This going to sleep at 1:30 (I stay up to read a bit) and waking at 7:30 (general city noise wakes me), is starting to grind. I’m a bit bleary-eyed this morning (need to get off my ass and make coffee), so bear with me.

Yesterday we hit the Richard Lenior (aka Bastille Market), it was easy to get to from our apartment – I think two trains (the 10 to the 5 perhaps). We play this “game” with who can get to our final destination with the least amount of connections (sort of like Kevin Bacon’s six degree of separation game – only with metro trains).

The market is cool – two to three (depending where in the market) aisles of produce vendors, cheese vendors, butchers (chickens and pigs with the heads and everything), chartrusseries (which I’m sure I’m spelling wrong but is basically French for deli), olive vendors, bakers, but no candlestick makers. Oh, and there’s the occasional pashmina, jewelry, wine or honey vendor thrown in for good measure. I’m pretty sure I got a picture of Colleen purchasing a new pashmina, but I’m just too lazy at the moment to go get my camera and upload it.

We hit the market later in the morning 11:30ish, after Shannon visited the Cluny (free Sunday – the first of the month) whilst Colleen and I hung out in a cafe drinking creme cafe and working on the Sunday times puzzle.

After walking through the market, we headed over to Dave (aka Happy in Paris) and Aralyn’s (sp) home; they’d generously invited us for lunch, and picked up some things in the market to bring along. They live about a 10 – 15 minute walk from the market – wasn’t bad.
At Dave and Aralyn's
At Dave and Aralyn’s (Aralyn is in the kitchen finishing cooking) photo by Shannon
We had a real feast – Aralyn made this great cider based chicken and noodle dish (hard cider that is), that I think we’re all going to go home and try. We had that with like three different types of pate, salad, olives, bread, Shannon’s famous rillettes (that we bought in the market – yum), followed by cheese, some grapes and these great Moroccan (or Algerian, can’t remember now), almond crescent cookies with orange zest in them.

The Spread

The Spread photo by Shannon

After gorging ourselves, we decided to walk back to the apartment, stopping at the Arab Institute along the way. Unfortunately, the cafe was closed (so no tea) but we did get to see the amazing views from the top.

Then it was back home, because as if that spread at lunch wasn’t enough, we were having a cocktail party for some friends in the evening and we wanted to rest a bit and get ready before they arrived. Shannon’s friend Thomas and his boyfriend Herve and their adorable 7-month old French bulldog puppy, Cossette joined us followed pretty quickly by Angie (aka Tuscan Artist) and her new beaux, Benois (sorry – I fear I’m spelling his name terribly wrong). Good time and it was nice meeting/catching up with everyone.

After cocktails, the mod squad headed over to the Seine where we took a 9:00 Seine river cruise and got to see Paris all lit up. It was great fun until we got bombarded by some water balloons (it’s amazing that doesn’t happen all the time), and then were entertained by two young gentleman doing a strip tease to the Macarena from the shore. Unfortunately, none of us were quick enough with the cameras to capture their “golden moment” great fun and everyone on the boat was laughing and cheering them on.

On the Seine

Kim and Colleen on the Seine photo by Shannon

And if we hadn’t had enough to eat, we stopped by our local cafe before heading home for a bit of a late night snack, and of course some wine – the French wine, French fries and French onion soup don’t suck here.

Okay – I think I’m going to throw on some clothes and get or make some coffee. If I get motivated, I’ll upload some pics later.

Today we’re doing some walking tours of the Latin Quarter and the Marais from a Paris Walks book I brought – should be fun!