Gay Paree 2024 day 7

last full day. Lots of snails i'm tellin ya. Nicole stays in the house now and was there working from home everyday because the Olympics asked people to work from home. She's originally the friend of Martine and ? across the street. So Nicole had a housemate all summer and unfortunately it was bob.

cute lil round about near the house

our boulangerie was closed the whole time for summer vacay. look at those prices. a normal baguette has only gone up 5 cents in 11 yrs and it seems like that's true with most things at the baker

ryan and i were battling with getting our deadlines done every morning. The one time i have an editorial assignment due in the last 4 yrs had to be when i was in paris.

Le Bonaparte. Look at those guys. Would you.

le bonaparte is expensive but the views and ambience are nice

that olympic balloon in the tuilleries

Place Vendome on our way to meet Lori

met Lori at this wine bar La Goberie. Lori is from hawaii and her sister was jen's sisters best friend and they're still friends so it's a small world. Now lori is married to a frenchman and they have kids and were actually in Hawaii the same time we were but Lori had covid so we didn't see her.

my disaproving face as bob and ryan eat korean hot dogs in Paris

Get 27 is a gross menthol drink

we hooved it over to Belleville, Edith Piaf's neighborhood. Its still a little grimy and edgy. I think my fav bar has been Aux Folies, such a diverse crowd in every way including age. Just really a cool bunch of young and old and counter culture and businessmen hanging out at this corner bar.

Le Baratin for dinner. The craziest menu, so much so i didn't know most of what this was. We google translated Canette de Racon and it said canned racoon and it was so french of a place we were like oh i guess they do that here. After wondering if they'd help us they finally did and we did have a reservation i had to make in french so i always wonder but in reality in france and even paris they just take their time. The food was amazing

i think duck steak marget de canard, tuna steak

just look at those juices, that is a job so mean for baguettes i want to cry

this veal was somehow like air puffed and had a crazy texture.

would be cool to have a couple sauveterre steak knives

on the way to the airport. bob was staying 2 more days and had to clean and stuff

Ryan was low energy that day cuz he was falling victim to Covid19! I was also feeling bad 2 days later so my prize for waking up at home the next day was covid. That is what you get for traveling to paris for a week and going hard. Bob and Jen never got it though. 

Final Paris thoughts: Its been 11 yrs but it seems the same to me. I had to update my google map and it seemed like 85 percent of the places were still in business. My guess is that partial socialism helps small businesses especially through covid. The french still take the time to enjoy life. I morn for not having so much green space and public space and having a super walkable city free from excessive traffic. As usual the quality of life there is greater than nyc. Of course theres things here they dont have there like prospect park off leash hours. Paris feels like a nice mix of city and relaxed. You could squirrel away in a quite corner of the city and barely know you're in paris or you can find nightlife and bars and restaurants and people watching. Oh the people watching. You just don't have a cafe/bistro on every corner set up explicitly to drink inexpensive but good wine and people watch unabashedly. Maybe they do a better job and helping mentally ill people in france. If we had to live somewhere maybe Paris would be a great option. With my rudimentary french we were able to get around and they do still appreciate the attempt. Bob got to do a bunch of stuff he couldn't do solo. We got to relive paris and be young again for a week and even do some new stuff. Having ryan there was awesome and a real spirit booster cuz he such a jolly guy who's down for anything and we all wanted to show Paris. à la prochaine fois paris

Gay Paree 2024 Day 6

Day 6 we rented a car to go to Giverny and Versailles. Sure you can take the train there easily cuz its europe and has a very functioning infrastructure but we wanted and adventure and what an adventure it would end up being. We got up early, everyone got to the car rental place but i didn't have my passport so bob who was bringing up the rear ran and got it. We ended up with an electric BMW suv which had all the bells and whistles. We paid like 80 euros for gas fill up which later we were like what this is an electric vehicle what did we pay for? But later on we'd be glad we did that. Do you have to charge the car before you bring it back? idk but we'd be very stressed out and glad we didn't have to think about any of that.

the ticket that was supposed to be left in the car but wasn't. We ended up being fine.

are we having fun yet boys?

when in france, frolick

Giverny is Claude Monet's house and here he is looking like a bad ass rich artist

he had a sweet kitchen

on our way to Versaille we tried to find a cute lil town for lunch but went through a few kinda grimy not charming towns so we ended up eating acceptable to less than acceptable food close to the front gates of Versailles.

of course it started raining and we had no umbrellas and we had tickets but the place with swamped with tourists so there was still a line.

bobby had already been to Versaille but none of us had been so we went to look at the gardens while he stood in line but it was raining so we could only take a few min of this.

my illustrator pal Nico Delort who's famous for for his insane scratch board illustrations came to meet us because he lives inbtn Giverny and Versailles.

really nice time we're having

when bob went there were like 3 people but for us it was so packed it was almost unenjoyable.

so we all made appointments to get tattoos at this famous place in Paris so we had to zip out of Versailles early. I felt bad that Nico came out for and hour but we had to return the car also and make it to our tattoo appointments. At some point in the trip they called and told us some convoluted thing about returning the car to a different place and its down in whatever level of the parking garage. We got back late so bob hoof'd it over to the tatto place so at least he could get one and we started our crazy journey of trying to return the car. we finally found the parking garage but when we got to the subterannean level we were supposed to go to it was blocked off, so we kept going down until there was a total blockage going down and a blockage going anywhere else so we had to squeeze the car into this side spot and run around the parking garage as we split up looking for someone to help us. This is a foreign country and english isn't the primary language which added to the stress on top of we were missing our tattoo appointments. All the while eerie elevator music was playing through tin speakers. eventually after running the length of the parking garage on several levels i find a booth with a disgruntled old guy and a line of disgruntled car rental people. As he dealt with each person finally it was my turn and he begrudgingly locked the door and took me and ryan (whom appeared later after stumbling across this same booth) down to the level our car was stuck at. We were walking with this old guy the whole length of the parking garage so it was weird. he had to stand at the top of one level and stop traffic so i could back the car up this steep winding hill. While we were gone some woman in a sprinter van ended up in the same predicament as us and had to do the same thing. We finally were shown the spot to leave the car and we tossed the keys in the return box and hoped for the best and everything turned out fine.

we didn't make it in time for our tats but bob did which maybe worked out ok because he was the only one that was truly ready for a tat. His artist was this very young russian guy that fled so he didn't have to fight in the war on Ukraine so he was traveling all over europe getting hired at tattoo spots and was actually leaving the next day and didn't know what his life would become. This is bobs rebel alliance star wars tat in progress.

Jen and Ryan were drinking at La Troquet du Temple around the corner and when we met up the barman and pal were asking me where my shirt was from.

we went to a place I love, Chez Janou which was the best dining experience. Its a fun atmosphere, had the best waiters, and the price is right and the food is good.

i'd never had this before, farcis provençaux, stuffed provencal vegetables. This trio is a tomato, little ball zuccini, and a pepper and it was amazing. I was so amazed i made this when we got back and i think it might have been even better.

for me i love the giagantic serving of mousse chocolat that slap down onto a plate in front of you from a giant bowl. I asked for 2 orders and the waiter was looking at me a little weird and i knew they were big so i said , is that crazy ordering 2? and he said, you only need 1 and we all laughed. And we didn't even finish half of it cuz its so dense. We had some crazy digestifs. Ryan had the patis flambee shrimp and had visibly low energy....