Paris Explorations

With beautiful weather and a free afternoon today, I set off to explore some new parts of Paris. I hopped on the metro line 1, and rode it to the very end, to Chateau de Vincennes. I finally got to see a French chateau, very exciting. This one dates back to the 13th century and was the vacation residence of Kings Charles and Henri (not sure what numbers). Vincennes was a cute town to wander around. I also saw the Bois (Forest) de Vincennes - there wasn't much to see since not much has bloomed yet, but it was very weird to be in the middle of an urban area and then see a forest (I use the term forest loosely...I don't know many forests with paved roads in them or appt. buildings alongside them, but I did only see part of it. On the way home I stopped a two random metro stops with interesting names, in hopes of discovering some secret, beautiful/interesting/fun nook of Paris. It's all pretty beautiful and very interesting, but no luck yet finding my amazing little corner.

In an effort to explore more of Paris, Jess and I went to Place d'Italie for dinner tonight. I was envisioning something like Little Italy, Paris style, and I was somewhat surprised to find a large traffic circle with a few restaurants and nothing more. Jess and I had planned to eat Italian food, but nearly every restaurant was French or Asian. We finally found a single Italian restaurant and had delicious bowls of pasta, but it wasn't the Italian experience we had hoped for. Except for a group of men who were hooting at us and calling us beautiful, and two other random guys on the street who asked us out. They fulfilled our stereotype of Italian men.