Paris in a Week Part 2
This week, Secrets of Paris Guinea Pigs Amy and Kim (from the beautiful city of Minneapolis) are the subject of case study #1. If you recall, in my first article in this series, I made three general recommendations on how to successfully do Paris in a week. These savvy women had only five days.
To start off, I have to say that I’m jealous as heck! Amy & Kim (henceforth A&K) arrive, along with their luggage, sans problème at Charles de Gaulle Airport. They then proceed to successfully use a calling card to telephone me and arrange to meet me at the Opera steps. They find the unpronounceable Roissybus, and meet me right on time, looking ever-so-much like the natives in their chic black hats and sunglasses (all of the natives wear sunglasses, especially if it looks as if it’s about to rain, which it did). They then proceeded to ignore all of my suggestions, and have an absolute blast in doing so! Let’s see how they did it!
Gov. Ventura Invents Anti-Jetlag Cure! The first suggestion I gave to the readers was to get some sleep after arrival, thus avoiding jetlagged eyelids at 4pm. A&K arrived at 1pm, and didn’t make one sleepy face until about 10pm. And in case you think we all sat around sipping Perrier and watching FashionTV, you’re wrong. In their first nine hours, A&K helped me with the food shopping, went to the inner belly of Les Halles RER station to buy Kim a train ticket to Lyon, ruffled through the racks at H&M, stared into the windows at Prada and Armani and bought postcards outside Notre Dame. I took the bus with them to Sèvres-Babylone and watched in awe as they commenced some of the most impressive power shopping I have ever seen along rue du Four, rue du Dragon, and at the Viahero store behind the Pompidou Center. Clothes, handbags, gourmet tea, makeup—nothing was safe. We all had the delicious double-decker éclairs called Réligieuse from the pastry shop, grilled sandwiches at the San Francisco Muffin Co., thick hot chocolates served by a Marseillais in authentic costume on the terrace at rue de Seine, and ‘discount’ priced dinner crêpes at Chiens Chauds on rue St. Denis from a very friendly server who tried to marry Amy off to his brother. Then I dragged them over to The Cruiscin to hear our friend Barry sing and meet the very non-French gang. Two drinks later, and it was time to tuck everyone, including me, into bed. The next morning, they were up at 8:30am. I don’t know what they have in the water out there in Minnesota, but I want some!
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