As a wonderful birthday gift, Liza Butler came to visit me in Paris this weekend. She arrived Friday morning, having taken a 7 a.m. flight out of Madrid. We started our tour de Paris at the Arab World Institute, a massive building/museum/institute that I walk by frequently and wanted to visit. The museum itself was OK...we had a little adventure when we made friends with a Pakistani man who asked for translations, then our phone numbers, then to spend the day with us, to have his first alcoholic drinks with us, and finally to kiss us, since we were too beautiful to be single and he "hadn't kissed a girl before". We tried to lose him by going to the bathroom, but it was a coed bathroom and he followed us in. We finally managed to lose him by walking ahead of him, making plans in rudimentary Spanish, and telling him we had to meet a friend at her house for coffee and he couldn't come.
After that adventure, we continued the Arab tour of Paris and headed to the mosque. It was really beautiful and interesting to see a place of worship where there were tons of people praying (as opposed to the churches which are mainly tourist sights). When we left the mosque I discovered that we were on the same street as my Parisian university, so I took Liza to get a glimpse and then we had tea in a nearby cafe. We then decided that we really wanted to cook an American breakfast the next morning (Liza's host family gives her coffee and a chocolate cookie for breakfast in the morning) and we headed to La Grande Epicerie, the massive ritzy grocery store that goes with Le Bon Marche, the massive ritzy department store. I figured it would be one of very few places in Paris that might sell pancake mix. After wandering the store a bit, we finally found a foreign foods section with a box of "Classic Foods of America Pancake Mix" made in France. With directions in French, Italian, Spanish and German...no English. Energized by our purchase, we decided to take a quick tour of the Louvre, as it's free for young people on Friday nights.
We did a very quick walk-through of the Louvre, basically just wandering the halls of Spanish and Italian paintings, and seeing the Mona Lisa. It was my first time seeing it, and Liza left Paris able to say she saw it.
After the Louvre, we went to my friend Templeton's dorm for a little dinner party. Templeton's next door neighbor and her brother, who only speak French, were there, in addition to 3 other Middkids. Telling stories to the whole room was a hilarious fiasco, b/c someone either had to translate the English to French for the French kids or French to English for Liza. It worked out well though, as my friends and I got a real kick out of playing translator.
Saturday morning Liza and I slept in, then made our pancakes. We put Nutella and chocolate and strawberries and whipped cream on them, and they were soooooooo good. Actually the pancakes themselves were pretty gross, but the toppings were yummy enough to compensate. When we finally made it out of the appartment, we walked from Place de la Concorde up the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe. We then hopped on the metro to the Moulin Rouge and the sex district, and finally up to Montmartre (it was a very grey day, so the view wasn't the best). Afterwards we got Liza her first crepe, and some woman in the store saw my Middlebury sweatshirt and told me she was from VT and happy to see a fellow countrywomen.
Saturday dinner Liza and I ate French style - fondue for two. It was yummmmmmmy. Actually it was just really fun, but it tasted pretty good. We went home and collapsed after dinner (it was midnight) and watched the latest episode of Grey's. Liza then took a 2 hour nap before waking up at five to get her taxi to the bus station. And I went back to sleep.
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