Paris Part Deux

The next morning, Sunday, I again dragged Tom out of bed early to go check out the marche aux puces [translates to flea market] at porte de vanves.  We are becoming old people and love to go antiquing so I had done some online research to find out the best antique market. There was definitely a ton of treasures to look through, most of them unmarked so I would try my best “combien?”  Unfortunately the answer was usually €80, €100, or €200 so I did not buy as much as I would have wanted. We ended up with an old map, a cheese knife with a vintage handle, a souvenir ashtray (that I’m going to use to hold rings), a nautical glass float (for our future pirate bar patio), and a really tasty breakfast of croque-monsieurs from a food truck.

On our way out Tom got a first-hand view of a girl getting arrested for pick pocketing while he was waiting in line. We saw more than one pick pocketing arrest, so I give it to the French police for at least trying to contain the problem (our hyper-vigilance paid off and we didn’t lose anything the whole trip except for a book left on an airplane).  In the afternoon we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. We had to climb quite a few stairs to get to the top but the view was beautiful from up there. The sculptures and reliefs on the Arch itself were interesting too, but I’ll admit I just wanted to sit on the bench for a while at that point.

After checking that out we headed down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées (click the video to listen to the song that was playing in my head the whole time):

It was beautiful, but man was it packed! Trying to get a rest and hide from the crowds we stopped at a café for a late lunch and had vin blanc, frommage, baguette, and a carafe de l'eau. They say it’s the most expensive place to eat in Paris, but since we really just had an appetizer cheese plate it wasn’t bad at all.

That night we ate dinner at the hotel, but in the more upscale restaurant portion. The food was AMAZING, but at that point of the trip I realized I was coming down with a cold so I was probably not the most gracious diner. It was fun to watch the slideshow of the photo booth at the hotel which they played on a screen near our table. So every room in the hotel can use their iMac TV as a camera and so there are lots of crazy pictures with people wearing masks (they leave a couple in your room) and also some risqué business.

from http://beaulifestyle.blogspot.com/2010/11/during-our-stay-in-paris-we-were-in.html

The next day was Disneyland Paris and despite the rain and being sick I still had a good time. On our way there we stopped at a pharmacy and I was lucky the pharmacist could understand my English request for cold medicine since that wasn’t covered in my French class.

As Tom and I are both a bit of Disney enthusiasts we had fun comparing the park to Disneyland and Disneyworld. Some parts were way better: Sleeping Beauty’s castle, the waterfall outside of Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain 2, and Crash’s Coaster. The overall park was a bit smaller and the Indiana Jones ride which is one of my favorites in Disneyland was really just a small rollercoaster there.

this is how we do Disneyland Paris-like hoodrats

I couldn’t get over how fun it was to see rides where you know all the sayings being done in French.  I taped quite a few on my phone and only got told “no pictures” once ;). I posted the videos on FaceBook (they're long), click below:

The Intro to the Haunted Mansion
Star Tours in French