that Terri had seen when we were still questing for lunch sandwiches. We did not find this place, but ended up at a Mediterranean/Italian place across the street from our hotel. It probably wasn't exactly haute cuisine, but it did the trick.