Friday, September 5, 2014

Paris, France and not Paris, Texas.


I took another extended leave away from the blog again. During that long unannounced leave a co-worker resigned, we hired a new person who is currently being trained, and I took a little vacation to Paris.
We went in August, and to be very honest I was actually a little disappointed. Perhaps it was because it was August and it was filled with tourists (myself included). Perhaps I have this inflated image of the city of light in my head. Perhaps I was expecting a little too much. But my general impression was that many Italian cities were more beautiful than Paris.
Walking the cobbled street of Paris
One thing I was very pleasantly surprised by was Parisiennes in general were very nice to my sister and I. I don't speak a word of French, neither does my sister. We had gotten three phases from our guide book to overuse on our trip (bonjour, merci, si vous plait, frequency of usage in that order). And we got by okay. At one point as we were trying to locate Marché Bastille (on a gloomy and rainy Sunday morning), a very nice gentleman actually walked up to us and asked whether he could help. And then he walked us to the market.
Lovely dog at Cafe de Flore
Another thing that I certainly was not disappointed with was the food. Parisienne butter just tasted better, and along with baguette brought just about anywhere in the city. Croissants, palmiers, caramel, jams, everything was pretty darn good. Even their fries. I actually looked up why french fries taste better in France and found that they sometimes use fat from beef or duck to fry their food. No wonder.
About the title of this post. I saw this poster in metro stations all over the city while I was in Paris, France not Texas.

P.S. Completely random thought. I just realized yesterday that John Green from Crash Course is the same John Green who wrote The Faults in Our Stars, of which movie I also saw the poster of everywhere while I was in Paris.
Photo credit: thetexastheatre