Where Have You Monkeys Been (Part 1 of 4)

Yes part 1 of 4.......

How annoying Monkeys, you ditch everyone for weeks than have all sorts of stuff to talk about. Whatever, at least now I am committed to writing four posts about the shit we have been doing for the last five weeks. It's official.

So Paris. Yeah, 3 weeks in Paris went by in a blink. And every second was outstanding. I love that place: the warm baguettes with dinner every night, the cheese, the wine, the lifestyle, the scarves, the urine-smelling Metro, all of it.

So what did we do? Well we mostly ate and drank good things, oh man  a lot of good things. So many good things that I have a butter-induced spare tire around my waist - worth every bite/drink as far as I am concerned.

Camembert, jambon, walnuts, tomatoes, eggs, and roasted potatoes = SALAD.

But also I was productive (kind of). I went to French class in the mornings at the Leutece Language School, then I worked in the afternoons at our cute little apartment. We stayed in the 19th Arrondissement, a bit outside of the normal tourist track - but totally cool! We were adjacent to the very trendy bars, boutiques, restaurants, and cafes of the Parisian "Bobo" area (bourgeois boheme). I would say the area is similar to the Mission in SF maybe, but much cleaner and less scary. There were so many affordable, interesting places to go and things to do. I will definitely stay out there the next time I am in Paris. Though a note of warning: it helped that I could speak a bit of French as English was definitely not ubiquitous in these parts.

So what else......

Well, it was mother effing ass unseasonably cold the WHOLE TIME we were in Paris. And also rainy. My broken umbrella and I were really sad about it. All I wanted was to escape the looooooooong cooooooold British winter, and Paris was absolutely no better than London. I was lucky if it broke 55 degrees the entire 3 weeks. Booooo.

It wasn't all bad though, after all it is Paris. There was biking, that made me happy!

City-sponsored Velib bikes!

There was the Paris St. Germain soccer match, which we attended with the gorgeous, Canadian Kerry Anne from my French class. The match happened to be David Beckham's last game ever! 

Love you Kerry!

Also, there was the Paris sewer tour. OK - I know it sounds weird. But actually, it was really interesting, perhaps because I used to work at a civil engineering firm......but I digress.

A bit stinky but cool.

We also toured around the Palais Royal and the covered galleries of Paris, which are a little hidden-gem of a tourist attraction, because tourists don't really know about them. At least, I didn't until this trip.

Douche.

Posts will follow about our day trip to the Champagne region (yes), Avignon (double yes), and finally Tahoe - where we are hanging out right now for a few days.

Love you bye!