A Smooth Move, A Rainy Afternoon, and The Perfect Dinner

Yesterday, we packed up our things, left our little house by the sea in Normandy, and moved to Paris. Everything worked as planned, and the rental car drop-off and the train ride were uneventful.... except that I put my backpack down in the train station in Caen and left it there. As we were walking to the train, I realized that I didn't have an extra 20 pounds strapped to my back and went into a panic. Fortunately, it hadn't moved and we still made the train. Good thing I'm not traveling with small children. No telling where I'd leave them.

We met our apartment owner, and he was delightful. And the apartment is just as I pictured it..maybe even better. We're in the 11th Arrondissement which is further from the center of town than I'd like, but it's close to where DG and TZ are staying and prices are more reasonable. The only drawback to the apartment is that it is on the 5th floor and there is no elevator! We will just think of it as a way to work off all the calories we know we'll consume here.

Speaking of food, we were starving after our trip, so we headed out to find lunch. We had made arrangements to meet DG and TZ later, so we had some time to eat, buy some supplies and try to stay in from the rain. Our lunch was in a small restaurant. The food was just ok, but the waiter was delightful as he desperately tried to help us figure out what was on the menu and he spoke no English. We were able to figure most of it out ourselves, but he really wanted to help.

When the rain stopped, we walked down past the Bastille, across the Seine, and into the Latin Quarter to meet DG and TZ at a cafe.

We could have relaxed in that little sidewalk cafe for hours watching the people go by. Truly a favorite Paris pastime for us and most of the people who live or visit here.

In my many hours of obsessive research, I'd found some restaurants that just sounded too good not to try. But the problem is that I found hundreds of them. But there was one that I knew wasn't far from this cafe, and so we headed out to try to find it. (By the way, my CityMapper app is going to save me here just like it did in London. This app is amazing.) Along the way, we couldn't stop seeing things we wanted to remember. Like flower shops everywhere...

Beautiful little storefronts...

And parks and squares where families gathered...

DG and I saw a storefront we loved, and she has decided to open a shop like this in Des Moines where she lives with a franchise shop in Milwauee. This is the sign on the window and on the door...

We figure that we have plenty of opinions and we are more than willing to let people pay us for them. A perfect plan, don't you think?

We found Bistro d'Henri down a narrow back street. They weren't open when we arrived, but we were lucky they let us make a reservation for 7:00.

If you try to imagine the perfect Parisian bistro, this is it. Small. Intimate. Waiters bustling around. And the amazing smells coming from the open kitchen. And when I say it is small, I mean really small. There were only about 12 tables, and they are packed together. It was hard for us to walk between the tables to get out of the place once it was full.

Now I have to confess something. I took no pictures of our food. I was so caught up in the moment, the contentment of being with friends in such a delightful setting, that when the food came, I just never thought about it. The food was devine. This was probably the best meal of our trip because of the great food and the overall experience. Slow roasted lamb with prunes, veal scallopine (with a sauce I could just drink), and beef bourguignon (also with drinkable sauce). We all made groaning noises throughout the meal which, I guess, is a good sign.

We had purchased tickets for a Seine river cruise online before the trip, and this was our night to use them even though the weather wasn't ideal. (Vedettes du Pont Neuf) We managed to sit outside until the Eiffel Tower (which really is straight, I assure you) and then the rain forced us to sit down below.

It was a great way to finish up our first day in Paris. Lots more to come.