We woke up at 12pm. I think we figured out why we are still jetlagged after being here for so long. The sun doesn’t set until 9:30pm which throws our schedule way off. Everyone eats dinner around 8:30pm or 9pm, and drinks until midnight. We’re going to try a new strategy and go to sleep with the window shades open so that the sun can wake us up at a reasonable hour.
It’s really hard to do anything in France when you have a late start. Basically lunch is from 12pm-2pm; dinner is from 7pm-11:30pm. Certain places open at 9am (it seems only bakeries are open before then) and every store closes at 7pm (even though it doesn’t get dark until much later). Given our schedule, we eat around 1:30pm, and finally head out around 3pm which leaves a few hours to actually see anything that is open. I guess we’re spoiled in the US when businesses stay open all the time once they say they’re open.
For lunch, we headed to Café Imogéne which is just around the corner from our hotel. We almost didn’t go here b/c we tried the other creperie yesterday and thought it was so-so. We came to a conclusion that we didn’t like “savory” crepes (I don’t know if that’s a British term or not), but it turns out that maybe we do like them. Duke ordered the daily special, recommended by the chef, and it had the best tomato/bell pepper mixture with chicken pot pie-like sauce and chicken inside. The restaurant was a super cozy little place with a small kitchen right next to the tables. It felt like eating in this old man’s cottage.
My meal was the Andouille sausage. The chef actually gave me an “A to Z French Cooking in English dictionary” to make sure I wanted what I ordered. The definition said that it was intestine, and Duke and I both thought that was normal. Aren’t hot dogs just meat stuffed in intestine tubing? Isn’t Andouille just a type of sausage? Oh no, when it says intestine, it means intestine, just chopped up. It smelled like butt, was grey, and it tasted exactly like intestine. Luckily, the crepe was really fresh and good, and Duke’s was overwhelmingly good that I can’t judge the place on my crepe alone since it was my fault anyway for ordering it.
For the dessert crepe, I chose chocolate, and Duke had a caramel crepe with vanilla ice cream. My chocolate crepe was delicious, and Duke enjoyed his as well. The ice cream was real French vanilla and very yellow in appearance.
Overall, the place was charming, the waiter and chef were very friendly, and the food was great. We will probably be back again in the next couple days before we go. I will order the daily special.
So, our tummies were filled, and we had a long walk around the neighborhood, and headed to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We stopped in a couple paper stores and bookstores. We picked up a portfolio book for Duke’s dad which he’s going to fill with brochures (his dad likes that sort of thing), and picked up a small dragon puzzle for Dylan. I bought a French character coin purse for myself, and Duke bought a few “Mister” books in French. Mr. Bump is M. Malchance; Little Miss Bossy is Mme. Autoritaire; and Little Miss Helpful is Mme. Catastrophe. Pretty funny.
Anyhow, I had no idea what Pere Lachaise was, but it was one of Duke’s places that he wanted to see. I’m glad we went. It is this amazingly large place with old crypts, mausoleums, tombs, etc. It felt very historic with all the grave monuments.
We went to go see Jim Morrison’s grave, which seemed to be the main attraction with a number of other tourists there, and it had various items littered in the grave (cigarettes, a joint, flowers, etc). There was also a nearby tree where people inscribed messages to him.
We then walked around a ton of crypts, trying to find the burial places of some other notable names but we didn’t have a map so just wandered around. We saw a crematorium with a bunch of drawers where people kept their loved ones’ ashes, and finally stumbled upon Edith Piaf’s grave. Duke has her song as his ringtone after becoming obsessed with the movie Inception, so it was a nice pitstop.
We didn’t make it in time to go see Frederic Chopin or Georges Seurat’s graves since they started booting people out at around 5:20pm. Apparently the cemetery closes at 6pm.
On our walk back to the hotel, we saw a lot of Chinese garment district type stores but nothing else too exciting.
We came back to the hotel for a rest stop then headed out for dinner at Deux Fois Plus de Piment, a Szechwan Chinese restaurant. We ordered Mapo Tofu and some chicken dish in black bean sauce covered in peanuts. We didn’t know that obviously, so I just ate it. The food was actually really good and authentic.
Everyone in the place spoke Mandarin, and the menu is only in Chinese and French so that made ordering very difficult. I tried my best at speaking to them in Mandarin but not with much luck. I basically was able to let them know that we couldn’t read Chinese or French b/c we were American. The waitress quickly scurried to grab another waitress who could speak some English for us, but that still didn’t work out too well given our peanuts in the dish. They did keep saying “No ABC” very happily, and I have no idea what that means.
After dinner, we walked to Place de Bastille which is the memorial marker of the former prison. Apparently the storming of the Bastille wasn’t to free prisoners but rather to collect arms and gunpowder that were stored there.
We walked around some more back towards the hotel, and ended up in what seems to be the main area of Marais where there are tons of little shops. The area is like Soho meets East Village. We’re going to head back there tomorrow to explore when things are open. This is the same place as the Restaurant of Robert & Louise.
We took a stop at a public toilet which we had never used. It’s actually quite sophisticated, as it self-cleans itself for a few minutes after each person, has an automatic side-sweeping door, and an automatic soap dispenser/water dispenser/air dryer.
We then went down a street fairly filled with people, and meandered over there to have a falafel. There are a number of falafel places throughout Paris – maybe there is a large Turkish and Lebanese population? This restaurant seemed pretty authentic with some Jewish people sitting at tables nearby, and the falafels were very tasty. Duke had never had a falafel before, and thought he didn’t like them, but it turns out that he does.
Tomorrow will be a shopping day and more wandering with no real destination. Hopefully we wake up in time!
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