Paris!

Our Ryanair flight arrived a few minutes early in Beauvais, which is an airport that is 55 miles north of Paris, around 10:30 PM. From there, we caught a bus into the outer edge of the city near the Porte Maillot Metro Station at midnight. It was a little disconcerting once we were out of the bus. Even though I had lived in Paris for a while, I had not ventured to this area. So Jacob and I had to collect our bags and follow the great load of people to the Metro. With our roommate Eric's help, we had rented an apartment in the northeast part of the city. The apartment's located right next to one of the city's largest train stations, the Gare du Nord.

The next morning, we met Eric at one of the cafes for breakfast and walked. A lot. From the Gare du Nord, we walked down to the Chatelet-Les Halles area. Jacob was on the look out for some plug converters. We stopped at this household goods store called E. Dehillerin, which I thought might have something.



E. Dehillerin turned out to be this amazing kitchen store. It was this large store house of anything and everything you've ever wanted in the way of kitchen supplies. I was enthralled and spent some time wandering the aisles. I think I might go back for a nice knife.



Jacob did manage to find what he was looking for at FNAC, an electronics store in the underground mall in Les Halles. They were even cheaper in the outdoor markets in Belleville, the next day.

Because of the length of our trip, we're on a pretty tight budget for expenditures, particularly in Europe. We're trying to cut down on eating out too much. It was pretty easy to fall back into the habit of cooking food with Eric. We had a brief tour of the Marche St. Quentin near the house and spent 45 minutes beneath the Gare du Nord trying to find the supermarket, Monoprix. The train station is huge with trains, metros lines and commuter rail lines running through it. In the end, I think we jumped the turnstiles twice, once to get in and once to get out of the Monoprix.

So our first meal in Paris was steaks with pasta and tomato sauce accompanied by a nice bottle of red wine and a baguette from one of the local bakeries. The kitchen in our apartment is easily the largest I've seen in Paris. The woman we're renting the room from cooks a lot herself, so it's also packed with plenty of nice pots, pans, silverware and plates. After stocking up on the basics (olive oil, butter, garlic, onions, jam, yogurt, juice, eggs, pasta, canned tomatoes, mustard, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper) and the ingredients specific to the meal, we were all set to go.