Monday, May 7, 2012

Paris Day Eleven

Sunday, May 6, was a very interesting day to be in Paris.  The second and final round of the presidential elections concluded.    As many of you may know, the current President with the beautiful, model wife, Nicolas Sarkozy, was bumped out of office by the always on a diet, average guy Francois Hollande.  Hollande will be the first socialist president in France since 1988. 

In the morning, as we went about our planned day, we came across areas that were being prepared for something big.  Roads were being cut off, platforms constructed, etc.  Later in the day, we find out why all this activity was happening on a Sunday morning.  But first our day....

Kim and I headed out mid-morning toward the Bastille.  The yellow line metro took us there. 


We walked past the Bastille looking for an Algerian pastry store highly recommended in my reading.  Le Bague de Kenza was located in the 11th arrondissement and we found it easily.  The Patisserie was everything that was promised.


The description had me at honey, dates, figs, raisins, and nuts.  The owner spoke no french, but pointing and saying une "read the sign", s'il vous plait seemed to worked.  We walked out with the below box of yummies.



We broke all of these in 1/2 and shared them throughout the day.  We have one that didn't get finished until the next day though.  Starting in the top left corner I have no idea what they are called, but brief descriptions would include YUM for each one.  1) Coconut - this was cake like inside, but light and the coconut flavor was perfect.  2) Pistachio - This was a dense pistachio cake with crushed pistachios on top.  Pistachio is a common flavor in France.  3) Dates - This was a cake with dates inside. 4) Sesame - This was so good.  Everything is lightly sweetened, not over the top sweetened and this Sesame roll was obviously honey sweetened.  5) Nuts - This was a cookie like cone with crushed hazelnuts all around.  6) Almonds - This was a  very good tasting almond cookie that the owner suggested and he was right!  6) Baklava - and lastly in the middle was a small piece of dark honey baklava...mmmmmmm.

Next stop, marshmallows.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm going through my list of specialty stores and this was well worth it!  I'm not a big marshmallow person, really it's just all sugar, but I now know that I could get into homemade marshmallows!  Pain de Sucre is in the 3rd arrondissement.  After a short metro ride and a walk, the window told us we were onto something....





Those jars on the top shelf all have homemade marshmallows in them.  We bought a chocolate coconut, mint,and pistachio.  Wow, they melted in our mouths almost instantly and again, weren't too sweet.  I've found something new to try in my kitchen.

After these two stores we headed by foot South, or the direction we perceive as South, to the Latin Quarter.  Over the following hours we wondered.  An hour was spent in the old Shakespeare & Company bookstore.  This bookstore was started in 1951 by George Whitman as an English bookstore in Paris.  People like Sylvia Beach and the other great writers who commonly spent time in Paris, were participants in it's history.


We found the narrowest house in Paris, No. 22 Rue St. Severin.





We found the narrowest street in Paris, Rue du Chat qui Peche.  It's just 6 feet wide.  People would not get out of my way to take the picture!


We found the Sorbonne.  It's been interesting to learn about the Sorbonne, which was started in 1253 as a theology institution and was traditionally very conservative.  The College of France was actually established in 1530 by Francois I to counteract the intolerance of the Sorbonne!


That leads me back to the political activities of the day.  Our day was not over yet, but as we were walking toward the Sorbonne, we started noticing a lot of police and roads blocked off.  There was a large demonstration for one of the candidates down a street we were passing.  On the big screen, we could see the political demonstrations around town and in areas, we'd previously passed that day.




You can see the french flags waving and they were chanting.  The rest of that night we noticed flags on buildings and people that were either defeated or happy on the streets and in the metro.  There were many young people in the demonstrations for both candidates.  We found out at dinner that Hollande had won.  We were on the streets until 11:30 PM and cars were still driving down the streets honking their horns in celebration and police vans were headed in every which direction.


We finally settled into a much needed dinner and chose a comfortable looking pizzeria.  We ordered a small carafe of the house wine, which was perfect and two pizzas.  The wine was nice, there were about 3 total glasses in it for 10 euros.  A nice way to enjoy a glass of wine with a meal.  The pizzas were warm and comforting.



Dessert?  Oui, merci beaucoup!  I fully enjoyed the below Panna Cotta with sweet coffee sauce.  So many commented before I came that Paris was going to be expensive.  It's not really much more expensive, if any, than any big city.  Our bill for the wine, two pizzas, and two full desserts was 40 euros.


Now, we headed to the nearest metro station and the Eiffel Tour.  It was time to see the Eiffel Tour at night.  As we left the metro station, we walked about 3 blocks and all of a sudden we turned a corner and gasped out loud.  The tower was not only lit up, but sparkling.  It really took one's breath away.


We hung around the tower for awhile, even after it stopped sparkling, just to take it in.  Kim will spend her last week or so in an apartment just a couple blocks from the Eiffel Tour - lucky!


It was a metro ride and a longer walk home than planned, since the park was closed and we had to walk all the way around it, but we finally made it home and dropped exhausted into our beds.  They are serious about closing parks around here, they have gates at all entrances!

I would like to add a brief thank you for your willingness to flow as I move back and forth just a little between french and english words.  For example, in France, it is called the Tour Eiffel, they don't use tower as we would in the U.S.

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