Kelly à Paris!: Boy, Cats, Normandy and Cheese

So this post I am a little more excited to write because it will be detailing my adventure of a week with some guy I picked up on the street. Just kidding—I’m taking about Casey, however his frequent falling asleep on the metro did make him seem a little bit like a homeless dude, but that’s a story for later.

Anyways, Casey and I had been planning his visit to Paris for quite some time. So when only a week remained before he was to land at CDG—you could say that the anticipation for his visit was at an all-time high. After what seemed like ions…eons?...March 15^th finally came and I was off bright and early to go pick up the Ohioan from the airport.

The commute was especially easy because all public transportation within Paris was free for a couple of days in an attempt to reduce the city’s pollution—which was also at an all-time high. Smog aside, I am never going to complain about a free RER B train ticket, so smog away!

As I paced in the arrivals section of the airport, I looked up to see a guy in a bright purple windbreaker equipped with two camping backpacks—Casey had made it to Paris.

Because we were unable to check into our apartment until 4 that afternoon, we headed back to my homestay apartment to drop off his bags. As we entered my homestay, we were greeted by Chantal in a nightie. The situation became even funnier for me as Casey can’t speak French…and Chantal can’t speak English. So I introduce them to one another to which Chantal asks me if he speaks French (in French) to which I say nope and then she continued talking about him while he stood there nodding his head and smiling. “It is a shame that you will not be practicing your French with your friend, it is also funny because I can say whatever I want and he doesn’t know what I am saying. Your friend seems very pretty, don’t let him walk the streets alone.” *cue Casey head-nod and smile*

After I translated (most of it) when Madame left the room, we were off for our first Parisian adventure, woot woot. The first day we walked from Saint Sulpice to Luxembourg Gardens and then St. Michel area. After deciding that the line was too long to head into Notre Dame (the fourth time I have done this) we headed over to the **~lock bridge~**. After writing our initials with my very poor penmanship, we locked the hunk of metal on the bridge et voilà—it will now rest there for eternity. Juuust kidding, the locks get cut off once a year to make room for more locks (something that the Parisians have been trying to keep from tourists this whole time, the nerve!)

Later that evening we grabbed a bottle of 2 euro vino and headed towards the Seine to participate in the world famous ‘bateaux mouche’ tours which shows you all of the top sites of Paris from a big ol’ boat in the river.

The next day we were up an early because my itinerary said we had to (sorry Casey). With the smog subsiding, (a little bit, but not enough to pay for metro), we decided it would be the perfect day to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. With our croissants and espressos in hand, we were off.

This was my first time going up the tower so I was very excited, but also really confused on where on earth the line started and ended in the mass swarm of tourists. After getting elbowed in the stomach by a Korean lady who thought I was trying to butt her in line, we reassessed our game-plan and decided we should get a little cardio and hike up the tower instead of taking the elevator. After a brief seven minute wait, (take that Korean lady!!), we had our tickets and begun our trek up the tower. Sidenote: Casey is extremely afraid of heights, which made the slow tedious trek up the tower pretty amusing for me. About a half hour or so later, we were at the second floor where we then purchased tickets for the very top of the tower. The top had the most fantastic view but it also became very apparent how bad the smog was.

After our steady descent down the tower we were headed to Champs Elysées to see the Arche de Triomphe and to re-fuel. I then took Casey to sample only the finest of Parisian macaroons that can be found at my mecca, the one, the only, Ladurée Salon du Thé. After gobbling down my vanilla bean macaroon faster than you could say “wow these are overpriced” we were off to our next destination on the list—le Marais to get some falafel. Because really, you can never have too much falafel!

After lugging our massive sandwiches throughout the Marais, we then took a little breather at Place de Vosges, a local park within the area. After catching some z’s in the sun, we grabbed a quick pint of cider, and then headed to Montmartre.

Now I have tried to time visiting Sacre Coeur church at sunset several times before while visiting Montmartre, but have never been successful. But lo and behold, we managed to time it perfectly.

The following day had a much slower pace as I had to attend all of my classes, (bummer, right?). During a break in between my classes, we went to a Cat Café, which is exactly what it sounds like, a café with a bunch of cats throughout the restaurant. I don’t know if having a cat sitting next to my cappuccino made it taste any better, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience!

During my classes, Casey did a little bit of self-exploring and came back with a ginormous coffee table book from whatever he did….so I guess he was successfully navigating around the city. Before heading to St. Michel to meet some friends for St. Patty’s day festivities, we indulged in a traditional café dinner of a charcuterie plate and a croque madame. We then celebrated St. Patty’s with green beer and free Guinness hats at no other establishment, but the Great Canadian Bar.

For a little bit of adventure outside of Pareee, I took Tuesday off and we hopped on a train to Caen, Normandy to explore the beaches and sites of D-Day. Although it was a wee bit brisk, the visit was absolutely extraordinary. We signed up for a 5-hour-guided tour, which was led by our good friend Raphael, who happened to have the strangest accent I’ve heard yet. He was native to the area but I’m assuming he learned English from a Brit because his English came out a weird mixture of the two AND he said washroom instead of bathroom, who does that? Anyways, during our tour of Normandy we saw Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, the American Memorial Cemetery of Normandy, German Bunkers sites at Longues-sur-Mer and finally the artificial harbor the British constructed at Arromandes, Colleville-sur-Mer. I was a little disappointed that we were unable to go to Juno Beach on our guided tour but other than that, the tour and the tourguide were fantastic. As much as I was reluctant to have a tour guide for the experience, I am very pleased with our decision to go on a guided tour because there is really so much I had never even known regarding the Normandy landings of June 6^th, 1944.

So Wednesday marked the final day of the Kelasey (Caselly?) adventure. After going to my first class, I told Casey I would meet up with him in front of the pyramids at the Louvre—which happened to be a lot more difficult than I had thought. Luckily he had about a foot on 90% of the other tourists in the plaza, so I was finally able to spot him. We then traversed through the Tullerie gardens to end up at Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. The one thing about the metro no longer being free on Wednesday was that Casey really just wanted to walk everywhere instead, which turned out being really nice because it forced me into walking through certain areas an neighborhoods that I had yet to visit.

We ended our trip in the cheesiest way possible—literally. After some museum visits we regrouped and then headed out to a quaint little café in a pedestrian side street in the Marais called ‘Les Philosophes.’ We ordered a cheese plate and then we were off to our final destination for the night, a fondue place in Montmarte called ‘Refuge de Fondue.’

This fondue place is a teeny tiny whole-in-the-wall joint that serves its wine in baby bottles. I introduced myself to the couple beside us to which the girl replied, “oh my goodness I thought you and your boyfriend were locals and we felt so bad you would have to be beside us Canadians.” So we then played the whole, “do you know person x and person y game’ while Mr. Ohio just nodded and smiled across the table (seems to be the recurring theme of the trip, eh?) It actually turned out that the majority of people around us were from throughout Canada and all of them had been recommended the restaurant. The food and company was excellent but man oh man I did not want to see cheese for a while after that night.

Casey left the next morning bright and early to head back to Cincinnati. It was a great trip and I couldn’t have imagined a better week.

I am now headed off to Brussels, Belgium for a quick 48-hr visit so looks like I’ll have some more stories to share!

À Bientôt!