Our Month in Paris

By Gary Fryns

Paris is the quintessential tourist destination. From savoring a buttery croissant in the early morning hours to strolling along the Seine as the sun sets behind Notre Dame, Paris is there for you to enjoy. But there's a different side to the City of Lights that takes time to really witness. A journey that isn't just about the destination. Join me on this adventure as I visit Paris and its surrounding sights in a month long spree of sensations. We'll see the Louvre from the deck of a bateau mouche, climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower and have dinner at Le Jules Verne, buy artwork in Montmartre, and see the fireworks over Versailles. So many thrills await you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Fryns
• Release date: Oct 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301317387

Gary Fryns

Just a 42 y.o. who always toyed with the idea of writing. Thought I'd take the tried and true advice of 'Write what you know' and pass along my recent travel adventures.

Book preview

Our Month in

Paris

By Gary Fryns

Published by Gary Fryns at Smashwords

Copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. Although this is an online version, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. If you are reading this book and you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting this author’s hard work and many travels.

Table of Contents:

Part Un - Preparations

Part Deux - Daily Life

Chapter One - DL80

Chapter Two - Notre Dame

Chapter Three - Latin Quarter

Chapter Four - Jim Haynes

Chapter Five - Roland Garros

Chapter Six - Galeries Lafayette

Chapter Seven - Deux Magots

Chapter Eight -Les Catacombs

Chapter Nine - Normandy

Chapter Ten - Rouen

Chapter Eleven - Breakfast in America

Chapter Twelve - Mont St. Michel

Chapter Thirteen - Mont St. Michel

Chapter Fourteen - Champs-Elysee

Chapter Fifteen - Medoc

Chapter Sixteen - St. Emilion

Chapter Seventeen - Jardin du Luxembourg

Chapter Eighteen - La Tour Eiffel

Chapter Nineteen - Loire Valley

Chapter Twenty - Musee d’Orsay

Chapter Twenty One - Fontainebleu

Chapter Twenty Two - Le Bateau Parisien

Chapter Twenty Three - Le Cordon Bleu

Chapter Twenty Four - Versailles

Chapter Twenty Five - Lost in Paris

Chapter Twenty Six - L’Open Tour

Chapter Twenty Seven - Montmartre

Chapter Twenty Eight - Happy Anniversary

Chapter Twenty Nine - Last Day

Chapter Thirty - Bruxelles

Chapter Thirty One - Home Again

Epilogue

Appendix I - Facebook Response

Appendix II - Paris Tour 2002

Appendix III - My Year with Julia

Dedicated to my raison d’etre. I love you.

A Sunrise

The night enshrouds

with its inky darkness.

Further ahead

a thin layer of azure

alters existence.

Flying over an alien

landscape of valleys and peaks

the color of soft gray kittens.

A burning ember,

nestled beneath its blanket

of goose down feathers,

gathers brilliance upon

the sky.

We sink beneath the clouds

and

it is gone.

Desire is a powerful force that can be used to make things happen.

~Marcia Wieder

Part Un (one):

Preparations

~5/30/11 Stroke of Genius

It happened again. My husband of 18 years is blithely sauntering through the local Costco gazing at the 5 pound bag of California cherries when he turns to me and asks, What would you rather do? A month in Paris, or a month in Rome?

You see, he’s always doing this. Striking like thunder on a sunny day, are these totally unexpected questions. This analogy isn’t exactly what I want to convey because it implies some negativity that comes along and totally ruins your day. My husband’s ideas are usually strokes of genius. But you get my meaning.

Without even thinking, I answer him. Paris! It spills out of my mouth before I fully comprehend exactly what it is he’s saying. My next question, therefore, is an obvious one. Why are you asking me this? I put down the 50 pack of chocolate pudding and glare at him. Maybe this way I can pull the thoughts from his highly guarded inner-mind workings without having to wait for him to voice them. This trick never works, by the way. He’s just too good at surprising me.

I don’t know. Just a thought. He walks away towards the dog cookies. Huh-uh. I’m staying with you. I want more answers. So I keep prodding him until he lets me in on a recent Google search. Apparently he’s discovered a great deal on a little apartment in La Marais district, Arrondissement Trois. The price for an entire month is only 2,000 Euros, which translates into 2,880.11 USD. Doesn’t sound too bad, eh?

And so it begins. My nearly absolute fixation on an idea. A process I have gone through before with more positive results than negative. We did finish the weekly shopping and made it home before I imploded. I checked his research and found not just the one place he discovered, but several other glorious choices to go along with it on VRBO.com. Oh, my. The noggin starts filling up with visions of pain du chocolat and café creme while strolling through Les Jardin du Tuileries. I want, I want, I want to spend a month in PARIS!

We’ve already traveled to both locations he mentioned earlier. Paris was a mere five days in 2002. Rome and Italy was a whirlwind three week tour in 2009. In Rome I was deep into my love for photography and captured some amazing memories to take back home. Many which line my walls right now. In Paris, I only had a point-and-shoot that I took intermittent snapshots from. Vague pictures of Versailles, a flower from Giverny, and a blurry gem of La Tour d’Eiffel at night. But those five days were the chocolate to my peanut butter. Ever since, I’ve been desperate to return to Ile de la Cite. A month to live like a Parisian? Oh, yes.

This is why I’ve been married for 18 years.

~ 5/31/11 Girl on the Go

Right now I am researching how to live like a Parisian. Did you know that living a month in Paris is on a lot of people’s Bucket Lists? I think I’m going to add it to mine right now. It can be done, if you’re interested too. Just type ‘month in Paris’ in any search field on the internet. You’ll see how many different tips, ideas, and suggestions there are for planting yourself in the heart of the city and blending in like a true citizen. As I scroll through the ten essentials to pack for the ‘Girl on the Go’, I found something useful.

#9 Bring a journal

I like this tidbit way more than the suggestion of bringing only two pairs of sensible shoes. It strikes me as perfect because I like to write. Even though I hardly do it, I still like it. When I was preparing for three weeks in Italy I bought a small leather bound journal to stick in my pocket. This tiny diary filled with my thoughts, feelings, and ephemera from my stay is one of my treasured souvenirs. For some reason, I wanted to do something more this time. A month in Paris almost seems to demand it. Hence you see this work in front of you.

I started it the day after the idea was uttered in my hearing. It’s probably a year from now that anything will actually be finalized, but I wanted to take you with me on this journey from the very beginning. Just sounded like a good idea. Let’s see where it takes us, eh?

~5/31/11 Never count your friends…

Facebook has its purposes. It does. No matter what those morose sociologist critics say. FB keeps the conversation flowing. It keeps spread out families closer together. You can find out, long before you watch your favorite reality shows, who has won or been kicked off. Whether you want to or not, mind you. It can even let all your friends in on your secret plans.

The workday after I posted a simple opinion poll between Rome or Paris, I had so many friends coming by to see me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Everyone was asking tons of questions about the trip. Was I really going? What district would I stay in? Would I have room in my luggage for them? Mostly they wanted to know if I was going this year. I had to let them down gently. Summer was just coming too quick to pull something like this out of my butt. Soon after they found out a whole year had to pass before I left them behind, they were already scheduling which weeks they could come and stay with us in Paris.

Especially my pal, Allison. I kept bumping into her all day as we began the year’s end routine of packing up the classroom. Each and every time she stopped and told me more plans and suggestions for her week. I just had to laugh. I would love to have her along on a café run down the rue du Rivoli. She’s a history buff and truly appreciates the beauty every country has to offer. She was the reason I ended up in Tuscany, by the way. It’s only fitting to invite her on this trip. It was her invitation that culminated in me spending a week in a castle. So I have to save a spot for her on the pull out sofa, right?

Allison is one of those friends that doesn’t need much direction. She is very capable of taking care of herself and her 6 yo, Bryson. The woman plans better than I do. Another stellar recommendation for her is she completely understands our need for space when we travel. If we want to run up to the Sacre Coeur to take pictures of the sunrise over the city, she doesn’t feel it necessary to tag along. If she wants to grab a bateau mouche for the third time in order to see Napoleon’s Bridge, she won’t expect us to tag along. If Bryson has a melt down and doesn’t want to speak for four hours, she won’t mind if we just wander away. Just as long as I cook her a meal or four.

I know what you’re thinking. Traveling with a 6 year old? Are you nuts? Hold on, though. You have to understand something first. Bryson is not your typical maniacal tantrum machine most children are. His mother has done an amazing job with him. The boy orders for us in Italian and then drags us to the Duomo on the hill in Siena because he has read that the doors might have been designed by Bernini. Very international child, and definitely easy to travel with. I spent an entire week with him zooming here and there long into the night and witnessed only one episode. We were having dinner in a local trattoria in Montegufoni after a long day. Our friend Julie decided to have a staring contest with him. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well. He burst into tears. Mom took him home and put him to bed. All was fine the next morning. So, I am good with having him along.

Maybe I should invite Jim and Julie to bunk with us. Uh huh, Italy coupling there too. How else could we afford a castle? Three couples splitting a suite makes it much easier to pay for the privelage. Jim and Julie both work at my school. They are a young married couple with their first baby that may or may have not been conceived amongst the hills of Tuscany. Julie spent a lot of her time in Italy working on her master’s degree. Poor thing. It was not always work with her though. She spent the entire day light times with us traversing the Italian countryside. Except when we were having those 2 A.M. wine chats, her nights were taken up with writing papers on the internet. I think they would enjoy a week in Paris, sans travail.

On that note, I would also travel again with Vicki and Alan. They also came to our castle outside of Florence, making it a full house. I work with Vicky and love to get her outside of the classroom. She is hilarious and can carry an intriguing conversation during long car rides. Alan, the science guy, is her husband. He is so funny to watch when we get closer to anything with a large visible engine. Motorcycles, speed boats, and even riding mowers are like magnets to him. Then again maybe Paris isn’t a good idea, they want to go to Greece instead. They are very mad at us that we didn’t pick to carouse amongst the islands. Already had this conversation, as you can tell.

Another idea I had was to ask Robyn from work to come with us to Paris. She was supposed to go with a tour group last summer, but then her friends got into an argument over schedules or something. They all pulled out and left her going by herself. She wasn’t interested in that idea. She had to cancel her dream trip. She might be interested in coming with us.

So the good news is if you are ever feeling bereft and lonely, I have a cure for you. Post on FB that you are going on a long extended trip to a foreign country and then just count the number of friends you have!

~6/9/11 I could be French

I’m watching Julie/Julia, yet again. You know the movie with Meryl Streep playing the part of Julia Childs and Amy Adams plays the neurotic Julie Powell. Great movie. You should watch it. It’s the scene where she commits the crustacean massacre. Absolutely hilarious. This reminds me of another love affair I have with Paris. The Food. Oh, glorious food. I can still remember that first morning when I awoke in the small walk-up apartment in the Marais district and wandered down rue Vieille du Temple to my first patisserie. I ordered a croquet monsieur du jambon et fromage and café. Gordon and I sat at the little table in the crisp morning air and watched delivery trucks manage their way down the tight little streets. At that moment I felt just like Julia Childs, that I too could possibly be French.

When I first saw this movie in the theater I was so inspired. Immediately afterwards I ran to the bookstore in the same mall as the theater and grabbed Mastering the Art of French Cooking off the shelf. I simply had to set a year’s goal of working through as many recipes as I could. It was definitely not about making it through the entire book, that would take a Herculean effort on my part. Not to mention about 13 inches to my wait. But, I was curious to see how many I could actually do.

After the year was up, I faced the notes I had taken (see Appendix #3) and counted up my recipes. I had managed a whopping one hundred and four totally new recipes! In the process I also became very famous amongst my friends. They were all clamoring for dinner invites. When I deemed to grant them one, they raved about the food. I have never felt more accomplished than I did when tackling those complex French culinary feats.

It’s for this reason I am making notes on my phone as I watch the movie. The notes are all about what places I want to be sure to see when I spend my month in Paris. So far I have written down the Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore which is where Julia starts looking for a French cookbook in English. Not to be found at that time. I know this place is across from Le Notre Dame because of this very dry travel guide I was looking at. Of course, I’ve also added Le Cordon Bleu to my phone list. I plan on looking into taking a class with them. If not, I can simply stand outside and pretend, right?

Should I look up the apartment that Paul and Julia rented while they lived in Paris? I’ll have to go back into my copy of My Life in France to find out the rue they were on. Hold on, I’ll go grab it. Okay, here it is on page 30. 81 rue de l’Universite contains the two floors they rented from a hotel particulier. This was the location of the first cooking class for L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes. The school that Julia and Simca Beck started with Lousiette Bertholle in 1952 to teach American women in Paris how to cook French food. Could it still be there? If not, I could look up the clapboard house on Olive Ave in Georgetown where they first lived as a married couple when I go to DC in two weeks. Or I could look up Restaurant La Couronne in Rouen where Julia first tried Sole Meuniere. One fish course that started her love affair with French cooking. Can you imagine feasting on that delicacy while gazing at the cathedral from Monet’s famous paintings? I can.

I already know one place that I will be crossing off my list in a little over two weeks. Julia’s Immortal Kitchen is housed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I am going to see it. I am going to take a picture of her famous mortar and pestle and admire her copper cookware hanging on the walls in their proper places. I may not be bringing her a pound of butter to lay at her altar of gastronomic success, but I will stand in her glory all the same.

~6/10/11 Finances

Sigh. The age old question: How am I going to pay for it all? Does anyone really know how to answer this? Gordon brought it up today over burgers at Red Robin – forgive me fellow foodies, but they are so good. Although he didn’t word the question in the typical format, it was still the same overall gist. His question was, Can you put aside $300-$400 a month? I picked up my onion ring and pondered. Could I?

I honestly couldn’t answer that question. I have never created a budget for my finances in my entire life. Oh, believe me, I’ve tried. But money never really makes much sense to me. It must harken back to those days in pre algebra when I was stuck in the ‘dummy’ class. It wasn’t until I started teaching third graders how to do math that this subject finally clicked with me. I know it’s all a procedure with numbers. If you follow the same pattern the numbers will always come out right. For some reason I never could follow procedures.

This time I was determined to figure it out. Any third grader can do addition and subtraction. Armed with Excel, those said third graders could do it much faster than me. I started out slow. I put in my net pay at the top of one of the columns and started adding in all of my bills one by one. Surprisingly there weren’t that many. We’ve been paring down lately and consolidating a lot of bills. We even decided to go wireless and got rid of our highly priced – but never used landline. It was liberating, except now I actually have to keep my cell phone charged all the time. The total bill versus net wasn’t too shocking. But there are more things I can do to hoard more money.

I will start the Great Savings project after I come back from DC on July 4th. By that time even more bills will be gone off my regular list. I’ve been frustrated with our online video rental company and their disloyalty to my dollars. I never seem to get the latest and greatest videos in a timely fashion. We’re talking months after they’ve been released to the video stores I am still getting weird choices off my list instead. When I want to watch I Am Number Four, I got things like Fat Girls and Vanishing on 7th Street. Independent films are interesting and all, but the quality of big blockbusters can’t be matched. So that $19 a month fee is going to be taken off my list of bills as well.

Another idea came to me. I’ve decided to take a serious look at my frivolous spending. With school out and having way too much time on my hands I usually spend a lot of money on stupid things non-essentials. Take for instance the idea I had recently. I was going to sign up for a cooking class at my local Whole Foods Market. I can cook in my own kitchen when no one is looking or has to taste my recipes if they come out stuck to the bottom of the pan. I’ve always wanted to try an actual bonafide culinary classroom, just to see how I’d fare. There even was this great class on a Wednesday night for $65 called Summer in the South of France. It sounded perfect for me, right? The food certainly would have been:

MENU: Pissaladière (Nice-Style Onion & Olive Tart); Bouillabaisse (Seafood Stew); Provençal Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes, Lemon & Basil; Pommes de Terre Sarladaise (Potatoes Cooked in Duck Fat); and Tart aux Baies Rouges (Fresh Red Berry Tart with Lemon Curd).

Just looking at this list makes my mouth water. I even planned to do a full write up for this little book of mine. My brain was already coming up with succulent adjectives and a play by play to make y’all so envious. But then I thought again about money. That evil little person stuck on my shoulder kept whispering, You could save this money for a train trip to Marseilles. I clicked off of the registration page for the class and offered up a silent C’est la vie instead. I hate that voice.

Oops, I was talking about something else. After the Excel spreadsheet is completed and tallied, the results are in. Remember the original question of whether I can put $300-$400 away each month? It seems that I can. Now to hold to my budget and keep that frivolity to a minimum is the key. Mmm, I can smell those baguettes already.

~6/25/11 A Wedding

Here I am in Virginia, knowing for a fact that it is no longer for lovers. Because I hate it. Oh, I’m sure the entire state isn’t worthy of this meltdown, but for the moment I am one big VA Hater. I have just completed the worst trek of my life. Gordon and I made the voyage down here by train from DC. We had all our luggage and suit carriers for the wedding of a dear friend of mine. We had decided to turn this trip up north to watch wedded lives take those first baby steps into a full vacation for us. We’d spend the day on Saturday reveling in the couple’s marital bliss and then we would train back into DC to spend a week frolicking in the city. Sounds fun, right?

Hmph, when I was researching the hotel I specifically wanted to know how far it was from the train depot. Gordon and I were gearing up to do a lot of walking around the Nation’s capital, why not start now? On the Sheraton’s website it blithely mentions that the hotel is 0.6 miles away from the station. Ahh, that’s nothing. Barely breaking a sweat we would.

I should have known something was wrong when we broke out the GPS upon