En Paris!

Salut, everyone! We hope you are all doing well. It's the first time we've stopped in an internet cafe since we arrived, so I wanted to give a little update.

The most common daily activity

We have been happily roaming about Paris since last Wednesday, attempting to pose as Parisiennes, drinking our cafes and eating our croissants with laissez-faire attitude and discretely photographing the delicious goodies to blog about later. Our hotel is perfectly lovely, a little building located near Place de la Republique. Unfortunately, right before we left Toronto, D and I both managed to catch the same evil cold that has left us sounding awful (hack hack) and constantly tired. Despite being sick, it's hard to be grumpy in Paris. We went to a pharmacie to ask for some cough syrup in our rusty French...it involved a lot of gesticulating and pointing, but we were successful.

Most mornings we get up, get breakfast from the local boulangerie/patisserie (there are at least 3 on each block) and walk about the city. The weather has been fantastic too - warm and sunny with a cool breeze. We have done quite a bit of picnicking at the Jardin du Luxembourg, Place des Vosges, and Jardin des Plantes. The last few days we've explored the Marais and Bastille areas, the Latin Quarter and St. Germain, and walked along the Seine to see Notre Dame de Grace and Hotel de Ville.

It goes without saying that eating has been the primary focus of our daily activities...today we went to the marche Bastille which was incredible!! I would love to live somewhere like this where one can buy fresh seafood, meats, produce, flowers, and just about any kind of gourmet and ethnic prepared food you could imagine. And I have also been scoping out the famous bakeries of Paris...here's Poilane:

Hungry people at Poilane

Beautiful pastries at Dalloyeur in Galeries Lafayette

Flowers at Marche Bastille

Parading my Shetland Triangle about the town, here at the Musee du Carnavalet

We have two more days here and will hopefully have enough of our energy back to tackle the tourist circuit including the Louvre, Champs d'Elysees and everything else in that general vicinity. I also have plans to visit a yarn shop and kitchenware store! No knitting news lately, as I have been busy whizzing my way through Ruth Reichl's first two books - if only I had brought more! They are so good!! (thanks Devon)

Tuesday night we leave for Milan and then Venice. This time, we will be extra sure to get on the train on the right day :) A bientot!