Quarante à Paris - Part Deux

Paris for my birthday weekend, thanks to a lovely husband who excels at 'The Grand Romantic Gesture.'

Aren't they both terribly handsome? 

What I like about Paris is, you can be walking around and think to yourself, "I know I've been in Notre Dame before, but I really can't remember what it looks like."

And then you can just pop in for like five minutes, remind yourself of its Gothic glory, take a few artsy shots...

...and then manipulate those shots on your iPhone while sitting in dappled sunlight at a nearby cafe drinking a lovely coffee.  And when the waiter asks a question in French and the only words you catch are "password" and "WEEFEE" - say yes. Better yet, say oui.  Because in Paris, Wi-Fi is pronounced WEEFEE.  Which is another reason I love Paris.  WEEFEE is much more fun to say than Wi-Fi.  Right?  Say if with me a few times ... WEEFEE ... WEEFEE ...WEEFEE!!

So you sip and manipulate and WEEFEE while also watching Parisian life stroll by in this little square.  And these guys are sitting in front of you in their slim suits, smoking endless cigarettes and knocking back espressos, speaking rapid and unintelligible French, just looking and sounding incredibly GALLIC which charms you to no end because you are a bit of a Francophile.  They couldn't be more French if they were wearing berets, eating garlicky snails and marching around with baguettes under their arms.  There is nothing extraordinary about them, but they are woven into the fabric of this tableau that you are enjoying with your cafe au lait, and you love them for that.

And you know the Seine is just a few blocks away, spanned by an amazing array of bridges, one of which you recently crossed because you were wandering inside Notre Dame a short while ago.  Bridges running the gamut from gilded over-the-top grandeur to simply functional, and each one captures your imagination for a different reason.  As does almost everything else in Paris. Don't you just love a river running through the middle of a city?

And Paris excels at making the Seine personable and approachable - which is another thing to love about her.

But I guess you get the point.  I love Paris and will never stop finding reasons to do so, nor do I want to.  Maybe I should tell you a little bit more about our trip?
 

Let's start with our bff's for the weekend, Matt & Elodie.  Maybe you remember them from Bangladesh? Anyway, they drove up from Lyons to help us celebrate.  Wasn't that sweet?  And aren't they adorable?

Chris and I tried to match their adorableness - but I'm not sure we made it.  They set the bar pretty high, these kids.  We started at Le Fumoir, a restaurant near the Louvre, for drinks and nibbles.

We met friends, we strolled, we saw cool doors.

We enjoyed the Paris vibe in Passage Molière, a charming, quiet little alley somewhere between the 1st and 3rd arrondissements.  Home to The House of Poetry, a few shops and a marvelous place to sit, 

enjoy wine, 

take more artsy photos, 

enjoy more wine, 

gorge nibble on meats and stinky cheeses 

and make fun of Matt's choice of footwear. 

There was also dancing at a West African bar, an Irish pub, some metro rides, a torturous late night taxi search as well as a fruitless quest for still more food. But to be honest both the photos and my memories get a little blurry after the footwear so that's the image I'll leave you with. A long day, a late night, new friends, a lot of fun and we still have two more full days to enjoy in Paris. So stay tuned, we still have dead rock stars to meet.

-k.