My Perfect Paris

Laduree is my favorite place for both lunch and tea. I was introduced to this Paris icon by Mary Walker Phillips back in the 80s and it has not changed at all over the years. Our first full day in Paris entailed a long stroll ending up here for tea and a patisserie. RXC had a chocolate and raspberry tart while I had a raspberry/rose water macaroon filled with fresh raspberries, lychees, and creme and topped with a perfect rose petal with a couple of glistening drops of water. It was the perfect and most sublime patisserie I have eaten.

Nous sommes arrives a Paris

Our trip up to Paris went without a hitch. We took the 11:50 train from Ste. Foy and were installed in the apartment that will be home for the next 3 weeks by 4:30. The cats did really well, even Calypso. The vet has given us some mal de transport meds for her which worked ok. On the trip back we will up the dosage a bit.

The apartment is well located only 2 minutes from the Eiffel Tower and 2 minutes from a huge street market. It's size is about the same as the boat so living in a small space is not new to any of us. We look out on to an enormous courtyard. There are 2 very well placed windows where a cat can perch and watch Parisian life: birds, dogs, etc.

The weather had been good so we have walked a lot: 6.2 miles on Sunday and 13.3 miles on Monday. Sunday we did an architectural tour of the art nouveau in our quartier, Monday a trip to the marina at Arsenal. More about that in a later post.

We found a favorite cafe the first time out where each morning we have our coffee and croissant and we are heading now!

Burns Supper

On Friday evening we celebrated the 251st birthday of poet Robert Burns with our Scottish/Manx friends. It is traditional to celebrate with a dinner of lentil soup, haggis, potatoes, and rutabaga sometime around the date of his birth. Whiskey is drunk during the haggis course. The meal starts with the Selkirk blessing and a Burns poem or 2 is recited during the evening. The haggis was smuggled into France from Scotland the day before, the whiskey somehow the perfect accompaniment to it. We have learned that the Scots go all out in their celebration of New Year and that the place to be is in a Scottish castle with dancing on New Year's eve. Maybe next year...............

Galette des rois et Le Roi

The French celebrate the Epiphany with a "galette des rois" which is a puff pastry cake filled with an almond paste. Hidden inside is a "feve" a little token and whoever finds it in their portion of cake is crowned king. This cake is in the patisseries from the end of December through much of January. In the US we eat our version of king's cake at mardi gras.

Quilt Group Celebrates the New Year

To celebrate the New Year, the quilt group has a day-long meeting with lunch and a gift exchange. Each member typically makes a small patchwork gift to bring to this meeting. It needs to be wrapped. You put your name in a hat, set your gift on a table, and after lunch the names are pulled and you are given one of the gifts. I made this fabric basket with asian inspired fabric from Robin, on the exterior was vintage fabric that was my mother's, decorative tassels, and an art deco button in the center. I liked it a lot and now I need to make one for myself!

The Birthday Trip

Since we were leaving for the US only 3 days after the Amsterdam-Detroit attempted bombing, we feared we would have a difficult time getting to Pittsburgh. But the trip was not bad, there was little extra security, especially in Paris, so we only had to contend with an extra-long flight due to a ferocious head wind and major turburlance. All flights however were packed. As you can see here, Birthday Mom had a good time. We froze in Pittsburgh where it also snowed most days and after a week, we were on our way to sunny Florida. Yahoo!

But Florida was in the midst of the longest and coldest freeze in decades. There was sunshine at least. We visited with more family and friends, ate great seafood, did a bit of shopping (how can you not but necessaries at West Marine) and went to a movie. The absolute high point of the trip was seeing Avatar at an Imax theater. It was incredible. We are looking forward to seeing Alice in Wonderland which we hope will be shown at the Imax at Paris Disney. Definately worth the trip.

The trip back was more of a hassel. Lines were very long at Miami. Security had been tightened up by then. On the plus side the flight was shortened by an hour due to a tail wind and there was less turburlance.

Back in France, we had escaped a serious (3-4 inch) snowfall which was still on the ground when we arrived. You can see an image of Petillant at the marina under a white blanket at www.port-medoc.com and look at the images of Ponton D. Petillant is the second boat you see on the right.

The cats had missed us and have not strayed from our sides. Now we are getting back to routine before we go off to Paris on Saturday.