La Capitale de Noël

A couple of weeks ago, Helena and I came up with another fabulous idea,  we would go on one day trip every month, and we were going to start with Strasbourg, known as the Capitale de Noël  (the Christmas Capital - sticking with our xmas theme as it is December). Though, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I came up with the brilliant idea to catch the 6:55 train to Strasbourg the day after Dana left.  Seriously! I hardly sleep at night.  

 

With maybe 4hrs of sleep, I was on my way to Strasbourg.  I wasn't the only one moving at a snails pace, as the metro at 6AM is freaking slow! This caused a couple minutes of anxiety, as I have a mother that drops me off at the airport 2hrs in advance for domestic flights, so I was a little concerned that I may be sprinting to catch the train.  I arrived at Gare de l'Est ten minutes before the train's departure :) phew! 

Once on the train, cup of coffee in hand, Helena and I discussed our plan for attacking Strasbourg, and then I threw my fleece over my head and took a power nap.  We arrived in Strasbourg a little before 10:00.  When we first arrived it was quite chilly and windy which is probably not a major issue for any normal person, but I've been avoiding wearing my winter coat and been sporting only my fleece; it is just so much more convenient.  [Winter finally arrived in Paris this weekend when the high was 0 degrees Celsius this Saturday and a -2 this morning.  Sadly, I went straight to the puffy coat :( and bypassed the wool coat completely.]  I'm pretty resourceful, I solved the problem of being cold by having some vin chaud (hot mulled wine) and believe it or not, I was not the only one drinking at 10:00 in the morning. 

We visited the Marchés de Noël, the Cathédrale Notre Dame (I think there's a Notre Dame in every city in France), and then headed out to the European Parliament.  We tried to sneak into a tour group of gray haired Nordics but it didn't work… I guess the Brazilian and American brunettes stood out.  Probably not the smartest thing to do … tee hee … but I went on the tour in Brussels so figured I could translate for Helena :)  We were just a couple hours in advance, individual tours started at 15:00, so we decided to venture back into town and skip the tour.  

Strasbourg has been holding their Marchés de Noël since 1570 and has the reputation of being the best markets in France.  Each year, they honor a country, and dedicate one of the markets to that countries local products and crafts.  This year it was Switzerland.  More fondue and raclette for me! 

Personally, I was a little unimpressed with the markets.  I was expecting more of a German Christmas market ambiance.  Instead, they were a lot smaller, even the ones in Paris are bigger.  Now maybe they sell better crap but I think it's all junk and the only thing I've ever purchased at a Christmas market besides food and alcohol was cute little lamb slippers in Cologne, Germany (Yes, I know I'm too old to walk around in slippers that look like stuffed animals but they're warm and really cute!).  I don't think anyone goes to the Christmas markets for shopping anyways ... it's all about the vin chaud ;o) and I think the Germans have it mastered. 

Don't get me wrong, we still had a fun time venturing around the town and visiting the markets.  Plus we ate plenty, we tried the brädeles (xmas cookies), choucroute (sauerkraut), and a baguette version of the flammeküche (an Alsatian pizza), and of course drank the vin chaud.

  

Has Someone Been Brainwashed

Recently, I watched the film "Exit Through the Gift Shop," an Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Bansky, an elusive British street artist. The film tells the story of a French man, living in Los Angeles, named Thierry Guetta, who develops a fetish of video taping every waking moment of his life. On a trip back to his homeland France, through his cousin, the internationally known artist, Invader, he develops an interest in street art.

[Side note: Invader's art (small tiled Space Invaders (remember Atari) characters, are throughout the streets of Paris. I had a small collection of photos last year - lost! But restarting to take photos with my new iPhone :) maybe a future blog… In the meantime, I have been posting some street art on Twitter.]

Without ruining the film, Guetta starts following around many street artists from Shepard Fairey to Banksy, and in the end becomes a street artist himself, known as MBW (Mr. Brainwash). If you haven't seen the film yet I definitely recommend checking it out. If you're questioning why I'm talking about some random documentary that premiered back in 2010 …

Well, with Dana in town, and us eating our way thru Paris, I took her to quite a few restaurants that I wanted to discover. I probably took her to one too many places, as she had to leave the pepto behind, so I can recover.

One of my new favorites is MBC (pour Menthe, Basilic, Coriandre), a creation of Chef Gilles Choukroun, located in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The food was delicious and the decor was gorgeous! The walls were designed in graffiti and street art style.

With Invader being Parisian and all … I really couldn't help but think that there is some correlation between MBC and MBW, I just find it way to coincidental!

Christmas in Paris, Deuxième Partie

Tonight, I met up with Helena for another adventure of discovering the Parisian Christmas vibe. We started out meeting at Odéon and decided we would head to the Saint Germain and Saint Sulpice marchés de noël.

The Saint Germain markets were all set up but not open :( and we never did find the market that's suppose to be at Saint Sulpice … I guess you can't really depend on the internet!

From there we walked around the 5th & 6th arrondissement, then decided to head to Le Marais via Notre Dame, then to Bastille. After that, we ended up walking towards Le Republique and eventually found our way back to Rue Rivoli and the Louvre.

BHV's (a local department store near Hotel de Ville) Christmas theme this year, pretty comical for me, considering all the Québécois comments I have heard while living here... and I will keep my thoughts to myself on this one ;) Hope my loved ones in Québec enjoy this as much as I did.

A new way to recycle, Christmas trees made out of old plastic sprite bottles!

All our walking made us a little hungry, so we decided to head over to La Mosaïque, a hot dog counter in the middle of the Marais! It's no Hebrew National hot dog, but if you're craving a hot dog in Paris, it's probably going to be the closest to authentic that you're going to get. The key being the hot dog bun. I probably eat a hot dog about once or twice a year, on the 4th of July or at a baseball game, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but it hit the spot for us. Yummy!

We walked about four hours before we decided to give up and head home … our last hour was pretty uneventful, I guess that's what you get when you just decide to wander the streets at night.

Helena and I departed at the bus stop. After four hours of walking, I succumbed to taking the bus home too. I'm on an experiment this month, I'm trying to avoid public transportation, and either walk or use the vélib; so far, I've only been lazy twice. Dana will be in for a real treat when she arrives on Wednesday :) he he he

Christmas in Paris

One of my favorite times to be in Paris is around the holidays. December brings gray skies (a phenomenon that’s probably pretty standard all year long though); the weather turns crisp, the street lights go up, and les marchés de noël (the Christmas markets) open. So of course, my secret desire to be a photographer, but have no clue what I’m doing self, get’s the brilliant idea to capture Christmas in Paris! The best part, my partner-in-crime, Helena, is completely down for participation! Midweek, 10:30pm, what better time to grab a vélib (Paris’ bike share program) and start capturing the City of Lights, all lite up. The plan, eventually vélib through the entire City (maybe a little ambitious…), and share my version of Christmas in Paris.

Hope you enjoy!

Avenue Montaigne

L'avenue des Champs-Élysées

les marchés de noël on l'avenue des Champs-Élysées

La place de la Concorde

Rue Royale

Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

Thanksgiving in Geneva

Growing up, I always wanted the big family winter holiday events and of course snow! (Snow, not very realistic for a Californian!) Only my immediate family lived in the States, so there weren’t any big family events, and my Mom use to always tell me how lucky I was…

When the holidays rolled around, we often celebrated with friends or better yet, traveled! Now, that I’m older and maybe a tiny bit wiser, I understand why my Mom use to say we were lucky (and this has nothing to do with my extended family :) - as they’re all AMAZING!!!). I was fortunate, because I developed a love for discovering new places and meeting new people at an early age. Plus, over the years, since it was never an obligation for me to be with my immediate family, and sometimes not a possibility, I’ve been invited into the homes of many friends, which has fulfilled many of those childhood desires.

My most favorite Thanksgiving memory was a family trip to San Felipe in Baja California. A small beach town, located on the Gulf of California, known for its unique ecosystem, where the desert meets the sea, and where it’s supposedly always beautiful and sunny. Umm… unfortunately, that was not the case for us that weekend; it was cold and rainy the whole time. Instead of sun and surf, we ended up strolling the small town, meeting the locals, and discovering fish tacos. It was a fabulous weekend!

Nowadays, my family is even more global, with my brother in Vancouver, my parents somewhere between Florida and Montreal, and me in Paris, so a family get-together is pretty much out the window. No problem! Perfect excuse to go visit Carmen! Geneva here I come!!! :)

Obviously, must be the best store in Geneva!

I arrived in Geneva, and Carmen whisked me off to a place called Halles des L’îles, with the disclaimer that Geneva doesn’t get any better than this … Halles des L’îles is the current posh hip bar/restaurant located on a small island in the Rhone River.

During dinner, I became friendly with the table next to us, and got some Geneva recommendations, and maybe even a future job contact in NYC. Off to a good start, I would say! Afterwards, we headed to the bar for a couple of drinks before we headed over to the club Le Baroque.

Le Baroque was it’s own special little world. One of Lucy’s friends had a table, with a humongous bottle of Belvedere that has it’s own special contraption so you can pour the thing, and glows so everyone in the club can see that you spent a ridiculous amount of money on vodka. Lucy mentioned that this bottle was worth about $10K, and that they regularly purchase these things. Personally, not impressed! Really, you’re just going to pee it all out! Come on, it's just Belvedere vodka! I rather spend that money on a Hermes handbag or an awesome vacation, it just seems so much more logical to me :)

The most exciting part of Le Baroque experience was that Redman was a surprise guest DJ. We were already on the upper level of the club, so I was able to wiggle my way right up next to Redman (I literally had the best spot in the house), and took about a dozen videos and pictures of him.

After my weekend, the best way I can describe Geneva’s nightlife is interesting, and I guess, entertaining… A lot of testosterone heightened egos floating around, that’s for sure!

When in Switzerland, you must have fondue, and the best fondue in Geneva is at La Buvette (the snack shop) at Les Bains de Paquis (the baths of Paquis). Les Bain de Paquis is located on a jetty on the lake, and it’s a place where you can go swim naked in the lake and go to the hamman. [Paul, this place is right up your alley!] In the winter, their snack shop turns into one of Geneva’s best fondue spots. You order outside, then find a spot on one of the many picnic benches, and eat away. They are famous for their fondue because it's made with Crémant instead of the traditional white wine.

Since it was Thanksgiving weekend after all, we celebrated on Sunday when everything is closed, and quite in Geneva. Carmen and I started cooking around 11:00PM Saturday night, and woke up bright and early, to bake the pies and cook the turkey. Carmen’s first turkey, came out delish! A house full of New Yorkers, Ralph Lauren employees, and me, celebrated Thanksgiving in style; we ate and drank like it was our last meal!

In the Dark

Last night, I had a truly unique dining experience, Helena and I ate a meal in complete pitch darkness; it was actually a little unnerving. Dans Le Noir is a restaurant that allows you to completely re-evaluate your notion of a dining experience. You are guided and waited by a blind staff, and basically are experiencing what it would be like to be blind; dependent on your sense of smell, taste, and touch to experience your meal.

We entered into a pitch-dark room with our hands on the left shoulder of the person in front of us. Within seconds my eyes were straining to acclimate to my new environment, but they never really did, not even after a couple of hours. It’s amazing how once you loose your sense of sight you start to question everything around you, and become very dependent on your sense of hearing and touch. I sat down at the table and instantly started touching everything around me, and asking for Helena (after all, I needed to make sure they sat me in front of the right person – otherwise, that could’ve been awkward!).

At first, I wasn’t sure what I got myself into … I didn’t really enjoy not being able to see anything. It took me a couple minutes and some wine to get comfortable and it was definitely comforting knowing that I had a good friend sitting across from me. We were seated at communal tables, and part of the experience I’ve been told, is to speak with your neighbors not knowing who they are or what they look like, but we are in Paris and not London or NYC, so my attempts to speak with our dinner partners were not well received. I didn’t even need my sight to see the expression of the couples sitting next to us when we tried to speak with them … I have lived here for over a year, so the returned silence was understood, although, it was fun to listen to everyone trying to guess what they were eating. By the end of the meal, Helena and I were talking and laughing and telling stories as if we were in a room all by ourselves.

Table manners definitely went down the drain, when each course came, we were completely fondling all of our food trying to figure out what everything was before we tried it, and using a knife was pretty impossible. My mother would have been so ashamed if she were watching a video of us eat. We also noticed that we had horrible posture as we were leaning into the table while we ate, and I’m proud to report that we walked away without any stains :)

I have to give props to Helena for being a good sport, putting it nicely, she’s a little bit of a picky eater (she only eats chicken and cow), so she lied about having some allergies to avoid anything that swims, and then avoided anything that was animal texture to ensure she wasn’t eating any duck, veal, lamb or rabbit.

The food was good, but I definitely think something is lost without the visual experience. I won’t reveal our menu, as they keep the same menu for a couple of months at a time and wouldn’t want to wreck it for anyone, but there’s nothing to worry about as you won’t be eating anything bizarre, strange or out of the ordinary. I highly recommend that at least once in your life you experience dining in complete darkness. Dans Le Noir is located in Paris, London, Kiev, Saint-Petersburg, Barcelona and NYC, but there are other similar type restaurant that increase public awareness about blindness in Zurich, Bale, Koln, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Montreal, etc …

Did Someone Say Brussels

November has been a world wind of a month so far ... and it's just the beginning. First, I had my parents in town, then Fiona's goodbye festivities, plus Tashi and Paul in town, and lastly, a short trip to Brussels. Now, that I'm back in Paris, and my parents, Fiona, Tashi and Paul have all left, I'm not too sure what to do with myself....

Brussels (the spots are rain drops)

The original reason for heading to Brussels was so Tashi could go to a Smashing Pumpkins concert (Umm, I didn't even know they were still around) and to eat as many pomme frites (french fries) that is humanely possible. A round-trip bus ticket from Paris to Brussels is only 45 euros, so I really couldn't say no! Paul and I passed on the Smashing Pumpkins show, as the last time I heard one of their songs it was the early 90s. My trip to Brussels was short, two nights one day, but definitely worth it! We had a blast! Plus, as a bonus, I actually found some beers that I like, which we all know is pretty amazing!

Of course the trip was not all about finding a beer I can tolerate. We did discover Brussels best pomme frites at Maison Antoinette, the best Belgium Liege waffles (there are actually two Belgium waffle recipes one from Brussels and one from Liege, personally, I prefer the Liege style waffle) out of a minivan decorated with smurfs, and Brussels oldest bar named Au Bon Vieux Temps. Believe it or not, we were also able to sneak in some education on our trip with a quick visit to the European Parliament.

European Parliament in Session

Two cool things we stumbled upon were an electric zip car program (boy, is the USA behind!) and pieces of the Berlin wall. Surprisingly, there is very little bit of the structure left in Berlin.

I definitely recommend a trip to Belgium, unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go to Ghent and Bruges but there's still next time :)