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Other entries in Paris

Julie's attempt at converting me

Today was going to be quite the day with Julie attempting to convert me into a Frenchman. But first we were off on the hunt to try to find a vaccine. I had one last vaccine that I was not to take until 2 weeks and 1 week before heading for Africa. It also had to be kept refrigerated. So getting it across on the plane to Mike's didn't work out and I lost the vaccine as I was hesitant to use it after it was warm. So today we were trying to see if we could find a replacement. We had already discovered they have stopped distributing the same thing I had in France, so we were off to see if they had a Cholera only vaccine. The long and the short of it was they no longer do Cholera vaccines. I had read that they are not all that effective, so I guess I will simply wing it and be careful on what I consume in Africa and I should be fine.

Then we "checked out" bikes and biked around Paris. For once, something I was good at :-). Anyway, we headed to all the major attractions and took various pictures at them. I really have to remember the lesson Julie taught me about making sure that some of my pictures are taken doing something fun and goofy. We got in a number of those, though Julie was laughing at me too hard to get any pictures of me trying to crawl onto the tall pillar (see pictures).

For lunch we went to a traditional French Restaurant called Chez Paul and had some traditional French dishes. I wasn't really sure what to think of that idea, but I was game to try. It turns out we had:

Foie Gras de Canard (Fat Duck Liver)
Escargots (snails)
Museau Vinaigrette (thinly sliced pig snout)

The escargots were excellent (or maybe I just really enjoyed the garlic butter), the Foie Gras was different from anything I have tasted before and very rich and the Museau was heavily soaked in vinegar, but it was definitely pork. Then we headed off to pick up some new bikes and to have some ice cream. Sadly, since ice cream and I don't really get along all that well anymore (developing lactose intolerance), I was a bit unsure, but when we got there I discovered the french lump sorbet into ice cream as well, so all was well. We then headed off on another bike trek and covered a lot more ground. We were not really sure how much ground we had covered, but I would guess 10-15km in all. We returned the bikes, Julie took me to another Macaroon place to pick up some more - they had dark chocolate at this one - also very good!!

It was very hot that day, and we got a lot of sun and exercise. Julie is blonde and blue eyed, so all the sun left her cheeks quite pink as she burns easily, but gladly she didn't burn.

Then we headed back to Julie's to get ready for the night train to Venice tonight. Well, actually I was the only one that had to get ready as Julie had already packed the previous evening in her excitement to go :-) So of course I was slowing us down again, but it turned out we had more time than we though as the train was leaving almost an hour later than we had initially believed. I packed only my small daypack and off we went to Paris Bercy station.

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