Category: Paris, France

We woke up at 11am after a long slumber. Even my parents who are early risers were surprised they slept soundly. As soon as we all got ready, we bought our first croissants from the bakery downstairs. The boy was right; croissants in France are flakier than American ones. Then I bought a cup of real hot chocolate across the street at Cacao et Chocolat. It was drizzling but we were adamant to start our walk around Saint Germain and the Latin Quarter.

On Saint-Germain Boulevard, we stopped by the St. Nicolas church on rue de Pontoise to dry up and get our bearings. Not knowing how to read a map even if I’m stuck in a big city, we kept trudging on toward rue des Écoles until we finally saw a sign that said Panthéon. We walked up rue des Carmes and voila!

We paid our €7-admissions–at $1 = €1.42 rate!–and spent a couple of hours checking out Louis XV’s thank you gift to Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, and visiting the tombs of France’s most influential figures. My mom was most impressed with the naves and the dome, while my dad, as expected, mentioned that there’s a “similar” building in Ilocos Sur. I rolled my eyes at my mom and she gave me that knowing smile. Down at the crypt, Voltaire, Hugo and Dumas–Marie Curie as the only woman–are among those buried.

I was hungry when we stepped back out in the rain. We walked down the hill and decided to have lunch at La Paillote D’or, a restaurant that “spécialités Vietnamiennes.” If my French serves me right, why, I believe that means they got phở inside! I struggled when I ordered, but I managed to get my parents beef saté (boeuf) and grilled pork (porc grillé) and myself a bowl of phở with papaya salad (salade de papaye). My very faint deux bols de riz, s’il vous plaît got my dad two bowls of rice. (My mom squealed, You’re so cute!) I know that chicken is poulet but goddamn it, I’m not having boring chicken in France!

The rain let up, so we continued on without really being sure where we were headed, but when I noticed the sign for the Sorbonne, we cut through, said a quick hello and took a photo.

Jardin du Luxembourg was unmistakable on Saint-Michel Boulevard. It was so beautiful even without leaves on the trees. The Palais du Luxembourg, the seat of the French senate, was grand and it was a nice backdrop to the Fontaine de Médicis and its surrounding statues.

Next stop was the church of St-Sulpice, most famous for its Delacroix frescoes. I’ve gone into more churches the last day and half than I have in the past year! My dad bought another candle and lit it in front of the Pietà.

We spent the last light walking back home. The rain was steadier, so we admitted it was time to give our feet some rest. A couple of hours later, we went to Aux Anysetiers du Roy to eat dinner. I encouraged my parents to be more adventurous. We ordered and shared the salade de gésiers and the half dozen escargots with the sôle meuniere and the fricasée de volailles.

We also bought milk, butter, tea and beer from the store across our apartment with the friendly Moroccan clerks. My mom stopped by the bakery by herself and bought a baguette by showing the clerk the universal symbol for “one” and uttering “bread.”

I think we’re getting the hang of Paris.

Related post/s:
Day 1: Arriving in Paris
Planning a trip to Paris

The three Filipinos made it to Paris!

Our flight left for Iceland at around 9pm. Five hours later as the sun was rising in Reykjavik, we had our passports stamped through customs. We boarded the flight to Charles de Gaulle and finally got some much-needed sleep. We arrived in Paris a little after noon. My parents waited for an hour to pick up the wheelie we were required to check in at JFK while I changed some dollars to a whopping €1.31 rate! From there, the adventure began.

The Cia plan had us take the lift back down to the departures area where we got on the shuttle bus to the RER B which in turn connected us to the city’s Metro. I bought three Visite cards, the equivalent of New York’s unlimited Metrocard, but wasn’t informed that I can only begin using them on Monday until those damn turnstiles showed us Xs on the small screens. I stood back in line and bought three €8 tickets to Châtelet-Les Halles, the grand mama of all Metro stops. We walked and walked to follow the signs to the Mairie d’Ivry #7, got on and stepped out at the next stop, Pont Marie.

The Seine was right there and we all let out a sigh of relief. We crossed the bridge to ÃŽle Saint-Louis and walked a few more blocks to the apartment. Of course, the Cia plan is never fool-proof; I forgot to write down the agent’s cell phone number and there were no pay phones around to call the owner. I asked two hotel employees and the grocery store clerk across the street but they all said I had to get out of the island to find a pay phone. My last course was the man carrying a paper bag full of baguettes. He lent me his cell phone and I finally talked to the apartment owner. Someone was watching over us because the owner was actually inside the apartment to let us in and as soon as we did, the agent showed up.

The apartment was as beautiful in person as in the photographs. The subtle steel green color was a nice choice to match the loft, the wooden beams and the fully-equipped kitchen. From the drapes and the sofa down to the towels, the owners made sure everything complemented. The windows looked over the small street of rue St-Louis-en-l’Ile and you can smell the baked goods from the boulangerie below us.

We settled in after taking care of all the paperwork with the agent–hot shower never felt so good. We stepped out and started walking towards Notre Dame on ÃŽle de la Cité until we decided to grab something quick at Le St-Regis Brasserie. Good timing, too, because it started to rain while we were eating our hot onion soups and saucissons.

The cathedral’s bells beckoned and we decided to end our first afternoon by giving thanks. We sat through an hour of mass conducted in French and spotted fellow Filipinos in the crowd. (Either they turned around whenever we said something in Tagalog or the women wore scrunchies.)

It was dark when we left and a bit nippy, too. The crowd was still steadily coming in and out of the church, though. The bistros around the corner were opening up while the souveneir stands were closing shop.

We walked back to the apartment, bought beautiful flowers from Patrick Allain Fleuriste and figured out how the TV worked until dinner time. Around 10pm, we walked down the street to eat at La Taverne Du Sergent Recreteur because Gourmet De l’Ile could not accommodate any more diners in their tight space.

I knew my parents would not eat as much as I would like them to so we opted out of the €39 prix fixe that comes with endless sausages and salads and a bottle of Alsatian wine. I ordered the lamb while my mom went for the steak and my dad the salmon. My lamb was perfect but my mom could not chew her beef. My dad could not complain that his salmon came with rice. We toasted to our first night in Paris with a Heineken and two glasses of Rhône. We made it, we said, and then we laughed our Filipino laugh.

Related post/s:
Planning a trip to Paris

Last September, I did something I’ve always wanted to do for my parents: I bought them tickets to France. They’ve never traveled outside of their New York-Philippines route and Paris is one of those places a person has to go to at least once in their lifetime. (Others say that’s Disneyland, but we can have a long discussion about that.) My parents have always wanted to go to Paris but they’re not very adventurous in terms of traveling and spending. My mother just turned 58 and my father is 59 today. I can’t think of a more perfect time to give them, and myself, a treat.

There was an affordable non-stop flight via Air France to Charles de Gaulle, but I couldn’t help but pick the flight with a stop over at Reykjavik. Our layover is only forty-five minutes each way, but for my own selfish reasons, I’m already thinking of how many vacuum-sealed fish I can buy, duty-free, at the Keflavik airport! Crazy, right? But you’d understand if you were also the type who’d spend $74 on cab fare to eat barbeque ribs from the Houston airport.

My father is what Filipinos would call maarte. I can’t think of a better English translation than “coquete.” When I first told my parents about going to Paris, my father did not even bat an eyelash. My mom squealed in delight (like mother, like daughter) but my father just pursed his lips, probably still figuring out where the hell Paris is in relation to Manila.

My father is like your father. He is not mean, but tact has never been his strength (like father, like daughter). From when he refuses to taste anything I cook to saying that he doesn’t really want to see Paris, it doesn’t occur to him that how he reacts or what he says would hurt his daughter’s feelings. My father is of the male species, after all.

So the last few months, he has refused to read any books about France or look at the Paris map I’ve bought to get them oriented. My mom has been reading the guide books I gave her and she’s been checking off tourist spots she wants to see in person. (In the movie Constant Gardener, one of the characters said, Adam was God’s prototype; he got it right with Eve.) But my father has been saying things like I’ll just take the next flight back to New York if I don’t like it. He kept his mouth shut after I suggested that he might want to look at the metro map to get his aSs back to the airport without us.

The other day, my mom told me to be nicer to my dad. That in fact behind closed doors, he has been asking my mom if I am making reservations at some fancy restaurants and if he needs to pack his suit. My mom reminded me that whenever we go anywhere together, even in the city, he’s the first one to pose for a photograph. He’s just being maarte, she said.

So we’re going to Paris and we’re traveling as a family–sans my older brother–for the first time in our lives. I just want my parents to enjoy the trip and know that their daughter is thinking of them.