Dennis & Aimee's Big Gay Paris Adventure

This weekend, just hours before our friend Greg came to visit, I took a train to London to see Belle and Sebastian perform. They're my favorite band, and I bought the tickets to this sold-out show in April, so I've been anticipating seeing them for quite some time. Sorry I missed a few nights of Greg's visit, but I think he understands. There were anywhere from 7 to 11 people performing at once, since this band uses a lot of strings (cello, violin) and a trumpet in their sweetly sinister Scottish pop music.

The concert was held in the Barbican Center, which is a giant concrete monstrosity that houses hundreds of apartments, two cinemas, two concert halls, and several restauarants. The outside is horribly ugly, but the band played in the symphony hall, which has outstanding acoustics. My friend Johnnie met me in London to see the show. The hook for the concert is that (among other songs) they played one of their albums in its entirety, as it was recorded. This album, "If You're Feeling Sinister" is my favorite, so rather than going to a concert in a huge hall where you can't really see the performers, and being disappointed since they don't play your favorite song, I got to see them in an intimate setting where they played ALL of my favorite songs. It was pretty wonderful. I guess it should have been, given how much the weekend cost.



Johnnie and I ate at a delicious restaurant called Wódka, and also at the Eagle, a gastropub. Wódka, which is in Kensington, has about 20 kinds of house-infused vodkas which were great. For starters I had seared foie gras on blinis, followed by veal and pine-nut meatballs with plum chutney. What a great treat!



Also in Kensington, where I've never been before, we saw Kensington Park, with it's statue of Prince Albert:



And the Builder's Arms, where I'll probably visit next time, just because it looked so warm and welcoming:



The Eagle is one of the pubs that started the gastropub movement, meaning that they have excellent food in a pub atmosphere. The first day we went there we were in between kitchen hours for lunch and dinner. That was unfortunate, since the menu featured middle eastern style food that day. We went back the next day and enjoyed sweet-spicy corn chowder among other things.

One of the best finds was a market on Farringdon called Flâneur. It was A huge, wood-panelled deli, with a large central service area, and a restaurant at the back. On display is a mind-boggling variety of pickles, preserves, sauces and honeys, plus an unusual variety of oils. Cheeses are attractively displayed on straw, many from Neal's Yard. Also on sale are wines, beers, breads and fresh fruit and vegetables. I had an awesome spanish wine there, and I wished I could bring the whole store home with me.

I like London. Shame it's so so so expensive. I did do some shopping, both at the Gap (I know, I know, but I bought some great jeans) and also at Fortnum and Mason (where I purchased some of the great curry my friend Meredith turned me on to) and at Selfridge's, which may be the coolest department store in the whole world.

--Aimee

This week, D's mom came to visit. She brought a friend from work, and they walked and ate their way around Paris. I got to see the Invalides (including the tomb of Napoleon), finally, and it was worth the wait. Inge brought Dennis some fancy dark-colored jeans that actually fit him. He's been styling!

We ate at several restaurants, but I think the best one was the seafood place near Porte Maillot that we've been eager to try. Dennis and his mom had the largest oysters I've ever seen. I had crab rillettes, which is like cold cooked crab spread, which was very very good.

Here are some photos of what we saw. First, here's Brenda and Inge at the top of the Eiffel Tower at night (Inge is on the right):



Napoleon is entoumbed in five layers of casket, the outermost is a giant piece of stone that looks like wood:



Above the casket is an absolutely gorgeous dome:



And I can't resist sharing another great shot of the Eiffel at night:



I think they had a nice time. It was a pleasure to have them here.

--Aimee

There's a movie in France called "Ma Sorcière Bien Aimée" that's advertised all over town. I think the movie is "Bewitched" in the US. Anyway, it's funny to see my name plastered all over the place.



--Aimée

Part 1, In which our heroine gets a view into the secret building:

Today I went for a walk. I had no idea where I'd end up -- I just wanted to get some exercise, but I got a little treat while I was out. I walked past the *back* door of the Grand Palais. (Yes, I know, I talk about that building a lot, but I like it.) Anyway, they're working on it, renovating it, and they have been doing so since I've lived here. I don't think they're planning to finish until 2007. From the outside, the building has a giant glass roof that looks like it's as big as a football field, but I've never been able to see so much as a sliver from the inside, until now!

There's a huge metal barrier around the back side of the building, but as I walked by, I noticed a big door slid open, and I could see little peeks inside. I had to work around the guard who was keeping curious onlookers like myself out of the building. Anyway, here's YOUR sneak preview.

The support beams look so delicate:


These people give you an idea of how BIG it is:


So, we'll see. If i'm still here when it re-opens, I'll be standing in line to get in. Such a neat building.

Part 2, in which we learn what to do with your extra train station:

The Musee d'Orsay is one of the most well-loved museums in Paris, but it used to be a train station. Even if there wasn't a single piece of art inside of the building, it'd be well worth the price of admission (which is only 5.50 Euros on Sunday) just to see the loving restoration. This is the inside:



That's just the center. There are galleries along either side full of fantastic pieces of furniture, recreated rooms, and artworks by Monet, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. I saw a painting by the latter that I've never seen before, and fell in love with:



I like it so much because the man's eyes are just a little bit open, like, he's looking at his wife while she's sleeping. It looks soft and warm and like they're in love. That's nice, isn't it?

While I was in the musem, I had a "degustation de fromage" in this awesome tearoom:



And I took a picture of the Louvre, just across the Seine, from the 6th floor cafe:


Not a bad day for a Sunday, huh? All that and a few mile walk to boot.

Dennis' mother shows up on Saturday, and our friend Greg comes just after she leaves, so it'll be a busy rest of the month. G'nite for now.

--Aimée

It's cool and overcast today. We had a great dinner last night with Graham and Anaïs (Graham is a friend from the US, Anaïs is his wife) and Huan and Becky (both pals from French class). We made a Mexican feast! Graham brought margaritas that were strong and delicious, and I made pork carnitas-style tacos and burritos. I bought the pork on Friday, brined it overnight, then slow-roasted it in the oven for 4 or 5 hours. then pulled it, refrigerated it, and fried it up with spices and pork juice for the filling. We also had fresh onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro, and limes, as well as beans and rice, caramelized onions, and real cheddar!

This morning when we came downstairs, this bird was sitting on the wall of our smaller terrace:



This is a ring-necked dove (as far as I can tell from the research I have done) and they're all over the place. They don't hang with the pigeons much, and they're much larger than the doves I'm used to in SF (mourning doves). They also make a completely different cooing sound. I'm a big fan of doves, so I'm pretty delighted that this guy has chosen to hang out with us for a while.

The picture is taken with our new camera, a Canon IXUS40, which is comparable to the Canon Elph model in the US that has 400 megapixels. That's double our old camera, and we have a much larger memory card for this one. It's smaller and lighter and more feature-rich, too. The higher megapixel count gives it an awesome digital zoom capability, which is how I managed to capture my friend here from across the room.

Maybe it'll inspire me to walk around Paris and take some photos today.

--Aimee

Yes, Venice is sinking, it's run down, it's full of tourists buying chotchkes and waiting in line, the canals are polluted, and there's not much hope of saving it from further demise.

BUT, it's still one of the most romantic and moody and rich and historic places I've ever visited. There's something about the boldness of a group of people who built a city on sand, and made it last for as long as it has. There's a magic to the architecture, a blend of warm Italian colors and intricate Turkish tracery. And the sheer delight of moving about the warren of a city without having to compete with cars or motorcycles. Even bikes are too hard to navigate over the bridges that crisscross every canal. To me, it's even fun to watch the garbage boat come and pick up the trash in the morning. Every time I go I feel like I'm privileged to get to hang out there for a while and soak it in.

This trip was especially fun, given that we got to stay in the house that Peter and Jung and Diana and Jens rented, so it's more like living there, and less like a hotel. We stayed in this house (the taller one on the right) which is the same house I stayed in when I joined Peter in Venice in 2001.



And the view out of our front window (we were on the top floor):



Please note that since we lost our camera in Venice, these pictures are Jung's -- she was very kind to let me download them from her camera before we left. Dennis and I were really thrilled that Peter and Jung let us share this vacation with them and impose on their privacy. Thanks again guys! Here they are all cute and engaged:



Peter knows about Italian wines and food, so it's a pleasure to have the benefit of his experience as we dined around town. And boy, did we ever dine. Oh man did we dine.

Three awesome places stand out for me. Well, four, actually, but one of the places we visited was Osteria Oliva Nera, the same place that Dennis and I found in February, and we've already written about it. (It's here, if you want to re-live our glory.) I had *excellent* sardines in saor there (a classic Venetian dish of sardines with onions, raisins and pine nuts) baccala, bigoli in salsa, an outstanding wine, and the nicest service in all of Venice. I'm going to try to make the sardine dish here once my local fishmonger opens back up again. Stay tuned for that.

So, before I tell you about the other places, I'd like to thank a very nice person, Shannon Essa, co-author of a great book on Venice dining called "Chow! Venice" about which you can learn more on their website, here: http://www.chowbellabooks.com/

Back before D and I went to Venice in February, I emailed Shannon for some suggestions, and she was free with her advice, including a few places that weren't in the book. Her email guided us to two of my three best experiences, and I'm grateful for her guidance. One of our group had a copy of her book, and it was a useful cross-reference for the myriad of choices.

So, #1, Corte Sconta -- a well known palace of seafood. Here we are enjoying ourselves:



The owner comes out at the beginning of the meal and recommends the courses. In our case, we had about seven or eight different fishy treats as our first course, ranging from crab-fat spread to marinated baby octopi, with a special treat of dressed spider crab, and fried tiny soft crabs no bigger than a half-dollar -- just pop the whole crab in your mouth! After the fish courses came pasta. We each got a plate with three lumps of pasta, one of which was the purple-black pasta in purple-black squid-ink sauce. It's delicious, of course, and one of the weirdest foods you'll ever eat. Black food just seems wrong.

#2 best meal: Al Bacco. This was Shannon's suggestion, and it was awesome, in part because it's so far out of the way of the normal tourist paths. It reminded me so much of having a meal in a pub in Fells Point in Baltimore. (I grew up in Baltimore, and Fell's Point is an old waterman's hangout on the Baltimore Harbor.) Folks came in and out for coffee, but we stayed for a long long lunch that included salt cod, creamy seafood gnocchi, and spaghetti with tomato sauce and assorted seafood. They were super-nice, and we sat at a long table by ourselves enjoying every bite.

#3 Pizzeria 84. If the first restaurant is a palace, this is a dive, but it's a *pizza* dive, which makes it great find. And finding it is *not easy*. If you manage, you'll find a stout dark-haired man at the counter handling carry-out orders, and a Jerry Garcia-esque figure manning the pizza oven. The smell when you walk in is heavenly, hinting at the perfectly cooked hand-thrown crust you searched so long to find. It's a weird, lovely, locals-only pizza joint, and we had a ball.

Other non-food highlights... I bought more glass beads on Murano, after a lengthy search every bead in the shop. We also (all four of us) visited Lido for our first time, and I walked along the beach in my bare feet. It was lovely, if a bit crowded for a beach resort. I'm glad we made the trek.

I've already overstayed my welcome with this post, so I'll sign off with a few more pictures. Starting with the Grand Canal:



Here's Lido from the Vaporetto (water bus):



Here's how Venice makes me feel, every time I go:



--Aimée

This little fish has the life. He's sleeping the afternoon away on his four-leaf clover. I have Venice news to blog, but I'm busy until the weekend. For now, I thought you might appreciate this relaxing interlude.



--Aimée