Paris Beyond Paris
Paris goes beyond geographic boundaries. You can find a little bit of Paris in a lot of places. What is your own personal Paris?
India Tourist Visas in Paris
Paris is a good place to start any number of trips, including a trip to India. Round-the-world travelers know that price for tourist visas (just gasoline prices) have gone through the roof. Last year, the cost of our tourist visas for China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan cost us almost as much as the airfare to some of these destinations (all of these countries have embassies or consulates in Paris BTW).
This year we’ll be applying for our Indian tourist visa in Paris. If you plan on spending at least a week …
Date: April 26th, 2008 |
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Endives and Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis
Endive.fr
If you haven’t already heard the news, Dany Boon’s film “Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis” a humorous portrayal of a town in France’s northern Picardy region (also referred to as Pas de Calais), has become a box office hit, rivaling the 1966 “La Grande Vedrouille” with with one of France’s funniest actors Louis de Funes. Apparently Hollywood is poised to jump on the Ch’tis bandwagon by buying an option to make an ‘American version’ of this hugely successful comedy. It remains to be seen whether Hollywood is capable …
Date: April 19th, 2008 |
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Paris Plus Amsterdam
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2008
If you’re planning on spending two weeks in Europe, the hardest part of your trip may be deciding which cities will best complement one another. Judging by Travel Advisor’s recent survey, Paris is considered Europe’s most romantic city, the best city for shopping and the best place for great meals, but Amsterdam is where you want to go if you’re looking for a friendly welcome combined with great nightlife (Paris received the dubious achievement of ranking #1 for the most unfriendly residents).
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Date: March 16th, 2008 |
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Dakar Rally
Even if the Dakar cross-country hadn’t been cancelled, it wouldn’t have begun in Paris. Once known as The Paris-Dakar Rally, it hasn’t begun in Paris since 1995. Over the years, the 7,000 mile race open to amateurs and professionals has changed its starting and finishing points a number of times. This year the cross-country race would have begun in Lisbon, Portugal. Still, for French spectators the race is closely followed - perhaps even with greater sentiment than the Grand Prix or Le Mans. Whereas those races are all about the racing personalities, Paris-Dakar is just as much about the desert, the drama and the sense of adventure involved in such a feat.
The timing in January is just the thing to chase away the mid-winter blues and when Paris’ streets are gay and drizzly, you push away the clouds with the images of jeeps, motorcycles and trucks negotiating sand dunes.
Back in mid-nineties, Paris’s mayor no longer wanted the rally to start on the Champs Elysees and shipped it out to Eurodisney. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican City newspaper described the rally as “a vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die from hunger and thirst.”
At most, one might consider the decision to cancel the race as hypocritical for several reasons. Already, a number of people have died over the years - it’s a risky race. You’re driving for long hours in extremely inhospitable terrain (geographically speaking). A sudden sandstorm caused a news crew to plow into a dune one year.
Date: January 6th, 2008 |
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The Year We Ran Away for Christmas
It wasn’t totally spontaneous because we had talked about taking off for Europe during the previous summer - my next door neighbor and me.
But talk is cheap. I moved out of my sublet and moved to the East Side. He stayed on the West Side. We fell out of touch. I found a new job and was finally making some money that put me above the poverty line. So about two weeks before Christmas, I called A. and said, “Hey, you want to go to Paris and Venice for Christmas, and he said ‘Sure’.
Date: December 22nd, 2007 |
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Car Loft Story
If you’ve visited Paris in recent years, you’ll not that the City of Paris has done much to discourage driving cars within the city limits. However, for those of us who cannot move around Paris without a car, the issue of parking has definitely been addressed. You’ll find many more underground parking lots - either municipal parking or private companies such as Vinci Park (no relation here to the Da Vince Code BTW).
Meanwhile, another European city - Berlin - has come up with a neat concept which may find its way to the Parisian …
Date: April 22nd, 2008 |
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The Romance of Trains
Photo by Chris Card Fuller 2008
If you asked me where the most romantic place was in Paris, I would have to say the train station, especially on a Sunday night. Unlike travel by plane where travelers are separated from their loved ones either at a curbside drop-off or in a dismal parking lot, in Paris, couples cling to one another until the last possible moment. It’s impossible not to be touched by the electric sparks of passion that transform an otherwise grayish, impersonal train station such as Montparnasse into a veritable sighing, pulsating embrace.
Date: March 30th, 2008 |
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French Cooking: Choucroute
Choucroute Platter served at the Brussels Cafe, 71 Blvd. Exelmans, 75016
When it comes to ‘comfort food’, nothing does it better than ‘choucroute’ (pronounced ’shoo-croot’) or Alsatian saurkraut on a cold day in March. Accompanied with a crisp Riesling, this meal will make you completely forget the howling winds and pelting rain.
The region of France most famous for ‘choucroute’ is Alsace - and I’ve been told that the best place to eat choucroute in one of Alsace’s most famous cities, Strasbourg is right across from the Strasbourg cathedral.
However, if you’re in Paris, you need go no farther than most Alsatian (as well as Belgian and German) brasseries for a good ‘choucroute’ or you can make a great dish yourself (as long as you buy the right sausages).
You can buy your saurkraut either ‘cru’ or ‘cuit’ in most delis (cooked or uncooked). The best cooked saurkraut has bits of ham mixed in. Add to that salt pork and sausages of all sorts. I bought my sausages for this dish at J. Valliot, 21 Rue Daguerre.
That’s where I came across a particular brand of sausage that deserves special mention.
This sausage is called Saucisse de Morteau. If you’ve never tried this regional specialty, you’re in for a treat.
Date: March 13th, 2008 |
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Christmas Eve - No Room at the Inn
“Gimme Shelter!”
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2007
Even as much as one loves being in Paris, when you’re a student and far from home during Christmas vacation, the prospect of being alone in Paris for Christmas day may not be cheery. That’s why another student, Kathy, and I decided to hop on a train with our Eurail passes for Spain. We’d take a break from French lessons and try to practice our high school Spanish for two weeks.
Kathy had found this hotel castle in Jaen, in south-central Spain. She read the hotel description in a guidebook. The thought of staying in a real medieval castle thilled us both. We planned to get as far south as Granada where it was sure to be warmer and sunnier than Paris at this time of year.
Date: December 25th, 2007 |
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Dancing while Val d'Oise Burns
Here is the sad irony. Over the past weekend (Nov 24-25 ‘07) while in Val d’Oise, families and friends mourned the loss of two teenagers in a motor scooter collision with a police vehicle, in Paris, wealthy debutantes dance at the Hotel Crillon. It wouldn’t have been so blatant except that Le Parisien managed to post both the car-burning repercussions and the video of the debutante ball on the same page this Tuesday morning.
Not that these two disparate worlds haven’t coexisted in France …
Date: November 28th, 2007 |
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