Ah, yes, FOOD. Pretty much the main reason we went to France. Well, let me tell you, unless you're eating in the kind of restaurant that requires reservations, your choices are kind of limited. Every single brasserie, and there is virtually one on every corner, has on its menu: onion soup (without the prefix, "French"), croque monsieur (toasted ham and cheese sandwich), croque madame (toasted ham and cheese sandwich with egg), omelettes, and escargo. And usually little else. You can get a tuna or chicken salad, and many places have their own version of pizza, but those few things are your standard fare. And the sandwich is a little weird in that it's ham between two slices of bread, with cheese on top of the top slice, then apparently "toasted" in a broiler. It's kind of a bad place to be if you don't like ham or are Jewish. Add to this the slight fear of Mad Cow or Hoof and Mouth disease, which limited our ability to order beef or the ever present ham, and you get slim pickins.

Luckily, almost every brasserie has its menu posted outside, so you can see if it has any other options besides the standards.

The first night, we chose the brasserie equivalent of Denny's. The food was bland and boring, and it turned my poor mother off of her beloved soup de poisson (fish soup) for the rest of the trip. She'd been looking forward to the soup for weeks, and of course, we stopped at the first brasserie where it was listed on the menu, but it was so bad, she didn't order it again the whole trip. Nor did I order croque monsier again.

The next day, food was our first order of business again, so we set out in the other direction from our hotel and found a pub where we both ordered omelettes and I asked for a side of fries. The Coke came in a glass bottle (yes!) with a glass and ONE ice cube. But this was my first experience with real FRENCH fried potatoes (pomme frittes). There's a reason they're not just called "fries." Those French people know how to cook a potato, man. I don't know what they did, or if their potatoes were different, but every single time we had fries, and I would have to say we had some almost every day, no matter how they were cut or served, they were AMAZING. People go to France for the art or the culture or the haute cuisine or fashion, but if I ever go back again, it will be for the fries. I can die happy.

Our hotel was right across the street from the Jardin Tuilleries: a beautiful, sculptured garden right outside the Louvre. We noticed tents set up and found out it was the last day of an art and antique show, so we went in. It killed some time and took no brain power, which was good because we were both still pretty jet lagged. After a short nap in our separate rooms, we decided to have one of our "nice" dinners, and the restaurant in the Vendome hotel let us in without a reservation. I had a fish special which was good enough to redeem my opinion of French food. But that was helped an awful lot by these little bread-y, cheese-y, puffy things they set down at the start. I was still talking about those cheese puffs on the last day. They were indescribably good.

On Monday, my mom wasn't feeling so well and was exhausted because her noise machine had broken. She sleeps with a machine that generates white noise, or basically static, next to her bed to drown out all the other noise, and even with a power converter it had burned up about half an hour into the night. So after a quick meal (I forget what and where, but I know it included french fries and they were *killer*), I went off on my own to try to find her a new noise machine while she napped.

I had an idea where the busier shopping neighborhood near us was because we'd come through it on our way from the airport. I ended up finding the largest department store in Paris, Galleries Layfayette. I would have bet it was the largest department store in the world. Nine floors, a block long. No noise machine, however. I did find a man who spoke some English, who told me he'd heard of machines like that, but didn't think I'd find one in France. He gave me directions to a store that, if there were a noise machine to be had in France, would have one. I walked over and there and made them sell me their display model because they were out of the ones in boxes. Then I walked next door to the nature store and found TWO versions of better, louder machines, and bought one of those, too, since the first one didn't seem loud enough.

Mom wasn't up for dinner that night, so I wandered around until I found a pizza place and took one back to the hotel. It was pretty darned good, even though they put olives on it for no apparent reason, but the next day, it left me a little queasy, so this time I stayed home and Mom went out to shop a little. Mostly we both stayed in and read. Finally we got hungry, but all I wanted was soup -- any kind other than onion. So we wandered around again, for seemingly hours, trying to find a restaurant that had anything other than onion soup. Finally, we happened upon a Chinese restaurant that had pretty much every Chinese dish ever invented on its menu, including about ten kinds of soup. Yay for me. I had wonton soup and a chicken dish, and felt so so so much better. We liked the Chinese place the best at this point.

By the next day, half our week was gone and we hadn't done any touristy things at all, so we went to a bus tour place and set up a tour for that evening and one for Friday morning. Then we went to Angelina's, which was about three doors down from our hotel and was evidently in all the guidebooks as a "must see" place. It's a nice little restaurant, and is famous for its hot chocolate, which we didn't order, but watched other people having... it's much much much thicker than American hot chocolate, and is served with a big bowl of whipped cream to thin it down with. Like drinking a melted Hershey bar, I think.

Then we walked to the Musee D'orsay, one of the two highlights of the trip. We were advised before we went to skip the bottom floors and go straight up to the top floor, where the Impressionist pieces were. It was beyond amazing. We saw works by Degas, Cezanne, Monet (including "Waterlilies," which brought tears to my eyes, just for the fact that I was seeing an international treasure in person), Manet, Van Gogh (including "Starry Night," again, a tear-bringer), Gaugin, Sisley, and some chick whose name I forget. At one point, my mom tapped me on the shoulder to turn around and there was Whistler's "Study in Black and Gray," aka "Whistler's Mother," taking up a whole wall. I gasped, and again got emotional. She laughed and told me she'd hate to see what would happen when I saw the Mona Lisa, which is exhibited at the Louvre. (Good thing we never made it over there, I guess.)

That night was our first bus tour, called "Illuminations." Paris is the "City of Lights," and this tour took us to all the major monuments and sights to see them lit up at night, including Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees, and a few others. Pretty spectacular, and we got to fit in a whole bunch of things in a small space of time. We stopped at the brasserie on the corner nearest our hotel for dinner afterwards. My vegetable soup turned out to be pureed and just kind of, uh, soupy. Mom had spaghetti bolognese, another standard menu item. The waiter brought me everything from bread to a pepper mill to a container of toothpicks. It was odd. And funny. We wondered what all we would end up with on our table if we sat there all night, but in the end it wasn't worth sitting in the cigarette smoke to find out.

Thursday, we spend almost the whole day at Galleries Lafayette and still didn't cover every floor. I realized I only had two more days and had spent hardly any of my money, so I went to town and bought about six sweaters, some slacks, and some souveniery things. That night we would have our second of three "nice" dinners, and my mom chose an Italian restaurant she'd been reading about. They sat us in the back with all the other Americans, including a mother and daughter from Texas whom I recognized immediately as Texans, before they even spoke. We both had a salad that came with fried shrimp on the side, and I had some fancy ravioli while my mom finally let loose and ordered some meat -- veal picatta to be exact. I would have given up all six sweaters to have eaten like that every night, and probably should have.

At this point, I should probably say that most meals in France, even lunch, usually run about four courses, with a plate of cheese being the third, right before dessert. It would have been far too much for both of us if we had eaten the traditional French way the whole time, but I do wish we had partaken a few more times. Those people know cheese. And fries.

Final two days and return trip in the next installment.