Monday, May 12, 2008

Paris: Day 4

This was one of the days I looked forward to the most – getting to meet sewing friends, both real and virtual – in Paris. I already had plans with Trena to meet at Notre Dame at 1:00 p.m., and when I got up in the morning, I called Isabelle to confirm that she would meet us at 5:00 p.m.

After breakfast at the Fontaine de Sully across the street, we spent the morning aimlessly wandering the streets, one of my favorite activities. I saw a lot of intriguing things in store windows (separate post about that later), but most of the stores weren’t open so I couldn’t try things on. Just as well – I’d rather make it than buy it, even in Paris.

Trena was right where she said she’d be, and after meeting her friends and sending them off to Berthillon, she and Mario and I had lunch. Then she and I took the metro up to Anvers to Sacre Coeur and the fabric stores, where we weresurprised to discover that Reine was closed! So were a lot of the other shops, but we went to Dreyfus and managed to find a few things there. Women who want fabric will find it, if it exists. And sometimes even if it doesn't. After a café stop, and more conversation, we made it back to my hotel by 5:00 p.m. to meet Isabelle, who is even more petite adorable than she appears in her blog.

Isabelle explained to us that the reason the fabric stores were closed was because it was Pentecost. I knew something was up – the vestments on the priest at the local church had changed from red to green, and even to non-Catholic that’s a head-up of something big – but my loveable lapsed Catholic couldn’t remember what it meant.

We walked together down toward the Bastille to Dalloyeau for pastry. It was worse than being kids in a candy store – imagine being kids in a candy store where the candy is stuff you never imagined could exist, and it was all too pretty to think about eating. Except of course we did eventually choose something, and we certainly ate it right down to the crumbs, all the while talking about sewing and our lives and all the fun things you find to talk about with people you know without ever having met before (or in Trena’s case, twice briefly at PR Weekends, but this was our longest conversation). We had a handsome waiter take our picture sitting outside.

By 6:30 p.m. we split up, Isabelle to go back to her dissertation, Trena to do some food shopping – lucky woman has an apartment with a kitchen! – and me to collect Mario and discuss where we would have dinner later.

We walked over to Rue Saint-Severin to eat. The area is a little touristy, but there are some restaurants which weren’t packed with Americans and we chose one called Le Tango de Chat, which of course I liked because of the name. The meal – warm goat cheese salad and roast pork with sautéed prunes – was very good. The only giveaways that it was a restaurant aimed at tourists was the default side vegetable was French fries, though good ones, and the chocolate mousse was a little over-refrigerated. But the food was still good and it was a definite break for the budget, which was feeling a little tight and we wanted to save up a bit to treat ourselves on our last night in Paris.

2 comments:

Tany said...

Thank you so much for taking us with you to Paris! You've made me go back to my vacation trip where I had the pleasure of meeting dear Isabelle too! Isn't she wonderful?

Kitty Couture said...

I haven't been able to catch up on your blog posts Karen...
We did have a lovely time together! I hope we can meet again some day, on the other side of the pond perhaps?

Do you mind if I "steal" your picture for my blog? (I'd rehost it on my own blog, of course).