A Very Scenic Scotland!

Tags

Camera Obscura, Candlemaker's Row, Deacon Brodie's Tavern, Durham, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh ghost tour, Edinburgh Modern Art Museum, Edward Munch, Greyfriar's Bobby, Greyfriar's Bobby's Pub, Holyrood Abbey, La Favorita, Leith Walk, London 2012 Olympics, Royal Mile, Scotland, sheep, The Ship on the Shore, whiskey, whiskey distillery

Here in the UK, there have been commercials for months since the beginning of the London 2012 Olympic Games promotion as July and the beginning of the games nears, inviting all those that live in England to visit the rest of the UK – Ireland and Scotland instead of vacationing outside of the UK this summer. Cram as many people as we can into the UK!! Why not?? The population in the UK as of the 2007 census was recorded to be 60,975,000 people. England making up a vast 51 million of that number equal to Scotland on a mere 137,745 square miles of land. We have plenty of room to host as many visitors as we can squeeze in! Perhaps if we just sent all of our residents north to Scotland and Ireland to stand on a white cliff and take in the scenery?

Not under suggestion, but as a trip that had been planned last year that had fallen through a few times, our family took a week long trip to Edinburgh, Scotland with Mei’s godparents and Cousin Hannah. At first planning, we were going to take this trip just after Mei turned two-weeks old, but at a ripe 14 months I think she really enjoyed this trip as well! Mei has done a bit of travelling at her young age and we were very excited to keep with tradition and take her to yet, another country, and why not a scenic one?

For those who have not visited Europe (or perhaps you have), the train is an absolutely brilliant way to travel. It is cost effective, comfortable and just easy – especially if you have young children as you don’t have to pay extra for strollers or luggage, etc and there aren’t any weight limits and the stuff that you have to worry about with air travel. You also get to see a lot more of the country this way and it’s just exciting!

Our first three legs of the train journey, to get on the correct railway to Scotland were short, quick rides but by the fourth leg, we bought lunch, snacks and ale (for those of us that were interested in drinking, ie. not me) and settled into our seats to watch scenic England pass us by as we approached and passed through the southern reaches of scenic Scotland. Each town we passed grew in it’s apparent antiquity and expanse, until we began seeing very large and impressive castles and cathedrals marking the town centers and suddenly, Edinburgh was upon us.

a sleepy Mei on the train

After getting to our hotel and getting our bearings, we caught up with Cousin Hannah who had arrived about an hour before us and met her for dinner at La Favorita on Leith Walk, rumored to be the best Italian and pizza restaurant in Edinburgh.

enjoying some downtime in the hotel (taken by Carly Swenson)

waiting for the taxi… (taken by Carly Swenson)

my dinner… pasta filled with crayfish and shrimp… perfectly delicious!

the Husband Unit’s calzone…

orange and chocolate cannoli for dessert…

Let me just say that the wait staff was absolutely exceptional (reservations can be made within hours of dining, encouraged and appreciated) and the food stood up to it’s reputation.

ready for another day out in her adorable, new red coat and red umbrella

We spent the next few days touring the different things Edinburgh had to offer, starting with the Castle. We had lunch at the Redcoat Cafe – which is fairly cost effective and filling! The castle itself was quite beautiful and a great place to visit. We all had fun looking through the various exhibits, it is set up similar to the Tower of London and we learned a lot about Scotland and Edinburgh this way. I have to say that the Crown Jewels are smaller, and fewer than those of England but much more impressive and easier to view. As far as being stroller friendly, the cobblestone is a bit difficult to navigate in parts, making for a really bumpy ride but there are rather more paved and smooth but all the parts of the castle are completely accessible although there are some stairs to get up and down but they aren’t very steep or too cumbersome for even a 7 month pregnant woman carrying a 20 lb toddler and stroller around as necessary during our tour.

The entrance to the castle!

a bench on the way up to the main area of the interior walls of the Castle… I wish I had a bunch of young children to pile into this bench for a photo!

my favorite view from the Castle

views from the Castle

HALT!

Views from the Castle

guarding all sorts of things!

the dessert spread at the Redcoat Cafe

Haggis Pie for the husband unit and Casey

Veggie soup & bread for Carly and me

a castle seagull… or seagull at the castle, whichever you prefer

Carly being the “rain” while Casey “borrows” Mei’s umbrella on the way out of the Castle

One neat aspect of the Castle was seeing the various prisons where they had displayed the doors that various prisoners and groups etched their names, ship names and signatures into which was really quite fantastic to see. We walked through just a small portion of their living quarters which consisted mostly of hammocks and overturned crates for chairs and saw the old bread oven that they used to bake their bread, as the prisoners were responsible for caring for themselves.

an unhappy prisoner

Mei and I got a headstart up the hill from the rest of the gang when she suddenly realized we were being followed and decided to RUN! up the hill!! (taken by Carly Swenson)

Carly & Mei sharing a sunglasses moment! (taken by Carly Swenson)

Another one of our tours, which happens to be just outside the front gate of the castle, is a whiskey distillery which offers tours and tastings, which we were eager to participate in. Mei even enjoyed the barrel ride and sitting down for some chips (french fries for my American readers) and juice while the boys tasted a few different whiskies at the end of our tour. We even walked away with some neat whiskey snifters for “free!”

We wound up spending a lot of our time on the Royal Mile, which is one and one eighths of a regular mile, better known as a Scot’s mile which is the area of original Edinburgh. St. Gile’s Cathedral is located there, along with the many ghost tours of old Edinburgh – which was a bit disappointing in the “scary” factor, although seeing the Underground City was pretty neat!

a view at old town Edinburgh, just outside the entrance to part of the Underground City

On Cousin Hannah’s last morning in Edinburgh, which came about two mornings before our last morning since she had exams and classes to get back to in London, we all went to the Camera Obscura. It is a great place to visit and Mei, being just over a year old enjoyed everything it had to offer, being a kind of house of illusions. She explored changing colors, spinning vortexes and plenty of other illusions and other fun things. Mei’s godmother Carly, of Nakedcarly Art, took some amazing photos of our fun at the Camera Obscura.

views from the top of the Camera Obscura (taken by Carly Swenson)

whoa! (taken by Carly Swenson)

playing with a larger than life bowl of fruit!

Anyone interested in having Mei for dinner?

all of us having a great time at Camera Obscura! (taken by Carly Swenson)

more illusion fun! (taken by Carly Swenson)

Mei chasing virtual fish on the floor…

do we look normal??

walking down the Royal Mile

Walking around Edinburgh is a great way to see all the fun things that are tucked into each neighborhood and along the base of the Castle, which is where we found a fun little cemetery. The heavy, old headstones would be set down or laid flat if they were in danger of toppling over to protect visitors as playing or walking around the headstones was discouraged due to the antiquity and unpredictable nature of the headstones, but we managed to enjoy taking plenty of photos while Mei took a nap with her little Scottish ram that we bought for her while shopping for postcards on the Royal Mile.

Cousin Hannah enjoying the walk down from the Royal Mile to the cemetery!

a great view of the castle from the cemetery

We did have lunch at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern – where the food was good and filling but the service was horrendous. We just had a terrible experience there, our waitresses ignored us, took a minimum of 30 minutes to deliver drinks and only brought half of our table’s main lunch order at a time, so it took us a bit longer to get through lunch than it should have at any tavern, pub or restaurant. But it was a very neat, historical place to have lunch, being the tavern that the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came to be created.

one of the windy streets off the Royal Mile

Wishing something this interesting was the name of the street I lived on…

the view from the top of the Royal Mile towards the Holyrood Abbey

Mei and her new friend… we are collecting one from each country she visits so far!

The next day for lunch, we went to Greyfriar’s Bobby’s Pub on Candlemaker Row is the oldest pub in Edinburgh with the most interesting story to boot! It is said that the first policeman in Edinburgh had a dog that would work with him everyday and after the policeman died of some illness, the dog, Bobby, would watch over his grave everyday. After Bobby died, a monument was constructed just meters away from where his owner was buried, just a couple blocks from the front of the pub which was renamed in their honor and as a testament to the dog’s loyalty. How much of that is fact? There are a few versions of this same basic tale but one thing can be certain, this dog was incredibly faithful and loyal to his owner – more than most.

taken from Edinburgh Pub Guide

this statue is depicted to be much larger than it is… I am almost as tall as the entire statue, standing at a mere 5’4″ ! (taken from Edinburgh Pub Guide)

some great shots of the Holyrood end of the Royal Mile (both taken by Carly Swenson)

We wrapped up our time in Edinburgh with a trip to the Modern Art Museum, which had  some brilliant signage in front of it and plenty to offer – but turned out to be a rather quick morning activity. Edward Munch’s work was being displayed, which Mei’s godparents viewed, but we sat out from with a rather sleepy and grumpy Mei. Carly took some great photos of the statues and such on the exteriors of both Modern Art Museums and wrote a lovely piece about all of it and you can read about it here. The evening wrapped itself up at a local Spanish tapas bar just off the Royal Mile and a trip to the Our Dynamic Earth, which was a very interesting hands-on science museum about the Earth’s creation and features which Mei also enjoyed quite a bit and it very child and adult friendly. We all had fun there!

Edward Munch’s most recognized work

taken by Carly Swenson

One of the last restaurants that we had dinner at was called “The Ship on the Shore” (24-26 The Shore) with a view of the Firth of Forth, a large fjord of Scotland’s River Forth which flows into the North Sea between Fife to the North, West Lothian, Edinburgh and East Lothian. An exceptional place to dine! Especially if you love fresh seafood, wafting smells of salty air and a great ambiance while you dine! We all thought very highly of both this restaurant and La Favorita (from our first night) and would gladly recommend it to future visitors of Edinburgh! Here are some photos to drool over…

lemon and garlic mussels

our garlic and white wine mussels

husband unit’s whole sea bass

Casey & I both had the King Scallops

Husband Unit was making his bass’ head “talk” to Carly and freaking her out…

creme brulee

Snicker’s Cheesecake

The train home proved to be my opportunity to take some great pictures of the scenic countryside that we travelled through on our way to and from Edinburgh. There were picturesque, perfectly fluffy white sheep with brilliant black legs munching in the fields that were virtually impossible to take good pictures of and plenty of patchwork fields with farmers hard at work. Being a rather windy, rainy and blustery day though the pictures were hard to take and most of the countryside felt gloomy and abandoned compared to our trip to Edinburgh, where you could see farm equipment, more animals and the occasional farmer walking through the fields.

One town that we passed through on the way to Edinburgh, but that I didn’t have the opportunity to snap some pictures of was Durham, a stunning town with an enormous castle and cathedral crowning the town and looking down at the small, tiny, winding roads below. It is one of those places that I can’t find a photo to really do it justice, but here are some Google pics of it until we get a chacne to take some passing pictures of Durham another time. All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Edinburgh and Scotland and it is totally worth visiting if you are in the UK for a visit, or for the London 2012 Olympics!

taken from Google images, Durham, Scotland

learning to use headphones on the ride home and having a blast listening to Carly’s iPod together!

one last shot of scenic Scotland!

New Kid on the Rue, Part III

Tags

Angels & Demons, cod, creme brulee, customs, Dan Brown, day in paris, Eurostar, French border, immigration, Jim Morrison, Le Bar a Huitres, Louvre, Lover's Bridge, madelines, Mona Lisa, mussels, Paris, River Seine, scallops, seafood, sorbet, strawberry basil sorbet, the Lover's Bridge, Tom Hanks, UK border

So where were we?

We had just returned from dinner at Le Bistro Paul Bert. As a result of how much we had eaten, we wound up waking up quite a bit later the next morning. But that was ok because we had all that cheese, fruit and all those madelines to eat for our breakfast before we headed out for our final day in Paris. Mei and Cousin Hannah shared a nearly full bag of madelines over some Elmo on YouTube while I took a shower. It was a perfect, slow start to our day – although it became an even longer morning because Mei decided that she wanted to unpack our purses and then throw a fit and un-dress so it took us awhile to get out the door but we finally made it out and headed for the Mona Lisa.

eating Madelines and calling Daddy "on the phone"

Our two goals for the day were to see the Mona Lisa and a gravesite that Cousin Hannah was interested in. By the time we got to the Louvre, we were famished! But we got our tickets and headed straight for the Mona Lisa – above all else, we were determined to see it, in person, no matter the actual size of the painting. Before we left, many people tried to disuade us from visiting the Mona Lisa due to the actual size which just entertained me to pieces. The dimensions of the real painting have been written in every history book that I was given to read while in grade school and my college art 101 class explained that it wasn’t a huge painting either. Heck if you had watched “Angels & Demons” with Tom Hanks, you would know its not big – although not in the same place in the Louvre as it was filmed either, so it makes me laugh when people are astounded with the actual size of the painting. Really?

Either which way, it was certainly one of the most popular displays and there was a queque to get up close to it without anyone else in your way and all I can say is that when you have a child in a stroller and are waiting in line, so many people have no problem, pushing their way in front of the stroller, turning around and pushing you back. So I got up in someone’s face and rude with them and they followed me around to apologize for like ten minutes. I think he might be afraid of women pushing strollers now. How rude! But we got some great shots of the Mona Lisa, smiled at her secret smile and moved on to find food.

Even though we had just eaten breakfast about two hours before, we were famished! And the cafeteria/restauarant in the Louvre runs on traditional French meal times. Not good for the famished! But there was a little cafe where you could order cold sandwiches kind of like a Subway or a kind of gas station-esque deli style foods with wraps, sandwiches, cold pasta salads, regular salads and the like boxes or jarred up and ready for a grab and go type lunch. So we just grabbed a lot of what looked good and sat down to scarf down food. We ate just in time. Mei was fussy through lunch, not sure where she wanted to eat or sit and didnt want to hold food but didn’t want me to hold it for her either and Cousin Hannah was the most silent we had known her to be while she ate bite after bite, often before the first bite was gone! We were STARVING!!

not quite sure what was in this, but it was TASTY!!

Once we were done, we had a little mini-meltdown while getting Mei to sit in her stroller while we wove our way out of the Louvre, listening to whining and crying while Mei fought to get out of the stroller to insist on my holding her. Not easy on my preggers feet and energy. We spent a lot of time trying to sleep the night before, since Mei slept rather restlessly so we weren’t in the best of spirits. To make things worse? Some really lovely French ladies on the elevator said hi to Mei which induced the loudest screaming and crying I had ever heard come from her tiny body and I wound up carrying her out of the Louvre. She was tired, cranky, skipped a nap and I was ready for a break. Even Cousin Hannah was flustered by Mei’s behavior since she never has quite such a terrible meltdown. Usually they last a couple of seconds and she is hardly loud about it. Luckily for us, we passed a little snack stand just before leaving the Louvre that happened to have Pringles – Mei’s all-time favorite treat and that kept her happy and quiet enough to sit in her stroller and for us to get outside the Louvre to try to get a taxi to the gravesite … Jim Morrison’s!

just inside the Louvre, the main lobby

We stood out in the windy, but sunny weather waiting for a taxi, and a family came up just as a taxi pulled up for us, and because it took us a minute to get Mei out of her stroller so we could get in, they jumped in and took it away from us. The driver didn’t even blink as he drove off. This pretty much sent both Cousin Hannah and I into a rampage. We were exhausted with Mei’s meltdown and trying to get her down for a nap and flag a taxi. One of the only weird and annoying things we found about Paris was the taxis. Even when they had a green light indicating they were free and we were standing under a taxi sign – the designated place to wait for a taxi, they wouldn’t stop or they would shake their hands no and keep driving. After an hour of waiting, and then realizing with as far away as the grave was from where we were, it was not worth trying to get a cab anymore, so we headed for the Lover’s Bridge that is just outside the Louvre, stretching across the Seine.

Mama is going a bit nuts, but Mei is happy to pose for a picture!

plenty of time for photo ops when the taxis wont stop for you.

Part way across another bridge, Mei finally fell asleep so we took the opportunity to take a bunch of great pictures on the bridge. One of the things about lovely Cousin Hannah is that she is willing to talk to anyone, where I would rather avoid “sketchy” looking people, or those that I see are stopping tourists or other non-local looking/acting types and before I could blink, Cousin Hannah was holding a microphone, agreeing to do an interview for a French Media School student. He was studying filmography and had to pick a location to perform a series of interviews with strangers. It was actually pretty cool! He just asked some basic questions about Paris, what she knew about Paris, the Lover’s Bridge, what has inspired her to visit Paris and France and things she liked about the country, where she came from and then we were done! She looked great though, holding a microphone and doing the interview, she looked like she had been behind a microphone for years – a seasoned professional! Mei just slept…. thank goodness!

We headed down the road to find a little grocery store to get Mei some more baby food – she was eating so much that I underestimated how much I needed to bring with me! And to get a couple things for Cousin Hannah. Our quest sent us down some roads that few tourists were on and we stopped in a few shops to pick up some postcards and other knick knacks. I love to send all my friends and family postcards from the various places that we visit. My best friend and I make it a rule to mail each other postcards whenever we go on vacations to anywhere! It’s made for a great collection of postcards to remember all the years of our friendship by and the different places we have both been. In France, postcards take a particularly long time to reach international destinations, so they give you a postcard envelope to mail them in -which expedites the process, so you can write on the entire back of the postcard – something I have never done before. And the best part? We returned to the Louvre after we were done wandering around Paris and popping in and out of shops and there is a little mall and post office on the bottom floor! So we mailed our postcards from the Louvre! How crazy!

Mei did a little shopping for both her and her boyfriend Louie. She wound up with a stuffed and slightly weighted rhino named Hector and a little stuffed dragonfly with magnets on its feet for her Louie. She loved sticking it on her stroller and then on the fridge when we got home. She had a lot of fun shopping! I even came away with a neat souvenir. A creamer shaped like a milk carton but ceramic! I keep it half full of milk for my tea, and it is just a delight to use! It even gave the husband unit a giggle when he saw it!

Once we were done shopping, we went into their bookstore to read some books and look for any other things we might want to carry home. Cousin Hannah is in love with street art and loves to look at all the different street art and graffiti art books that any bookstore has. Mei and I took advantage of the time and nearly empty Louvre lobby to walk around, crawl around and just get some of her pent-up energy out. She even made a couple friends with older men that were stocking the book carts and manning the coffee stand! … She is quick to make friends anywhere she goes. This was a great time for me to relax as well, since she could crawl quite a ways, with no one around to bother us or try to knick her while I sat and got a break from carrying her around. She drug her new friend Hector with her everywhere. He is pretty much her new best friend and she really doesn’t care for stuffed animals so this was a pretty big deal.

As was the case every night of our Parisian adventure, there was an hour or two to kill while all the things we wanted to do or see were closed and we had to wait for restaurants to open up. So we got a cab over to the neighborhood that our restaurant was in and figured that we would look for a wine shop, another grocery store or spice store so I could look for some salts and ground pepper, and a bottle of Muscat for each of us to take home and wait until we could go to the restaurant. At least we would be early for it this time!

There were a couple of bookstores we looked at and wandered around in and we managed to find a cute, but TINY wine and alcohol shop whose owner spoke nearly as much English as we did French who happened to have very nice, aged bottles of authentic Muscat for a very reasonable price. Eleven euro per bottle! You just can’t get those prices in the States for this particular wine – if you can find it. We each took home a bottle, after the owner gave Cousin Hannah a hard time for spacing out and not paying right away for her bottle – looking at me like I might buy it for her. So we all had a laugh and enjoyed some quick quips back and forth before we thanked him and he helped us with Mei’s stroller to get out of the shop. All the while, Mei took a nice, long nap before dinner – which meant that dinner would pass much more pleasantly for me and she would be more willing to sit in her own chair and enjoy her meal.

Our restaurant was called Le Bar a Huitres – supposedly one of the best seafood restaurants in Paris, and who wouldn’t want to have seafood in Paris? They are known to have all sorts of great seafood dishes – along with so many other things… but it would round out our dining experience I thought, so we headed in! I should mention on the way in that there were two, very cold looking gentlemen frantically shucking oysters and creating these ridiculous platters, which lined a counter that wrapped around the front of the restaurants, beckoning passers-by to come in and dine on these magnificient looking platters of delicious seafood. We thought it was quite hilarious, the speed and panic with which they performed their duties but once we got inside, we understood. Every other table (that had diners of course) were ordering three to six tiered seafood platters. The tables even came outfitted with a hole where a pole gets screwed in that holds the base platter just above head height of the average diner so that the platters leave all the table space to discard shells and hold your drinks and any other courses you have ordered and the tuxedo-clad managers assigned to every bank of tables would come by and lower the platters as the diners made their way to the top – or bottom, as you prefer, leaving the platters within arms reach of all the diners at the table. It was certainly a sight to behold!

Their website advertised a recent change in their menus, they have decided to use iPad’s for menus with the ability to translate their menu in a variety of different languages to aid foreign diners in their ordering. They are also known for the largest variety and tallest platters of fresh seafood all of Paris has to offer. The largest platter costs 1,000 euro and includes two of the largest lobsters you have ever seen, fished straight out of their wall to wall, floor to ceiling fish tanks, 5 large crabs and a selection of a couple dozen Madagascar prawns, and as many as 100 oysters – not including the cockles, winkles and welks. Each variety of seafood has at least four varieties, representing Europe and all fresh that day. It’s a great deal but you will inevitably be at dinner for a really long time and probably need to bring a few people with you to share this meal – just in the cost alone! … The smallest platter, which is more affordable, at 50 euro includes two large crabs, nine oysters from three different regions and countries, cockles, winkles and welks – just a taste of what they offer. This is all in addition to their prix fixe menu, children’s menu, non-seafood menu and daily specials. It takes an awful long time to figure out how to navigate the menu, then decide on something .. and even longer when the waiter is being “helpful” and trying to keep Mei entertained by showing her how to use my iPad menu. Ineveitably this made reading my menu IMPOSSIBLE. Mei was having a blast switching screens and looking at the pictures of crabs, lobsters and other exciting sea animals flash across the bottom of each page and just delighted to be moving the screen in all directions and making it swish! … Oi vey. Really dude?

Alas we decided on ordering a set menu from their specials menu, which meant a traditional bucket of mussels in white wine sauce and frittes for me and a nice cod steak for Cousin Hannah. The waiter did try to convince us to order a really nice sounding and enormous flat fish that was swimming around in the tanks, saying that one half would easily feed two people and it would be flambe-d table-side and it was one of their most popular dishes (he wasn’t kidding, we saw quite a few of the huge, flat fish being flambed around us) and that for the price of 79 euro per person, it would come with appetizers, a cheese board, dessert and a couple glasses of wine. Uh, no thanks dude. We were quite happy with our selections and had no intent on ondering a quarter of a fish each that would easily cost more than going fishing for one of his brother’s ourselves.

While we waited for our starters, a ridiculous salad, he brought us a little amuse-bouche. He was a French-speaking Asian individual who spoke quickly, with a thick accent and the only part of the description that we understood was some kind of mustard sauce. He left two tiny, well-shaped dishes with saucing spoons and at the bottom of the sauce was some kind of mussel looking item. We figured it was some sort of sauce for dinner, so we didn’t eat it right away. A few minutes later he comes by and says, the amuse-bouche (now he tells us! it’s not a sauce as we thought), is much better eaten hot. Well, it was entirely way too late for that and boy did it taste terrible!

Mei was making it impossible to get a clear shot of the amouse-bouche

Then came the salad.

You know the type. It comes with the fancy greens that are shaped like weeds and impossible to spear with your fork? You can’t possibly eat it without shoving a sloppy forkful in your mouth and tucking in the bits that didn’t quite make it? I detest those types of salad. But the vinagarette was very tasty so I guess it made it worth it, and the three scallops that it came with were good but not near as big as the ones at Le Bistro Paul Bert and certainly not as tasty. Not to mention the two terrine type “sticks” of something completely indescribable and un-identifiable that came crossed on top of the salad of weeds…. it was terrible also! It was fishy, sour, salty, pasty and just plain not tasty. I would be happy never to be served that amouse-bouche or scallop salad ever again.

Mei & Hector play while I eat the salad...

The bread basket was very nice however and Mei really enjoyed the bits of sourdough while we waited for our main courses. Cousin Hannah took opporutnity of the lull to take “secret agent” shots of other diners and their towering platters without raising suspicion of the managers or other diners. Mei fed Hector and herself and crawled in and out of her chair, exclaiming at the passing fish in the tanks. Something interesting to point out are the condiments that they brought us. They included black Hawaiian salt – intended for fish, pink Himalayan salt – good for everything, and their house pressed olive oil presented in a perfume bottle. I don’t know if they wanted to cut back on the amount of olive oil each diner consumed or what but it was a slow and difficult process to spray enough olive oil on your plate to dip even one section of bread in and we quickly gave in and just stuck with butter on our bread.

see how the platters are set "on" the table?

When dinner arrived, the waiter felt it necessary to instruct Cousin Hannah that the skin (scaled of course), on her fish was not meant to be eaten and fish skin was not good for you. Really? Secretly, she ate her fish skin, leaving just enough so as not to offend the waiter. According to her, it was tasty and the first time either of us had ever heard not to eat fish skin…. weird. My stainless steel pot of mussels poured out steam as I lifted the lid and the waiter set down three large bowls to contain the shells. I only used one. I hope he was not disappointed. Eating the mussels was certianly interesting. Mei sat in my lap while I got the tiniest, bright orange mussels I had ever eaten out of their shells and feeding her every other one I lifted out of the pot until she was happy to go back to eating her sourdough. I even ordered her a small side of steamed rice, which she gobbled down before moving onto my frittes! After awhile, Cousin Hannah had finished her fish and she sat with Mei so I could eat my mussels at a normal pace without having to stop every few seconds to play defense between the items on the table and Mei.

Cousin Hannah's Cod steak

keepin' busy while Mama ate...

Dessert was flambed at our table (of course) since I ordered creme brulee and of course our waiter had no regard for Mei’s tiny fingers and quick reach as he set the dish down right in front of her and whipped out a lighter and immediately lit the dessert, causing me to dive and grab her, sitting her on my lap – away from the flaming creme brulee which he pushed right back in front of her tiny fingers with a warning “watch out, the fire is very hot for the baby.” Again, really dude? … He was young, and obviously very concerned about Mei’s safety.

Since I had been making an effort to order Mei a side of something that she would like, I also got her her very own dessert – strawberry basil sorbet! Usually, in France if sorbet is on the menu, it is usually presented as a trio, but we just needed one small pot for her. It came garnished with a pulled sugar ribbon which we removed since she really doesnt need to eat a sugar ribbon, wouldn’t you say? Cousin Hannah got the full trio, which was chocolate, yogurt and strawberry basil and she enjoyed every single bite! I was actually very tentative about eating strawberry basil sorbet since fruit and herbs aren’t something that I would normally mix together, but I have been seeing it grow in popularity on Top Chef, Masterchef and all those other cooking shows as well as seeing it appear on menus in smaller cafes and mainstream restaurants. I whole-heartedly reccommend that you try it if you come across it, its very addictive!

Overall, the meal was good and I would go back with my husband for one of those seafood platters one day – but it was entirely too much for the three of us, especially when Cousin Hannah had never had most of the seafood on the platters and wasn’t sure if she would like them. The seating is super comfortable, big wicker chairs with cushy cushions that you just sink into – very seaside-esque. Dim lighting and whatever light is given off the fish tanks dividing the restaurant into sections and creating enormous, interactive walls. Even the toilets had flat screen TVs with previews for films and shows, advertisements and offers for hosting events and special occasions just over the lou. Each door marked, men or woman, with a changing photo on an iPad screen tacked to the door. It was pretty crazy! The floors were shiny, like you were walking on water and the ceiling studded with bright, shining and changing constellations – this was certainly an experience!

We got back to our hotel and packed to leave.

The next morning, we stopped at the bakery just up the road from our hotel to enjoy some chocolate beignets which were finger-lickin’ good and got the rest of our things together and packed up to head to the train station. Since we had to get up so much earlier than we had been getting up, we were quiet for the ride, Mei sleeping in my lap, and watched out our windows at our last glimpses of Paris, the Seine and arrived at the train station with plenty of time to spare.

I paid the taxi driver in somewhat of a daze – handing him the bills and some change for a tip. “This is not right” he said. Who knew that he spoke English? We gave him our destination in French, but I guess our accent was obvious? I looked at him, knowing that I gave him a three euro tip, thinking, what the heck is he trying to play at? He holds up the fiver and says “this is only like two euro!”

What the heck is he talking about? It was a five euro bill!

Or so I thought! It was a five POUND bill. I giggled and reached back into my wallet – “sorry, wrong country!” I said, handing him the proper bill and taking back my pounds. He smiled, laughed and helped me with the stroller and getting out of the taxi, thanking us profusely for the tip and wishing us well on our journey home.

We got through the train station, gathering a nice sandwich and drink just in case we were going to be served a light breakfast instead of a lunch on the train – since the thought of a light breakfast wasn’t settling well with my preggers taste buds and we headed for the train.

Going through customs and immigration was a joke and very quick. The French and UK borders were set five feet from each other, so as you left France, we entered the UK.

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Stamp!

These stamps in our passports were cool. Instead of the usual stamp with the port of entry, country of entry and date encased in a rectangular or oval official stamp, it was in the shape of a child’s choo-choo train with steam and all and all the required information off to the side. Pretty neat as far as stamps in your passport go!

Mei made friends with the UK customs agent. As she was stamping our passports and checking our visas, Mei began talking very loudly, trying to stand up in her stroller and holding out Hector to the agent. She stood up from her chair and peered over at Mei, asked her name and commented on her nice rhino and Mei giggled, gave Hector a big hug and settled back into her seat, talking softly and periodically holding out Hector to the agent. The agent was completely smitten with Mei and sent us on our way, both waving bye to each other.

Believe it or not there was duty free area just past customs and immigrations, … and none of the items they were selling were restricted within Europe anyways – except for in quantity, but once you get to the UK, there is no check for any goods or food items you might have brought back, so this was pretty ridiculous to me.

We got settled in our car, Mei took a quick nap and we watched as two passengers opposite the aisle from us made nasty comments about Cousin Hannah’s hair and my age in comparison to Mei’s age. Really? … Don’t they know that if they talk at a normal volume, we can hear them? So we went ahead and talked loudly about pretentious older people making judgements about others based on looks. They were fairly quiet, talking about only the food and scenery for the remainder of the trip. Serves them right!

Mei, Hector and Elmo... having a ball on the train home!

Lunch arrived and Mei woke up for that, of course, enjoying every bit of it! It came with a few cold slices of duck breast on what seemed to be a cheesy cornmeal mush of some sort, a cold pasta salad, apple tart, and rolls. It was just enough to satiate our rumbling tummies and delicious! The couple made another snarky remark when we were offered wine and took a bottle for Cousin Hannah to take as a souvenir, so we stared them down for the remainder of their meal. I think we made them sufficiently nervous about talking about us. People can just be so inconsiderate! It did make us laugh though when they couldn’t figure out how to open the door to leave the car and how to close it once they managed to open it (it’s automatic, you just have to touch the handle).

The scenic countryside passing by our windows lulled us all into a post-meal nap and we awoke just outside of London. Our trip had nearly come to an end. Cousin Hannah headed back to her dorm room and Mei and I got on another train to finish our journey home, just a quick hour on a local train and we were home! We are all going to miss Paris, and from all of our stories, the hubby decided that he would go with Mei and I for another trip before the new baby arrives! Score! I will get a chance to go back to Polaine bakery, visit Pierre Herme and find all the other things on my list! And we wouldn’t forget to visit our friends at Paul Bert!

If you ever get a chance to go to Paris, do it. You won’t regret it!