Health care in France is pretty decent, based on my small experience with it. Yes, I came down with a case of the flu and was sick in bed during the trip. It was so disappointing to have gotten sick, so my lesson from here on out is to get an annual flu shot from here on out. I won’t get into just how ill I was, but it was so bad that Kevin worked with the hotel concierge to get a doctor to pay me a bedside visit. I required three prescriptions and recovered in as many days.

So after losing Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, by the time Saturday came around, we were raring to go, albeit at a slower pace at first. We began the day leisurely and strolled down to La Louvre Musee de la Mode et du Textile, where we took in the amazing Christian Lacroix exhibition. Lacroix intensely studied the museum’s collections of costumes and accessories and turned out his very own personal vision of the history of fashion with his own haute-couture creations. It was a unique way to take in a history of fashion and to take in the work of one of the greatest names in French fashion.

The Musee de la Mode et du Textile is a part of Les Arts Decoratifs. So we managed to get part way through this massive museum. A highlight for us was the Art Deco section. There, the museum showed examples ranging from how steel tubing revolutionized furniture manufacturing and styling to the staging of three rooms belonging to the home of Jeanne Lanvin, founder of the eponymous fashion house. The three rooms, including her bathroom complete with fixtures, were breathtaking.

By this time we were both flagging, but especially me. It was hard getting back into the fast-paced schedule we were maintaining before getting sick. We went to the restaurant at the museum, and for the first and only time during our trip, we were snubbed by the snobby service. We actually got up and left and found a Greek Mediterranean restaurant that specialized in pizza. That got my appetite going a bit, and we had an enjoyable meal at this crowded joint near La Louvre.

More than my appetite for food seemed to be returning. It was time to shop and to find the flagship location of one of my favorite designer companies, Kenzo. Kenzo is a brand that is not easily available in the United States, whether you’re shopping for their men’s or women’s collections. Kenzo also produces items for the home, as well as fragrances for both women and men. We found their boutique emporium and enjoyed perusing their collections. After some shopping we headed to the top floor of the building for yet another fun experience at Kong, an ultra stylish bar with a very modern interior. The restaurant is in a glass-domed room. The sky outside was very changeable and from our vantage point, we could observe a frontal system move directly through Paris as dusk fell. It was cool and eerie all at the same time. The sky changed so rapidly as a rainstorm moved through that it felt as though we were flying.

We walked back up Rue de Rivoli to the hotel and relaxed for a bit so that we’d have some stamina to head out for the evening.

Saturday night we kept things low key and took ourselves out for a great walk, meandering through the decorative arts district in the 6th and 7th arrondissements. Eventually we wound up at a brasserie in the 7th where they were playing disco music videos on flat-screened televisions. An American couple came in to the brasserie and was seated next to us. They came in for some mulled wine to warm up. We struck up a conversation and had a nice time chatting. It turned out they were from Pennsylvania, not too far from where Kevin grew up in Philadelphia. We always appreciated running into other friendly Americans during the trip. After a lengthy and very relaxed paced dinner, we walked down St. Germain and strolled past shops, just marveling at the beauty of one of Paris’ great boulevards. We were going to take a walk through the Tuileries to the hotel, but we forgot that they close the park at night. So we had to walk clear around the Tuileries, which proved to be a good thing because that’s how we found L’Orangerie, at long last! We promised ourselves that we’d be back for an official visit the next day.

Sunday was a typically quiet day in Paris. We began the day with a walk from our hotel, down the Champs Elysees to just inside the 16th arrondissement where we found the Musee Galliera. This museum is in an Italianate mansion that has been converted into a fashion museum. Here we saw a current exhibit on fashion from the Roaring ‘20s. I found this exhibit to be inspiring on multiple levels, and even wrote my latest Metro column based upon one of the ways the exhibit touched me. It was great to see early pieces of Chanel and Lanvin at the exhibit, and it was great to see that the clothes were made for women with curves and with maturity. It’s a far cry from how fashion is presented today.

After enjoying ourselves at the museum, we walked back into the 8th arrondissement and found one of our favorite places that we had been to back in February. L’Avenue is on fashionable avenue Montaigne. Chic whether during day or evening, we found the daytime setting to be more relaxed and bright versus the club-like atmosphere that pulsates through the place at night. It’s a great people watching spot and we highly recommend it. Oh, and the food is good, too!

From lunch we walked back down the bustling Champs Elysees and crossed Place de la Concorde and headed into the Tuileries where we waited in line to enter L’Orangerie. Monet’s Waterlilies are on display here in a mind-blowing display. Split into two adjoining rooms, each of the eight expansive paintings cover their own wall space. It’s a monumental way to appreciate what Monet explored in his paintings of his gardens in Giverny. Anyone who appreciates color will be awed by the way he explored the effects of light at different times of the day and seasons. Simply magnificent. Also at L’Orangerie was an exhibit about the collections of Jean Walter, a French architect, and Paul Guillaume, a merchant and art critic. Apparently, Guillaume passed away and his widow ended up marrying Walter. Their massive collection was on display here and featured works from Monet, Picasso, Rousseau, Laurencin, Matisse, Soutine, amongst others. The collection was staggering, and we were exhausted by the time we finished reviewing the exhibit.

We decided to take ourselves to the tres chic Hotel Costes for a drink. The hotel is located right around the corner from our hotel and boy is it low-key. Even our hotel concierge suggested that the bar at Hotel Costes is more of an ‘in’ spot than Buddha Bar, located at the Hotel de Crillon. So we parked ourselves at an available table and drank some very pricey drinks while soaking up the atmosphere. The bar is very dark, cool music is piped in, and people look around at each other wondering what everyone’s story is.

Tuesday was New Year’s Eve day and we had a full day in store, no pun intended. We began at a Paris institution (thanks to a reminder that came from my friend Leslie back in California) by the name of Angelina’s. Famous for their chocolate chaud, we took a seat near the front windows and prepared ourselves for decadence. Kevin, who never eats chocolate, even ordered the chocolat chaud as part of his petit dejeuner. For breakfast, the chocolat chaud (or coffee or tea – but why bother?) is accompanied by a selection of four small pastries and your choice of fresh squeezed juice. Everything was lovely, but the star attraction is the chocolat chaud, served in a pitcher with a full three cups’ worth of enjoyment complete with homemade whipping cream served on the side to cut the sweetness of the molten confection. The salon is done in the style of the Belle Époque. It’s a simple example of how Parisians partake of small luxuries.

Small luxuries were the order of the morning as we toured Hermes, and other emporiums of Rue du Faubourg and around la Madeleine. Kevin and I treated each other to mementos of our time in Paris.

We walked from there over to the Garnier Opera House where we took a guided tour. This amazing structure represents a major shift in the development of Paris and is a showcase for purposeful and intentional design. The two-hour tour took us into the auditorium itself and we got to watch one of the male ballet dancers practice while snapping up photos of Marc Chagall’s painted dome and other parts of the interior. I did manage to get one good shot of the dancer, too! The foyer of the Garnier Opera is intended to evoke the grand salons of Versailles and does not disappoint. Our English-speaking guide was chock-full of great information and we highly recommend this tour.

We had a chance to meet up with a friend of Kevin’s whose mother resides in Paris. We crawled into a bar until they kicked us out. Of all the places we could have gone to early on New Year’s Eve, we picked the one place that was actually closing. But we had a great conversation, and walked around the streets between la Madeleine and les Grand Magasins.

Monday night was New Year’s Eve and we went to Joe Allen’s for dinner. They offered a prix fixe menu, especially common at restaurants on New Year’s Eve, but they also offered their regular a la carte menu. We walked from our hotel down Rue Etienne Marcel to the area of Les Halles where the place is located. It would be our second visit there this trip and the friendly staff made us feel at home, so much so that my order did not come out right, just like home! So maybe that was just a bit too close to home, but we did have a good time. After dinner, we walked to le Marais, crawled into a bar a few minutes before midnight and counted down the last moments of the year.

Rain began to fall as 2008 started and as we began to head back to our hotel. We debated whether to take le Metro or to walk. The rain stopped, so we opted to walk. It seemed as we approached the area of La Louvre, we were walking against foot traffic, a sure sign that the crowds who gathered along the Champs Elysees had broken up and were heading back east. The crowd was quite riled up so we were very happy to pass through the Westin’s gates. Home at last.

New Year’s Day in Paris was mostly silent. The weather was not very pleasant, but at least it wasn’t raining. We took our chances of heading to Montmarte and to Sacre Coeur for views of Paris. Aside from the skies being overcast, we didn’t quite get a sense that the views from there are quite as good as the guide books would suggest. So after walking up the steps to the top of Montmarte, and then after walking up more steps to reach Sacre Coeur, we reached not just the hulking yet unimpressive church but we reached an absolute sea of humanity. It seemed as though every other tourist who happened to be awake in town had the same idea as us. We quickly walked through the church (an unwelcoming sign demanded silence and no photos), and made a beeline for the funiculaire to get us back down the hill.

Fortunately, at the foot of the funiculaire, we found a salon de tea. Inside we found friendly, smiling faces and more, yummy chocolat chaud. Served similarly as it is at Angelina’s I thought we stumbled into a little bit of heaven. After we enjoyed our pastries and drinks, we headed to the nearest Metro station. We were not interested in the crowds or the general atmosphere. So we thought we’d traipse through le Marais, hoping that something would be open. Wow, were we wrong. The place was absolutely shuttered. So we just walked the quiet streets and began all ready to reminisce about the wonderful trip we’ve had.

Back at la Madeleine, we saw an awesome exhibit on the works of Soutine, whose works we had seen earlier at L’Orangerie. This was a comprehensive collection and we were struck by how many of his works had been collected for this exhibition. His use of color and shapes, and his secretive use of Hebrew letters were awe inspiring.

Later that evening, we did venture back to le Marais for one final French meal at a sweet traditional French restaurant right in Place des Vosges, one of my most favorite spots in all of Paris. Kevin had a very clear duck stew and I enjoyed a leg of lamb. Our trip was winding down, and while we were contemplating our return home, we sure did have a memorable trip.

Christmas in Paris equals a magical time in a magical place. We began Christmas Eve Day with a stroll through the 7th and 6th arrs. We had slept in that morning and enjoyed our first meal of the day at a bakery and restaurant aptly named Bread & Roses. We took an available table at this small, clean bakery and had a very enjoyable lunch. The restaurant is very conveniently located near an entry gate to the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was perfect because that’s where we were headed.

Kevin wanted to see an exhibit at a building called L’Orangerie. And he thought that the building was in the Jardin du Luxembourg. So we toured the gardens, which even during wintertime was gorgeous. Of course, we did wonder what the space would look like during the spring when everything is in full bloom. Then I started to wonder where in the heck was this L’Orangerie? We found it, but it was the wrong one! We later determined that the one we were looking for is actually located in the Tulieries, and resolved to visit later during our stay.

After taking in enough of the park, we decided to get back into the hustle and bustle and experience the Christmas Eve shopping rush. We walked to the grand palace of high-end shopping that is unmistakably Le Bon Marche. It is my most favorite department store because of their editing, overall selection, and inventory depth. Apparently, Parisians agree because the place was absolutely jam packed with people. Especially crazy on Christmas Eve was le Bon’s food emporium. It was fun to sample chocolates, Champagnes and wine, as it was also to watch people shop for their special Christmas dinners.

We then walked up to St. Germain for a spot more of window-shopping, took in a Christmas bazaar at the church, and then sunk into Café le Flore for a pick-me-up. The Art Deco institution was yet another madhouse, which just made it that much more fun. It was pleasant just sitting down and enjoying our drinks and les glaces. I just love the area of St. Germain. You can worship to whatever you desire: Catholocism, Louis Vuitton, or Christian Dior! However, it seemed that the line was longer to go into Lauderee than it was to get into the church. And it has been that way every single time we have passed a Lauderee shop during the entire trip. I refuse to wait in one of those lines; so that will be a definite stop on a future trip.

Christmas Eve was really fun. We left our hotel to find a restaurant Kevin found in one of our trusty guides. Well, the guides are trusty, but not fool-proof. We arrived at the restaurant he had chosen and it was all shuttered closed for the holiday. So we managed to navigate ourselves to a different restaurant around the corner, which turned out to be pretty excellent. We were in the 1st arr near the Palace du Louvre, and we happened upon a very small local restaurant. They took us in with no reservations, and then walked us up to the first floor where we had our own private but very dimly lit dining room. Eventually, an Italian couple was taken up to the room and it wasn’t so private anymore. But we really enjoyed our food and the experience.

The Christmas experience continued with a visit to the eglise St. Eustache, where we enjoyed a 10:00pm service comprised of full grand organ, full orchestra and choir, red glass candles lit everywhere your eyes could see, and incense infused air. It was over the top. Kevin said it was bar none, the best Christmas mass he had ever attended. And I could not keep my eyes still the whole time; it was a theatrical feast for all the senses. Don’t worry everyone, I’m hardly thinking about converting.

Christmas Day was quiet yet very enjoyable. Businesses are closed; so we walked around the Champs Elysees and around the Golden Triangle of King George V and Avenue Montaigne. We eventually found a spot for a drink called The Globe and realized that it’s the first place we went to for a drink in Paris this past February. We lingered there for quite some time, enjoying our boissons and the people watching. Then we crossed the Seine, walked town toward the Eiffel Tower, walked through the Champs de Mars, and then headed back over the Seine down the Champs Elysees, past Place de la Condcorde, down Rue de Rivoli and plopped down in our hotel room, just zonked from the big walk. For dinner, we walked back to Le Marais, just because we somehow didn’t think we’d walked enough. Also we felt that if there’d be anything open it’d be in Le Marais. So we popped into a Moroccan restaurant and had a great meal. We were definitely having a fabulous week…

Saturday we took a train ride to Chartres. We took le Metro to le Gare Montparnasse, where we connected to a French regional train. There was great confusion at first as to where to catch the train, but we figured it out. Gare Montparnasse is large, and a very specific train line runs to Chartres, and beyond. In any event, the time we spent waiting for the train made for good people watching. The ride to Chartres took slightly more than an hour each way. On the way, we sped right past the vastness that is unmistakably Versailles. In between catching a few lazy winks, we looked out onto the French countryside dotted with small towns along the tracks. Even in wintertime, landscapes were lushly verdant. We enjoyed looking at the French countryside and the beautiful little country houses that dot the land.

The train station in Chartres is a plain ole station just like the station at Versailles. And when we got off the train, I wondered where in the hell we really were. And then off to the left in a reasonable distance, we saw the gothic monolith that is the Chartres Cathedral. Truly an ancient structure, it originally was destroyed. Then in the late 1100s, a monumental effort was made to rebuild it. Famous for its gothic beauty and for its massive collection of stained glass windows, the cathedral is mind-blowing. The craftsmanship of the carvings and of the stained glass windows is something to behold.

Exploring the church struck me in such a way that set my mind in a new way about religion and about anything influenced by it, including fashion. This might not be a newsflash to most people, but as a Jewish person who has experienced few observances of other faiths, I realized how theatrical Catholicism is. And it took coming all the way to Chartres to figure it out. Good thing. After touring the church and its grounds, we checked out the cute and very busy town before heading back to Paris.

Once back to the city, we did another very touristy and American thing. We took a quick elevator ride high above Montparnasse to the bar on the top floor of Paris’ tallest building for a drink. Montparnasse is a quite tall building built in the 1960s and is typically considered an eyesore. That’s why it’s ironically kind of neat to be in the building. This way you don’t have to look out at it. But from high above, you can look at the bustling beauty of the city below. Rather than paying the fee to enter the observatory, we paid to have a drink and sat at a window that overlooked the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars, Les Invalides, le Rive Seine, and the whole city. If it’s an American way of looking at Paris, then not all things American are so terrible.

We kept up with the American theme by having dinner later on that night at American outpost Joe Allen, located in the area known as les Halles, which is on the eastern edge of the 1st and 4th arrondissments. It’s a fun atmosphere and you can comfortably speak English to the staff. It’s also a great spot if you’re craving barbeque while in Paris.

Sundays in Paris are reportedly quiet, but the reports are a farce. The vast majority of stores in most districts of the city are shuttered on Sundays, but along le Champs Elysees in the 8th arr., and in le Marais district, in the 3rd and 4th arrs., as well as in parks and museums throughout the city, Paris is afoot and out. We decided to be out in le Marais, where shops and restaurants are all open. We like the neighborhood for its charm and for the mix of its gay and Jewish cultures. No wonder why it feels like home!

From our hotel we took a meandering route on the way to le Marais, often the best way to learn about Paris’ neighborhoods on foot. We found one of the city’s fantastic shopping arcades. Although the businesses were not open, the space was breathtaking. Known as Galerie Vivienne, this sort of space was the definite precursor to the shopping mall. A bit further along we happened along a street with a bustling Sunday open-air market. It was great fun looking at all of the fresh produce, poultry, and fruits de mer.

We walked and talked for hours, meandering through the streets, eating lunch at a very popular kosher deli, whose burger specialties kept pouring out of the busy crack kitchen. Cute young men wearing kippot served, while wigged women with their tag-along children ate egg-topped hamburgers served with a heaping side of fries and eggplant spread. It was great to take in the whole vibe of the neighborhood, including walking around the historic Place des Vosges, a gorgeous park with vast buildings around each of its four sides. One of my most favorite places, it was once the residence of writer Victor Hugo.

A surprisingly fun and lengthy stop along the way in le Marais was a visit to the Musee Carnavalet, a gorgeous, sprawling museum in a former mansion. It’s fitting to find a museum dedicated to Paris’ history in its oldest neighborhood. The museum’s collection includes impressive furnishings, fine art, paintings and artifacts. Equally as gorgeous as the museum’s interior are its exterior courtyards. It’s definitely a stop worth making.

Later that evening, we returned to le Marais for dinner, taking a table at a very lively and crowded restaurant called le Gai Moulon – tres gay, for sure, and a whole lot of fun. While there, our tablemates struck up conversation with us. A really sweet couple of women, one lives in Paris, and the other in London. We totally enjoyed our dinner together and wish them well. It’s a leisurely late night walk back from le Marais, past the Centre Pompidou and eglise St. Eustache before we head back to le Westin for some restin’.

It’s been too long since having written last. So I’ll start from the beginning and catch you up with more proper and detailed posts.

Almost the entire first week of our stay in Paris was to perfection. The day we arrived we took the RER from Charles de Gaulle to le Metro’s Les Halles station, where we transferred to a number 9 train where we exited at the Tuileries Metro station. When we transferred trains, I nearly caused a debacle for Kevin, whose baggage was just a tad too wide for it to fit through the auto exit door from the station. I tried to push it through to help him, but I inadvertently bent the handle while it was extended. Fortunately when we got unpacked later, he was able to manipulate the handle and all was not lost on his newest piece of luggage.

When we arrived at the hotel it was just a tad early and our room was not yet ready. We were welcome to avail ourselves to the Club Lounge at the Westin Paris and bide our time. We were then shown our to our room and found our expected, but complimentary, upgrade to not be what we had in mind. We learned a big lesson: a suite in France is a larger room, not a sleeping and a sitting room as it is in the United States. In any event, with the hotel undergoing renovation and being fairly well booked for the holidays, we managed to secure a room more to our liking on the top floor — with two rooms! It would prove to be crucial to have these two rooms. But more on that later. The other amazing thing about the room is that it has a spacious walk in closet, and I do mean spacious. The closet can easily accommodate enough clothing for a fashionisto like me and still spare ample room for Kevin, who is decidedly less of a clotheshorse, but still came prepared to look good and to brave the elements.

Okay, so enough about the room… Let’s go out and play!

We headed out for a walk, determined not to let jet lag get the best of us. We walked around the area known as la Madeleine, a square centered with the eglise Madeleine. All around the square are gourmet food shops such as temples of taste Hediard and Fauchon, as well as smaller shops that sell caviar and salmon. To the west are the highly regarded, high-heeled and high priced boutiques of rue du Faubourg-St Honore. To the east is the area known in guide books as les Grandes Boulevardes. There we find a brasserie and sit down for our first Paris meal. Afterward, we kept on our walk, heading up to see more temples. Only this time the temples were of les Grandes Magasins of Galeries Lafayette and le Printemps.

Boulevard Haussman was crazy busy with people like you’d expect to see in San Francisco’s Union Square or on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, or on 5th Avenue in New York just before Christmas. Parisian shoppers are serious about celebrating the holiday. It’s just a myth that the holiday is no big thing. By this time, we were starting to feel the effects of traveling, so we climbed the escalators in Printemps’ home store that houses cosmetics on the main floor (they have three buildings, as does Galeries Lafayette) so that we could take in the city from the glass enclosed cafe on the roof. It’s a marvelous way to take in Paris: to get a sense of place, to get a sense of scale, and to get a sense of the splendor that can only be found in Paris.

Friday we did something quite touristy: we took a double-decker bus ride. The good thing about this notion is that you can get on and off all day long, as you like. The bad things about this concept are that the buses run infrequently, and they don’t operate in the evening. We did get around a bit until we decided to exit at the Arc de Triomphe. We bought our billets and climed to the top to see truly triumphant views of the City of Lights. Not only was it a magical experience, but it’s one that makes you marvel at the ability people had to create such architecture when it was created. Climbing is not for the faint of heart, but if you can handle all of the steps, it’s well worth the trip — up and down.

We had a nice lunch in a cafe in the 16th Arr, near the Arc and then walked down to the Trocadero area for renowned views of the Eiffel Tower. We walked because there was no bus! Of course, just was we arrived at Trocadero, there came — and went– the bus! So we ‘killed’ time at a beautiful cemetery perched atop a sloped hill and saw how a few fortunate Parisians get to spend eternity. We managed to pick up the next bus and tooled around to the Eiffel Tower and then on to Les Invalides. We wanted to see Napolean’s tomb, but because we arrived a bit late, the idea was a bust. Of course, we had to wait for the bus, so we hung out at the museum cafe to kill some more time. We do not recommend this bus idea! Nonetheless, we took the bus to Place de la Concorde and exited at Rue Royale, where we walked past gorgeous shops, including an over-the-top florist, and down St Honore to Rue de Castiglione and back to our home sweet hotel.

Friday night we took ourselves on one of our many unguided walks, found dinner, and back to look at all of the Christmas windows on Boulevard Haussman. Parisians call the act of checking out all of the windows as ‘window-licking’ and if you can see our tongues through our photographs, then you can tell that they were wagging!

Our first two days were off to a great start with gorgeous sights, gorgeous people (of course that includes Kevin and me), and the promise of more great days to come…