I'm writing this at 3am and Matt was just remarking how hungry he is. That should give you some indication of how the jet lag situation is going.
After we arrived yesterday, we broke the cardinal rule of preventing jet lag and took a nap. And not a brief, 20-30 minute power nap, no, we took The Nap to end all naps. Despite our solemn swears to immediately adapt and push ourselves and go to bed at 8pm so we would get used to things, we got to the room, looked at the bed, looked at each other, said "20 minutes" and then slept for about 6 hours. Whoopsies.
As soon as we woke up again, we knew we had made a big mistake. But it didn't matter, because the streets literally looked and felt exactly the same at 5pm as they did at 11am. So we changed, and went for a walk around the area we're staying in. We found the park, found a lake, found a lot of restaurants and cafes that I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of at some point, and then went back to the room for a little R&R (not that we should have needed it after that nap), and then went out to get some dinner.
We had been advised that most dinner places open at 7 or 7:30, so we waited until 8:00 and headed over to the Bistrot de la Porte Doree, a restaurant that is literally almost next door to our hotel. I'm not going to go so far as to say it was the best meal I've ever had, but the food had a few high points and the service was friendly enough.
We walked in, became the 7th and 8th people in the room (it was practically empty), and were shown to our table. We knew from looking online that it was a prix fixe menu (this means that it had an entree, main course, and dessert selection of about 8 things each, and for a set price of 38 euro. Also, the wine was included in the price.), so we were prepared to order the proper amount of courses when the waiter came. What we were regrettably not prepared for was the menu vocabulary. Although we both speak french, and pretty decent french at that, there was just no course either of us had ever taken that described, in detail, the names of various sauces and preparations of meats. So we knew enough to tell what meat we were ordering, but not enough to know how it would come.
I started with escargots (surprise!), which were very delicious, and Matt had a dish involving profiteroles (little puffy pastries) and lots of melted cheese. The taste was very sharp and tangy- think blue cheese and cheddar mixed together. It was divine. Then we both had the piece du boeuf (piece of beef, literally translated) with pear sauce, potatoes sliced very thinly and fried lightly, and green beans. The meat we both found to be a little tough, even Matt's piece which he had ordered rare (it was still mooing), but enjoyed it with the taste of the sauce. The desserts were good, I don't think either of us were overwhelmed, but I was happy with it nonetheless. I had profiteroles (again, puffy pastries) with ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio) in the middle, drowned in chocolate sauce, and Matt had vanilla creme brulee. I would go so far as to say his dessert was better than mine, just because mine felt very...ordinary. Like an ice cream sundae, but with pastry bits. I say that like its a bad thing, despite having eaten the entire dish with gusto, so don't think it wasn't still yummy.
And, as I mentioned before, a bottle of wine was included with our meal. The whole bottle. Challenge accepted. We ordered the house red, and were thrilled with what we got. Neither spicy nor dry, just flavorful and easy to drink. And drink we did. We polished off the whole bottle, I drank it like it like I would never be able to drink wine again. So good. Which was nice because my ability to speak french to foreigners improves in direct correlation with my alcohol consumption (not the quality of my french, just my ability to use it, this is an important distinction). This came in handy when it came time to ask for the check because not only could we not remember the word for check (it's l'addition, if anyone's interested), but we also couldn't get the waiter to bring it to us, as he had done with all the other couples in the restaurant. In America, this wouldn't have been a problem, but when you're in Europe and you're using everyone else in the restaurant to figure out social cues, and the waiter does something completely different with you, it's very near traumatizing. After a little pushing from me (Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!), Matt managed to make eye contact and mutter something about "le billet" (the ticket, it was the best we could do), and the waiter said "Ah" and brought it to us, like he had forgotten we were the only damn people in the restaurant, monsieur. So with our stomachs pleasantly full and our livers thoroughly saturated, we stumbled back to our room, remarked a little about the experience, and crawled into bed. And now, six hours later, we are wide awake. C'est la vie.
Tomorrow (I mean today) we meet up with Matt's friend Devlin, his best friend Taylor's older sister, who is currently staying in Paris as well. We don't know what we'll do yet, but she advertised where she was staying quite well (Ten minutes from Notre Dame!), so I would imagine we'll check out some locations in that area (think Saint Chapelle as well). Terribly excited.
After we arrived yesterday, we broke the cardinal rule of preventing jet lag and took a nap. And not a brief, 20-30 minute power nap, no, we took The Nap to end all naps. Despite our solemn swears to immediately adapt and push ourselves and go to bed at 8pm so we would get used to things, we got to the room, looked at the bed, looked at each other, said "20 minutes" and then slept for about 6 hours. Whoopsies.
As soon as we woke up again, we knew we had made a big mistake. But it didn't matter, because the streets literally looked and felt exactly the same at 5pm as they did at 11am. So we changed, and went for a walk around the area we're staying in. We found the park, found a lake, found a lot of restaurants and cafes that I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of at some point, and then went back to the room for a little R&R (not that we should have needed it after that nap), and then went out to get some dinner.
We had been advised that most dinner places open at 7 or 7:30, so we waited until 8:00 and headed over to the Bistrot de la Porte Doree, a restaurant that is literally almost next door to our hotel. I'm not going to go so far as to say it was the best meal I've ever had, but the food had a few high points and the service was friendly enough.
We walked in, became the 7th and 8th people in the room (it was practically empty), and were shown to our table. We knew from looking online that it was a prix fixe menu (this means that it had an entree, main course, and dessert selection of about 8 things each, and for a set price of 38 euro. Also, the wine was included in the price.), so we were prepared to order the proper amount of courses when the waiter came. What we were regrettably not prepared for was the menu vocabulary. Although we both speak french, and pretty decent french at that, there was just no course either of us had ever taken that described, in detail, the names of various sauces and preparations of meats. So we knew enough to tell what meat we were ordering, but not enough to know how it would come.
I started with escargots (surprise!), which were very delicious, and Matt had a dish involving profiteroles (little puffy pastries) and lots of melted cheese. The taste was very sharp and tangy- think blue cheese and cheddar mixed together. It was divine. Then we both had the piece du boeuf (piece of beef, literally translated) with pear sauce, potatoes sliced very thinly and fried lightly, and green beans. The meat we both found to be a little tough, even Matt's piece which he had ordered rare (it was still mooing), but enjoyed it with the taste of the sauce. The desserts were good, I don't think either of us were overwhelmed, but I was happy with it nonetheless. I had profiteroles (again, puffy pastries) with ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio) in the middle, drowned in chocolate sauce, and Matt had vanilla creme brulee. I would go so far as to say his dessert was better than mine, just because mine felt very...ordinary. Like an ice cream sundae, but with pastry bits. I say that like its a bad thing, despite having eaten the entire dish with gusto, so don't think it wasn't still yummy.
And, as I mentioned before, a bottle of wine was included with our meal. The whole bottle. Challenge accepted. We ordered the house red, and were thrilled with what we got. Neither spicy nor dry, just flavorful and easy to drink. And drink we did. We polished off the whole bottle, I drank it like it like I would never be able to drink wine again. So good. Which was nice because my ability to speak french to foreigners improves in direct correlation with my alcohol consumption (not the quality of my french, just my ability to use it, this is an important distinction). This came in handy when it came time to ask for the check because not only could we not remember the word for check (it's l'addition, if anyone's interested), but we also couldn't get the waiter to bring it to us, as he had done with all the other couples in the restaurant. In America, this wouldn't have been a problem, but when you're in Europe and you're using everyone else in the restaurant to figure out social cues, and the waiter does something completely different with you, it's very near traumatizing. After a little pushing from me (Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!), Matt managed to make eye contact and mutter something about "le billet" (the ticket, it was the best we could do), and the waiter said "Ah" and brought it to us, like he had forgotten we were the only damn people in the restaurant, monsieur. So with our stomachs pleasantly full and our livers thoroughly saturated, we stumbled back to our room, remarked a little about the experience, and crawled into bed. And now, six hours later, we are wide awake. C'est la vie.
Tomorrow (I mean today) we meet up with Matt's friend Devlin, his best friend Taylor's older sister, who is currently staying in Paris as well. We don't know what we'll do yet, but she advertised where she was staying quite well (Ten minutes from Notre Dame!), so I would imagine we'll check out some locations in that area (think Saint Chapelle as well). Terribly excited.
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