NYC ::: Paris Trip part 2

My first day back at work yesterday, and at noon I found out I had to board a 7am flight for two days in NYC. I'm still quite jet lagged from Paris - but I'm on the plane now, and just trying to make it the most fun I can. The good news was that I got to fly Virgin, so Kathy and Hoda are entertaining me at the moment.

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Day 2 - Saturday

Saturday morning we work up to really cold and wet weather. Joel went out for a run in the morning, which meant that I got to sleep in, open the french windows and just enjoy waking up in Paris. 

Our apartment was only 10 minutes from the Luxembourg Gardens, so we grabbed some croissants from Eric Kayser (Ina Garten's favorite) and took our breakfast to enjoy.

So, when Joel told me he was going to bring jogging shoes, I laughed and told him he was going to get laughed off the streets. When I was in Italy, people would literally stare and take pictures when I went out for a jog. Well, that's not the case in France. Seriously everyone and their brother was running in the gardens and the fact that I was not dressed in workout clothes made me look like the odd man out. 

This first full day in Paris we clocked in almost 30,000 steps (11 miles) and pretty much walked everywhere. After the gardens, we went for a look-see at the Louvre. 

Joel and I aren't museum people, but I did want to at least see the beautiful building, check out the glass pyramid and walk the gardens. 

It's a beautiful property but it's crowded and there are a lot of vendors trying to push crap on you, which sort of keeps you on edge.  But - it was my first view of the beautiful Eiffel tower, so it was well worth our little jaunt over to visit. 

From the Lourve, we took the Metro - which was VERY easy to understand, buy tickets, and navigate up to Rue de Martyrs. 

Rue de Maryrs is a less visited area and basically consists of one long old market street. The street is bustling, and full of little fromageries (cheese shops) , boulangeries (bakeries) , and boucheries (butchers). We both agreed that this was one of our most favorite little adventures of Paris.

By the time we were hungry, tired, and it started to rain - so we acted fast and popped into a little wine store that served cheese and charcuterie plates.The restaurant was open, so as we listened to the rain, snacked on yummy goodies, we played cards and ended up sitting in that restaurant for almost 3 hours.

 

It was Parisian perfection....and the first of many times we asked ourselves why we aren't living like this at home?

We took the Metro back to St Germain - about a 15 minute ride, to freshen up and get ready for our night.

Since we had been all around during the day, we decided to stay close to home for our dinner. There was the cutest little oyster shop that was basically just an oyster stand with a few seats, oysters, and champagne. 

We ended up having a dozen oysters, a few glasses of champagne and sancerre white wine, and fell in love with the owner Pasquale. 

 

After the oysters and all of the bread and cheese we had at our late lunch, we weren't hungry for much of a dinner.  We took our cards (seriously, best thing we ever brought on the trip!), stopped at an outside cafe, had a few beers, some french onion soup, and some escargot, and just tried to linger.

 

Linger was my phrase of the trip. I never wanted to rush home, or move on to the next activity, I just wanted us to linger. To go slow. To soak it all in, and to linger.