Bonjour tout le monde,

After a whirlwind of a wedding weekend, Kurt and I arrived in Paris Monday afternoon and have been living it up ever since. We have been trying to limit our use of English when conversing with locals so by the time we get to Provence (where I assume we’ll have a tougher time finding bilingual folk) we should be fine. According to a book we read called “French or Foe”, as long as you make the effort to speak in French, and introduce yourselves and your reason for visiting, the locals can be quite hospitable. Just tonight, for example, we had a fabulous dinner at La Maree Verte in the Latin Quarter, and at the end of the meal, after complimenting their chef and explaining it was our honeymoon (“lune de miel”), the owners congratulated us with complimentary Champagne, and made us feel very welcome. We had a similar experience last night at Cafe Roussillon on Rue Cler, where the server engaged us in a conversation about where we planned to go during our trip. It was very nice to keep up with the pace of the conversation, even if we did stare blankly a few times and have the phrase repeated before we understood.

So far, we’ve taken in the Eiffel Tower, walked by the Ecole Militaire, visited Notre Dame and climbed the towers, had a picnic at Pont Neuf on the Ile de la Cite, and have had a plethora of the most amazing food and drink. Our favourites to date are the Cote du Rhone red we had tonight with dinner, and Kurt’s Magret de Canard at the cafe. The Oeufs de la Neige that I had for dessert tonight was to die for! Definitely something I’ll try to make when we get back home. Anyone want to be our guinea pigs?

On the horizon is a day of museums, a trip to Sacre Coeur (just for you, Kyle) and hopefully we can catch a ballet or opera at the Opera de Paris Garnier. Friday will be our Versailles day trip and Saturday we leave for Avignon.

I have a ton of photos already (including food photos, of course) but our computer at the hotel doesn’t allow me to upload stuff to the desktop to transfer to Flickr. Will have to find another internet cafe tomorrow.

For now, may I direct you to Raf’s blog for a synopsis of the wedding and some pics?

A bientot,
Karen Hamilton =)