Paris In Three Parts (Food, Flea Markets, and Taking It To The Streets)

The fact that every single meal we consumed in Paris -- every goat cheese salad with a side of frites, steak frites, roasted chicken with frites,and croque monsieur with frites -- (it was all about the frites, friends) was far superior to, well, pretty much everything we've eaten during the other 355 days of last year was not exactly revelatory. After all, Paris is known for its food (and its frites), yes? The fact, however, that every egg and strawberry and tomato and wedge of cheese and little glass jar of yogurt that we purchased in the market and consumed in the comfort of our apartment was revelatory was the surprise. I mean insanely delicious strawberries and tomatoes in December??! The whole culinary enterprise made me seriously worried for the state of our food supply in America. And don't even get me started on the bread and the pastries and the chocolate chaud. I would dub my whole food consumption in France situation a bad scene, but I just enjoyed it to much to malign it in any way.

And I'm happy to report that the girlies seemed to adopt a bit of a "when in Rome (or France)" attitude on the food front, with Millie declaring that she would order something different every day of our trip. And she did. Albeit "different" within the confines of a non-threatening main dish served with a side of, yep, you guessed it, frites. But, hey, it's a start.

The other thing that the girlies were downright sporting about during our 10 days in Paris was the immense quantities of walking that we forced on them each day. Oh did we walk -- from the Place de Concord down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triumph, all through the Marais (mulptiple times), nearly every street on the Île Saint-Louis, from d'Orsay to the Centre Pompidou, out to les puces de Saint-Ouen (and through stall after stall of treasures), oh and the five (!) pilgrimages to the Eiffel Tower, all on foot... We walked like it was our job, the streets our stomping ground --  wind, cold, and rain be damned -- with complaints few and far between. I have seriously never been prouder of my children.

Thanks Paris.