Mini-Sabbatical Pictures

Photos from Netherlands, Belgium, and Paris! About 713, not captioned. If you've been following the blog, the photos from the posts summarize the trip well.

End of the Sabbatical

We woke up the earliest today of this entire week and got ready to depart. We had breakfast crêpes and Rachel and I headed to Charles de Gaulle airport together. Our flights are just 30 minutes of each other while Mikey was flying out of Orly about 2 hours after us. 

In the train station, it was a bit of a zoo due to tracks being closed and then reopened. Rachel and I went up and down the platforms a few times. 

But the RER was easy and we departed ways at the airport. 

Thank you to Mikey and Rachel for not only a great week of reliving the past, but also making new memories. Thank you for always being there for me and part of my support network, especially the last few months. You guys both make me smile from the Gchat instant messaging conversations and the fact you guys were even happier for me than I was about the new job. 

Also, in honor of the joke we made a million times this week when we laughed:

http://youtu.be/-r7dveDEv-I

I'm super grateful for a relaxing week, as it will be busy for a bit. I have Confirmation tomorrow for my Sunday school student and then I start a new job - the first time in 11 years. I expect the 1st few months will be a lot of trial and error and hoping my bosses don't regret having hired me!

Thank you to all who've read and cared these past few weeks about my mini-sabbatical! On to new and different adventures!

Rainy Day in Paris

Our first rainy day in Paris! It reminds me of Gustave Caillebotte's "Rainy Day In Paris" which I love and hangs in the Art Institute in Chicago. 

For lunch, Rachel headed into work to meet and see some colleagues while Mikey and I enjoyed our presumably last breakfast in our Parisian apartment. 

We then headed to the Louvre and met Rachel. Here's a photo of entering the museum with the famous glass pyramids:

Below the Carousel Gate in front of the Louvre and the start of the Tuileries Gardens where the gypsy women try to get you to sign their petitions and pickpocket you, but we know better:

The Grand Gallery:

Napoleon III's Apartments that are amazing in detail and opulence:

And then, there is our masterpiece selfies series:

First, "Winged Victory of Samothrace":

Second, "Mona Lisa":

Third, "Venus de Milo":

Fourth, " ":

Only with friends like these and our sense of humor, could we take a photo series like this!

After the Louvre, we walked to Rue de Bac to go to Deyrolle, a famous taxidermy shop. This was something Rachel had read about. The stuffed animals were incredibly well preserved, but I was a little spooked. There was a horse, zebra, elephant, porcupine, peacocks, and etc. You couldn't take any photos though and everything was very expensive. 

We then walked to Champs - Élysées, where they had the Christmas market and where I took grainy photos of the Arc de Triumph. Here, we are sharing beignets shaped like gingermen as a pre - dinner snack:

We had reservations at Chez L'Ami Jean, a basque restaurant, recommended by Mikey's friend. We shared wine, a charcuterie plate, and I had sea scallops with amazing masted potatoes. 

After dinner, we took the metro home and rested. Although it might not sound that exciting, but the traveling, walking, and eating lots of cheese was probably getting to us. We leave tomorrow to head home which is exciting to see friends and family!

How We Roll

After our usual breakfast this morning, we took the metro to our Segway tour. Mikey and I had been on a Segway before, particularly as part of his wedding weekend activities years ago, but this was Rachel's first time! Again, since this was not our first trip here, it was another fun and new way to learn about and see the city. 

Here's a photo of us getting ready and learning our Segway skills:

Here's a collage of us on the Segway and learning from our Australian guide:

Here's a collage of the lamps, columns, and etc we've seen - the architectural detail in Paris is second to none:

A few more of things we saw:

And we did our final photos in front of the Eiffel Tower:

We had dinner tonight at a fondue place called "Pain, Vin, Fromage" in the Marais district with Rachel's colleague, Wendy whom she was posted with in India. We had a delicious dinner of chatting, sharing food, and talking shop!

Afterwards, we walked home which took only about 10 minutes and hung out in our Parisian apartment. 

Not sure if you can see these, especially if you don't have Facebook or are not friends with Mikey, but here's a video yesterday of our Segway choreography:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10100873126349605

Which is a reenactment of the Segway choreography we made up the day of his wedding here:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10100523672108699

I Love Paris in the Springtime....

Well we're not here in the Spring, but the weather has been incredible. The skies have been clear and the weather very mild. 

Also, I forgot to post this photo last night - we felt this was very French and no worries, we did not drink these bottles:

Today, we opted for breakfast crêpes - I had a Nutella and banana crêpe. We enjoyed them as we walked to the Picasso museum. I remember going to this museum years ago, but it felt like a different experience as they had renovated the museum recently and it took over 3 years to complete. Here are some of his paintings that I enjoyed:

We then sat in a cafe for some coffee and afternoon snacks before we headed to Montmartre to visit Sacre Coeur. We walked up the steps to the beautiful Basilica. Here I lit a candle and we enjoyed the sweeping views of the city. Here are some pictures - the pretty ones are credited to Mikey:

After enjoying the hilltop views, we headed down to the center of the city for some light shopping and enjoying more Christmas windows, such as at Printemps Department Store, sponsored by Burberry below:

All of us were then looking forward to our reservations at the popular restaurant Spring, where we enjoyed a price fixe menu and excellent service. A photo collage of our meal that included scallops with truffles and pumpkin and wild hare as a few of the highlights:

As a side note, kudos to Rachel for rocking the boot after 5 stitches last week, especially as we walk over 12,000 steps a day:

We walked home and enjoyed relaxing with champagne and a movie (do you want to build a snowman?). It's been wonderful being able to spend time together, conversing deeply, and joking around all day long. Something you can only do with good friends for all seasons!

We may have also had a dance party late into the night, enjoying old school jams - just like college....

Versailles

This morning, we essentially repeated our brunch from yesterday. Yay for team breakfast! We then got ready to go to Versailles which is beautiful. We had all been before, but it is truly a unique place. We took the metro and then the RER, the commuter rail. The train ride in total takes about an hour.

At the start, during some confusion with the tickets and lines, we took our obligatory selfie:

But then we were a bit silly at the entrance and made funny poses:

Here's the front of the Palace:

A few pictures of the Chapel:

The famous Hall of Mirrors including Mikey being a nice tourist:

Jacques-Louis David's famous "The Coronation of Napoleon" which I studied years ago: 

A few photos from the well-manicured gardens - hopefully, you are noticing Rachel's "teapot" imitation trend:

Some photos from Marie-Antoinette's home which was all new to us - it opened in 2006:

We then headed back to the city, after a bit of confusion on the trains and decided to go to Bistrot Paul Bert, a recommendation of Mikey's colleague. Our meal was fantastic and the price fixe was a great deal!

Appetizers: scallops, terrine, and beet carpaccio...

Entrées: white bean and sausage stew, pollock with mushrooms, and steak with fries....

Desserts: cheese board, soufflé, and chocolate mousse...

We then walked home to burn off the calories and on the way, we saw the Place de la Bastille as shown below:

As you can see, it's harder to write lots of detail with the entertaining company, but hopefully the pictures give a nice overview of our day!

Fauchon, For Sure

To start off the day, I would like to share what happens when you take wine + 3 old friends in a Parisian apartment + the Old Booth Application =

On Monday, we slept in and bought various groceries and breakfast food. Here's a photo of our team breakfast including to my delight, Bonne Maman yogurts and Mikey's amazing scrambled eggs:

After our brunch, we walked a few blocks to Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. This was one of my requests as it was closed for renovation during the summer I was here. The museum is a post modern / high tech complex, famous for the tubes of escalators. We enjoyed the DuChamp exhibit and the permanent collection. Here's a collage of the museum, the famous Stravinsky fountain, and a view of the Eiffel Tower from the top of the museum, plus a photo from our escalator ride:

We then walked to Place de La Madeleine, where we sampled the famous mustards of Maille. The Chablis Truffle mustard was delicious. We then headed to Fauchon, where we enjoyed a salted caramel éclair, macarons, a half bottle of Sauternes, and coffees / hot chocolate. I had the hot chocolate as I'm not a huge coffee person. The éclair melted in your mouth, while the chocolate raspberry macaron was my favorite. Some photos below:

To walk off our sugar high, we visited Galeries Lafayette, a famous department store. Mikey wanted to peruse some items and we happened to stumble upon their window show - the theme, "Christmas Monster", which I declared was very "French". I recorded a video as well on my digital camera, but here's a collage of photos taken by Mikey:

We then walked back home and video chatted with Mikey's husband, William. We wish he were here and he didn't have to work! Ironically enough, over the past few years, I have spent lots of time with William as I have an affinity for last minute free Broadway show tickets.

For dinner, we decided to revisit the crêperie across the street. This time, I ordered the chicken, cheese, and egg. We enjoyed our crêpes, watched a movie, and enjoyed the spoils of the interweb. Nothing too fancy, but just as relaxing and fun!

Meet Me in Paris? Um, Okay.

Mikey and I slept in this morning and waited for Rachel to arrive. This trip was a bit of a surprise. As we hung out in NYC in August, we talked about going somewhere. It was a bit last minute and they both left their families to be here, but due to how vacation timing worked out, they were able to travel to Paris!

Originally, I wasn't as keen on the idea as I like going to new countries. I lived in Paris over a month when I was 15 (summer of 1997) as part of an amazing program that integrated the city with our curriculum. I took a literature class, and when we read the various poets and authors, we would go to their gravesites or apartments; or when we read existential work, we would go to the famous cafe where they historically debated their theories. During that one month, my eyes were really opened and I saw everything you could possibly see. 

In the afternoons, we had walking tours with a Fine Arts Professor who would take us to neighborhoods or museums and explain everything to us. It was here, my hobby and love of art history really blossomed. Also during that one month, we did day trips to Giverny, Versailles, Vaux-Le-Vicomte, Fontainebleu, Normandie, and Chantilly. There is clearly more to see in France and coming when you're 33 is definitely different than when you're 15, so it didn't take that much convincing!

As many of you know, Rachel and I were roommates in college and Mikey was also Rachel's best friend from college. The 3 of us have been friends for over 10 years. Also, Mikey and I have traveled together to Israel (June 2006) and India (January 2009) to visit Rachel, and our love of travel and organizing complement each other quite nicely. 

Some throwback photos of Israel and India:

Around 1:30 pm, Mikey and I decided to go out for food and assumed Rachel would arrive after 2 pm and ate at a cafe near our apartment. Having made some wrong assumptions, during a small window, Rachel managed to sneak in and hang out in our building vestibule for an hour while we stared at the door from outside the cafe. When Rachel decided she did not want to be in the building's vestibule anymore, she came out and we saw her! We ate lunch while apologizing for our wrong assumptions and then we went home and planned out our week.

We decided to go grocery shopping, but everything was closed as it was Sunday. So we wandered and passed by the Notre Dame as pictured below and went to ÎIe Saint-Louis and bought cheese and wine. 

We returned home, bought crêpes from across the street, and watched a movie. We enjoyed our wine and cheese in our Parisian apartment and chatted the night away! Here's a picture of all the cheese!