The European Adventures of G & A

Photos from an outing in Paris. Aren't we sophisticated-looking travellers?

Hello Everyone,

We are enjoying our second day in Copenhagen, but must first tell you about our time in Paris. There must be a chinese proverb somewhere that says, "if the journey begins with sorrow, it will end in joy". Well, we are not going to China, so screw that. I wouldn't call it sorrow, but we did have a bit of a rough start. After an uneventful flight we landed in Paris at about 10 am on Tuesday morning. Somehow between the airport and our hotel my credit card was already gone. I had put my credit card case in a small cosmetic bag and was holding it in the front pocket of my jeans so that it would be easily accesible and I thought, safe. Thankfully my passport and ATM card were in my bag. It is possible that I was pickpocketed. More likely though,the bag fell out of my pocket when I got smashed in between the doors of the train while getting off the metro. I was literally being squished in two as the charachteristically indifferent French failed to notice and Adam, who was in back of me looked on with a combination of concern and the fear that he was about to laugh so hard he would pee his pants.

It was quite an ordeal to notify the credit card company of the loss due to communication issues and being unable to use an international phone to dial an 800 number. By the time we had ironed it all out, the jerk(s) had charged $12,000 to my account, with $950 to a perfumerie. We are looking forward to spending more time in Paris at the end of our trip, as we didn't see much in the 2 days we were there, related to our sleep patterns, which have still not normalized. We did however have some highlights. We stayed in a really great neighborhood near the Place De Republique in the 11th arrondissement. Our impression of the neighborhood was that it was much more typically Parisian than the other districts that are constantly filled with tourists. We enjoyed walking around that evening, getting the lay of the land and eating delicious sandwhiches of fresh french bread and brie. It was warm and humid, and we didn't even need a jacket at night.

Our hotel was, let me see if I can remember how to say this in French... Le shithole. The lobby was nice (we will never be fooled by a lobby again!), and the staff were helpful, but the room itself was really crappy. The paint in the bathroom was peeling, the TV didn't work, the tub didn't drain, the carpet bore little resemblence to a carpet and the room was tiny (maybe the size of the bathroom in my apartment on 7th avenue). We had to leave the window open because of the humididty. The guy in the room next to us was watching TV all night in French and hysterically laughing. He sounded exactly like Arnold Horshack from "Welcome Back Kotter", which made us crack up too. Adam thinks he was watching Jerry Lewis, I'm pretty sure it was one of my stand up tapes. Our room was next to the elevator, which was very old and felt like an earthquake every time it passed. It may have also been used variously as the honeymoon suite or a brothel. I'm just glad "Arnold Horshack" took the stairs.

We both found the French that we encountered to be very friendly. We especially liked our server at Restaurant L'Occitane, a little bistro where we had an amazing dinner of cassoulet, salad with smoked pork, pate and lots of red wine. The dinner was our first splurge, and very appreciated after a long day of sight seeing. We saw on our walks, Notre Dame, The Latin Quarter, The Pompidou Center, The Hotel Deville, and several views of the city from the bridges overlooking the Seine.

The Parisians are remarkably stylish, and many of the women stunning. Everyone is wearing boots. With shorts, dresses, skirts...everything. And, skinny jeans are back, on both the men and the women. We are noticing these trends as well in CPH, and will write soon to tell you about our time here. We are off to get dinner now and walk around.

We hope that everyone is doing well, and we are keeping you in our thoughts.

Love,
Gretchen and Adam

Hey Everybody!

Adam and I are off to Europe early Monday morning the 18th of September. In order to keep you all up to date on our travels I will be writing a travel diary on this site that you can check periodically. We will be able to keep in touch through email during our trip and look forward to hearing how everyone is doing. We will not have our cell phones. We will be back on the 22nd of October.

Our first stop is Paris (that's in France).

We can't wait!!!

Love, Gretchen (and Adam)