City of Lights
La Ville-Lumière 11-01-2022
“The City of Lights”, as it is known in English, our current location. We had an uneventful trip from Alabama to France. We had a 45 minute delay leaving Montgomery, but the rest of our flight went smoothly. We had a 135 knot tailwind that put us into Paris one hour early. After clearing customs and securing our luggage ( thankfully it all arrived here with us, on other trips, not so), we secured a taxi. Linda had written our destination on a piece of paper and I gave it to the driver. He did not speak English and our French was worse than his English. Thank you Google Translate.
When we arrived at our apartment we were faced with 3 challenges. How to enter the building using a code, how to get through the foyer, and then how to use the key to enter the apartment. I thanked the Frenchman, who owned the restaurant next door, for helping us navigate these issues. Our apartment is in a great location, located in the 5th Arrondissement (subdivision) on the right side of the Seine River. The 5th is also known as the “Pantheon”.
After we settled in, it was time to explore. It is like walking through a history book. Ernest Hemingway lived a few blocks from here. He had an apartment at 74 rue de Cardinal Lemoine. We watched a show on “House Hunters” last week that featured a lady who was moving to Paris and wanted to live in the Latin Quarter. She was a Hemingway fan and planned to write her own book and felt living where Hemingway lived would give here inspiration. I hope it works for her.
For dinner on our first night, we happened on a cute French restaurant, Demi Lune, and had a very good dinner. (aren’t all French restaurants cute?). Our meal included drinks, entrees, main course, and dessert. We began our meal with two traditional entrees, Linda had French Onion soup and I had Escargot. Afterwards, we had our main course, Linda had filet of pork in mustard sauce and I had salmon in a creme sauce. For dessert, Linda had creme brulee and I had an apple tarte. The host was friendly and the food was great and the bill was $50.00
We got back to the apartment around 8:30 PM and turned in. We woke up around 2:30 AM. Got up, had a cup of coffee ,and went back to bed and then woke up at 10:00 AM. It was time to write.
When Larry and I were growing up in Huxford, Alabama, I had no idea who Ernest Hemingway was, or for that matter anything about Paris. I am here now and writing. Maybe Hemingway has influenced me?
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