The France Blog
France...land of cheese, wine and chocolate and a 1000 other things but I want to start this blog off with food.so let's go to the beginning. We ate some Montreal airport food at Brioche Doree, a crepe and a chicken apple brie baguette.
Meal time on the plane was my personal mess up, forgot to order a veggie meal in advance and ended up giving Donald the mustard chicken and he traded me his rice. We also got a yummy corn and edamame salad, bun and chocolate cake. I also snuck some avocado sushi on and it was super tasty.
Sleep was 2 fitful pieces of arms falling asleep, slipping blanket and the knowledge that you can't pee until the guy on the end gets up cause it's 2am and you shouldn't have had that 3 bottle of water. We landed at Charles De Gaulle a whole half an hour early but didn't quite make it up the runway. instead a lovely bus escorted us, jammed like sardines, to the terminal where we quickly retrieved the bag....yes, a solitary bag....and went off in search of a rental car. Have you ever driven through Quebec and wondered how in the name of Pete they got licenses? I am now in the country of the birth of bad drivers. Sadly the GPS we borrowed from the ma and pa mackinnon did not work....or we are in fact completely retarded and there is a way to find a city that exists outside the states on it....and thus began our driving adventure. There are many roundabouts here, like every 2 kms and the people on motorcycles, every other Parisian owns one, have a death wish. They weave in and out of traffic, there is no sharing the road, the roar up behind you, beside you left or right, whatever side they best squeeze into and roar up to the next set of lights doing 130 for a whopping 3 seconds. So, once you know to pay attention to the them, there are all the other drivers, who all should be in your lane and make their own lanes to get where you are. Frightening stuff. You have to drive it to believe it. So we end up finding really snazzy underground parking in front of the Arc De Triomphe, private elevator, piped in classical music and scented hallways! Wait till you see what we paid for 4 hours! We walk up into the sunlight and are blown away by the size of this thing! Speaking of things....could Napoleans be any smaller? I don't have actual first hand knowledge of this of course but this is as big as penis extenders come!
We talk the pics, skip the trip to the top...we are saving that for Notre Dame...and mosey down the Champs D'Elysee to do some window shopping. I DID NOT get a ring from Cartier...still not talking to my travel companion. We decide a coffee is in order so that we blend in and go hunting. Donald is convinced a side street will hold a treasure but we are more than 3/4 of the way down and I can see the Tuilieres Gardens and my eyeballs are swimming. THUS I am introduced to public toilette....ughhhh. Donald decides to pee and his mood significantly improve. I buy him a chocolate banana crepe thinking maybe I can get that ring after all and turn around to find him signing some beggar girls petition and she has her hand out....guess what the Donald does...drops a toonie on her, which I happen to witness, I bark his name quite loudly, frankly shocked, and he SNATCHES IT BACK OUT OF HER HAND! Truth be told she wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. My hand however is full of brie baguette and espresso and we walk the gardens and make our way to the Louvre. The weather is ass by the way. Windy, cold and just a peep of sun from behind the clouds. The Pyramid in front of the museum is quite impressive as are the crowds in line up. Having read that there are multiple places to buy tickets and skip the line, we walk around some more and realize we are on our way out and into the Rue de Rivoli. The quick plan of action change is to walk back to the car and head for Ticheville.
It is amazing that you can be thisfarfromthemonalisa and you decide that nothing in the whole world would be better than comfortable shoes and a warm bath. We will be back Paris on Sunday. Don't move. So back down the biggest shopping road in the world....not sure if that's true but it felt like it....one more longing and meaningful stare at Cartier....a no go....and we can't find the car.
Have I ever mentioned my ability to remember directions and be perfectly in home in a foreign city having only looked at a map once....put me in the parking lot of MicMacMall at Christmas and that's a different story....so I now where the car is but NOOOOOOOOO, hubby thinks it's somewhere else....well long story short, I won and we pull out of the parking lot, 14 euros lighter,my feet free from their prison and oh my god the smell, its like hot sick ass and dill pickles and then Donald takes off his shoes and it's like old cheese that threw up on itself and then the GPS STOPS working. We are in the middle of a roundabout and we have nowheretogoandthecrazymotorcyclesareeverywhereandwealmostgetrearended and Donald yells Booboo what in the $%^& are we supposed to do and I scream pull the &*#@ over you moron and let's fix it, which we do and we've managed to pull over on the road that leads out of town and we find ourselves in Ticheville about 170kms later.r lovely hostess Debbie meets us at the door, leads the way to the cottage and invites us for drinks in an hour. We bathe our feet, put on something clean and go and have a delicious meal.....
Here's what we had
Greek Baked Feta with sweet peppers, herbs, olive oil and onion
Tomato and Roasted Garlic Soup with smokey paprika and basil cream
Rosti Italian with roasted veggies, cheese and italian tomato sauce
Rosti 3 Fromages with goats cheese, brie and mimolette and roasted red pepper coulis sauce
glass of chateau gaillard touraine mesland...tasted like olive...don't know if this is a good thing but it wasn't for me
speciale barley malt blonde beer...tasted like shoe
and I had my dessert delivered because we had to walk off dinner.
I am so tired.a
Camembert tomorrow.....please let my guts be good
Brilliant!
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