While the Easter bunny didn't visit us in Paris this year, we did find a party on the Champ de Mars.
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A few weeks ago, I found a Groupon for a great deal on a 90-minute Thai massage here in Paris. Before I purchased, I checked to make sure the place was legit and well-reviewed, which it was. Done. Deal purchased, and online appointment booked.
I forgot about the part when it came time to actually have the massage (earlier today), when I was desperately trying to understand what the lovely Thai woman was saying to me in French. What type of massage do I want? I don't know, whatever I signed up for. Am I supposed to take off all my clothes? Some of them? None of them? I reverted to a happy medium, although I'm pretty sure she told me to strip down to my birthday suit. This is not the first time I have had a "confused massage" experience. I can't help but laugh when I think about all of the times I have paid money to feel like such an idiot in my quest to have the stress kneaded and stretched out of my body. So here are my top five most memorable and/or confusing massage experiences, in descending order of awkwardness: #5: Kidnapped in Bangkok Got your attention, right? So I wasn't actually kidnapped. I just had the quintessential Thai experience of telling a taxi driver a specific destination - the massage parlor recommended by a staffer at the Embassy where we had appointments for 8pm sharp - and the taxi driver deciding he was instead going to drive us to his buddy's massage parlor. That was probably the third time on that trip a taxi driver had hijacked our plans in order to get a little kick-back for dropping us off at a friend's establishment, but messing with our massage plans was just too much. I unfastened my seatbelt, and leaned as far to the front of the cab as I could, and proceeded to tell that little Thai man exactly how unimpressed we were with his detour, and demanded he drive us to the damn place we asked him to cart our stressed-out carcasses in the first place. Not exactly the most zen intro to a Thai massage, but memorable nevertheless. As in all major cities with metro/subway systems, you're bound to encounter someone on the train looking for money in Paris. The ones I enjoy the most bring large instruments and serenade us for a few metro stops. You have to be seriously talented to play an instrument while the train is bouncing around at top speed. I have a hard time staying upright on my own without the assistance of a pole.
Let's face it. My husband is far more comfortable in Asia than in Europe. Having spent two+ years living in Thailand, followed by a good decade studying and working in Southeast Asia, he's pretty much right at home in anything that looks, smells or tastes like Asia. So it is incredibly fortunate for us that while he's acclimating to European life, the largest Chinatown in Europe is in our backyard. Paris' Chinatown - or Quartier Chinois - is about a 30 minute metro ride to the 13th arrondissement. It's not fancy, but it's most definitely an authentic experience without the expense of a traveling to another continent. We spent yesterday afternoon walking around the streets of Chinatown, allowing the aromas drifting from the Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Thai and Chinese restaurants to awaken the vivid memories of the times we have both traveled throughout the region. The sense of smell is incredible in that respect - it can pick you up and transport you to a different place and time. I'm not sure how many Parisians take a regular trip to this part of town (who don't live there or find an expat community there), but I think we will be making regular visits to this part of the city to stock up on all the mangosteen, rambutan, longan and tamarind we can eat.
My new-found obsession is tamarind, which is like fruit crack, for anyone who hasn't tried it yet... It's basically a food staple throughout the ENTIRE world, but I somehow made it this far in life without trying it. I plan to make up for lost time. Typically, when people think of Burgundy, they think of the wine that comes from this region of France. You can close your eyes and a picture rolling hills of vineyards baking in a perpetual sunshine. While this reality of Burgundy may exist on certain days and in certain places, it was not what we experienced on our maiden voyage to Burgundy (or Bourgogne, as the French call it) for our third mini-moon of 2014. For this trip, we again rented a car in Paris so that we could have the flexibility to drive around the country. Without going into too much detail, renting a car in Paris is not the most relaxing way to kick off a weekend. We rented the car trough a service called locationdevoiture.fr, which was a great deal until we discovered they had sub-contracted our rental to a company we had never heard of before. It took a bit of detective work just to find out who had our rental. It also probably bears mentioning for those of you who have not spent a lot of time in Europe that this is a continent of stick-shift drivers. It is not at all common for rental companies to have automatic transmission vehicles in stock, and when they do, you're going to pay an arm and a leg for it. Driving is a great way to see France, but it can be stressful (especially if you're not used to stick shift!) and gas and toll roads are super expensive. But I digress - back to Burgundy. If you take a look at the map on the right above, you can find the town we stayed in for the weekend (Saulieu) at the Hôstellerie de la Tour d'Auxois. The hotel was super cute, and our visit included dinner and a kir on Friday night. For those of you who love a good kir (am I right, Neha?), the cocktail actually comes from this region. We also found a fantastic local café in Saulieu that looked right out of a movie, filled with locals drinking coffee, wine, and beer at all hours of the day. Michael is getting to be quite the coffee drinker these days). Our big outing for the weekend was on Saturday, when we drove around to check out the nearby villages. First on the list was Flavigny-sur-Ozerain for lunch. Flavigny is a member of "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France" - most beautiful villages in France - and is where the movie Chocolat was filmed in 2000, starring Johnny Depp as a brooding gypsy (of course). The town also produces a popular French aniseed candy here, too. All of this added up to seem like a perfect way to kick off our local Burgundy village tour. It turns out we were right, but not in the way we expected. The town was indeed beautiful... but it was deserted. And not in the way that perhaps everyone could be excused for sleeping in late sort of deserted. Buildings were for sale; restaurants were closed; windows were shuttered; paint was pealing from buildings. The Chocolat store front was marked, but empty. We found a few priests and a smattering of tourists, but that was pretty much it. I will say, though, our lunch was fantastic. We ate in a family-owned restaurant called La Grange, which serves only a few dishes every day with food from the local farms. And of course, good wine. Our next destination was the larger town of Beaune, which is a really lovely place to visit. Beaune is at the heart of Burgundy wine country, and is definitely a place I would spend more time in the future. We spent a few hours touring the Hôtel-Dieu, which we both agreed was one of the best museum tours we have ever taken. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Just check out this architecture. Driving through the countryside of Burgundy, you can't help but feel both the beauty of the place. But what was so striking to us was that we passed through so many villages that looked absolutely devoid of human life.
Apparently, this phenomenon is happing all throughout Europe - young people are leaving villages to find work in the bigger cities like Paris. This BBC article published last year tells a similar story, and I have heard likewise from Italian and Spanish colleagues at work - their villages are aging, and slowly dying. What a sad reality for us sentimentalists. But overall, we did have a fantastic - though unexpected - weekend, and I would say we will definitely go back to see what it's like in the summer. And of course, visit all of the vineyards we missed the first time around :) You can see more of our pictures from the weekend here. You Google how to make them yourselves. We had become quite used to heading to Whole Foods and picking up a box or two of Lara Bars every few weeks; especially in the height of our pursuit of eating better (real) food - which we're trying to do again after a few hectic months of eating literally whatever would keep us alive. We've certainly enjoyed eating all the baguettes and croissants we could manage since arriving in Paris, but there is seriously a point where you just have to stop and re-evaluate your behavior ;) Michael's first round of what we are now calling "Mikey Bars" was a huge success, thanks to our new food processor and some good instincts from our handsome chef. Here's how it went down: So for a fraction of the price, and a little bit of elbow grease (pitting dates is no fun), we now have homemade Lara/Mikey Bars in Paris. Thanks be to Google for helping us find recipes for all the American things we took for granted and just can't get here without spending an arm and a leg. Here's the recipe we used as a starter - go crazy, they're fantastic. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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