Paris bites

My hands-down best meal in Paris was a real treat: a quintessentially French home-cooked meal. 

On the night before the Glee Club left Paris, singer and voice teacher Florence invited Ma'am Malou to dinner at her house. Ma'am Malou, not wanting to go by herself, took myself, Mimi and the Glee Club's soprano pint-sized powerhouse Stef with her.

We met up outside the metro station in a... shall we say, less than savory neighborhood. While we clutched our purses tighter and waited nervously for Stef, who was late, to emerge from the metro, Florence's colleague Stefan assured us that the house we were going to have dinner in was very different from the neighborhood. "It's very pretty," he promised. 

And indeed it was. Behind a small wooden gate on a nondescript street lay a secret garden, shared among three families, including Florence and her teenage daughter Manon. All three families are great friends and share this wonderful space. When the lady of the house locked the gate behind us, she effectively shut out all the sounds of the city. It felt as if we weren't even in Paris anymore. They even have a cherry tree!

Then there was the food. 

Round and round we go

One of the smaller museums that I've missed on my previous Paris trips was the Musee L'Orangerie in the Jardin des Tuileries. It was an oversight that I was happy to correct on this visit.

Marlon, Gutsy and I were welcomed by Rodin's The Kiss right outside the museum door. It's the third I've seen, after the ones at the Musee Rodin and the sculpture garden in Martigny.

The centerpieces of the Musee L'Orangerie are a pair of tranquil white oval-shaped rooms that house Monet's famous paintings of water lilies, Les Nympheas.

Six of about 250 paintings by Monet on the same theme are housed here.

Something about the scale of the paintings, or maybe the peace and beauty of its subjects, made the mood in these round halls somewhat contemplative.

The visitors remind me of people watching films on a panoramic screen... except it's not the images that change, but what you're thinking about them.

I was just glad that the rooms were cool and quiet, making them a perfect place to hide from the hot sun. I'm learning to love it when the sun is out, but too much still annoys me. Yes, I'm still Asian.

Downstairs was a collection of mostly impressionist paintings, including works from Cezanne, Modigliani, Matisse, Monet and others. The one I liked the most was this portrait of Coco Chanel by the artist Marie Laurencin.

It was annoyingly hot outside, so we scrapped our plan to go walking around the gardens after the museum. Instead, we repaired to Laduree, which was just a few minutes away.

I'd been to Laduree once before with Gutsy and Tria, in 2006. But I couldn't afford more than just a coffee back then. Not even one of Laduree's famed macarons.

This time, I had a lime-vanilla sorbet... with a fleur de sel (salted caramel) macaron. Both of them were absolutely divine: so light and sweet, flavorful without being overpowering.

Marlon immortalized my first bite of Laduree's famous macarons on camera. Each bite was definitely a mmm-mmm-mmmmoment. 

In addition to the fleur de sel, Gutsy and I also shared a pistachio and an orange blossom macaron.



After the oval rooms at L'Orangerie, I guess you could say that round shapes were the theme of the day!

Les Puces de St-Ouen

I'm a lucky, lucky girl: last week's visit to Paris was my sixth. Having been there several times with my family and friends, I've managed to check off most of the tourist staples, such as the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur and more. On my last visit five years ago, when I got engaged in Paris, I started working towards the lesser-visited sites such as Ste-Chapelle and Musee Rodin. 

Still, I've only just touched the tip of the tip of the iceberg that is Paris. With every visit, there's always too much that I want to do, see, taste... and buy! Having experienced the city at different ages (5, 18 and 25, for example), my tastes and interests change between visits, which always makes each time new, fun and different. 

Two things that I was never really interested in on my past visits to Paris, but absolutely love now, are vintage and flea markets. So I just had to visit Paris' biggest flea market: Les Puces de Saint-Ouen at Clignancourt. Lured by Jordan Ferney's beguiling photos and guided by her bright, cheery and very accurate map, Marlon and I headed there our first morning in Paris.

In my new one-sleeved dress from Uniqlo. I love this color!

Les Puces (The Fleas) are made up of different markets spread out over numerous city blocks. It's reportedly the largest flea market in the world. It's about half the size of Bangkok's massive Chatuchak market, but filled with nothing but antique and vintage furniture, clothing, odds and ends.

Both of us have been searching for the perfect living room armchair for the last six months. Les Puces were full of gorgeous pieces that we were dying to take home. You'd think delivery overland from France to the Netherlands would be somewhat affordable, right? 

Paris, 10 years later

Do you remember?

Do you remember waking up to days, weeks, months where all you had to think about was what you loved to do most, in the company of the people you most loved to do it with?

Do you remember sound checks and rehearsals...



Churches upon churches...



More masses than you'd ever attended in a single day?



Do you remember passing the hat for money? And being so thankful for every deutschmark, franc, guilder, peseta, tolar, lira, and much later, euro, that our voices earned for us?



Do you remember the bread broken with strangers who made the meals and cared for us, so that after those meals they were strangers no more?



Do you remember taking too long to load the bus with suitcases that got heavier at each stop...



... and laughing at the most ridiculous things that only we could find funny, together?



Do you remember the applause and the cheers, how they made your heart feel all warm inside no matter how tired you were... and smile so hard you thought your face might split apart?



Do you remember singing our joys, sorrows, triumphs, exhaustion, even our goodbyes?



Do you remember what it was like to win?

And what it was like when we had to start all over again?

That was when I wish someone had told me that in spite of everything I feared, what I loved would continue, grow and flourish.

And though the songs may be new ones...

The faces may have changed...

And although now we can only be on the outside looking in...

It looks and feels as sweet as I remember. And I know they'll always remember it this way, too.

Wiping my eyes after the Glee Club sang for the morning service at the American Church in Paris, I asked Gutsy: "Why did we have to grow up?"

I'm not sure, but I think maybe we leave some things behind to make room, to clear space for new and different things...

... things that make new selves of us, and that assure us every day that becoming an adult is worth it.

And while we leave some things behind, some things, like laughter, music and friendship...

 

...are simply forever. 

"We'll always have Paris," goes the famous line from Casablanca. But I think we'll always have much more than Paris. And for that I will always be grateful.