Finally! I can bore the two of you with something other than what I made for dinner!

So…we officially had our first visitor in Paris! Drum roll please…

Presenting Luke!

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. So here’s the score…jet lag-3, housewife-0. I know, I know…c’mon Piggy, you’re in Paris! But, but, before you pass judgment on me…I made a little progress. I woke up at 1pm today. That’s 2+ hours earlier than days 1 & 2. Baby steps people, baby steps. But I think this weekend will shame me into kicking this thing cold turkey. Since its finally the weekend, Brandon will be home and I’m sure he won’t let me sleep until the late afternoon…uh, unless he sleeps until then. But I highly doubt that. I think he’s looking forward to purchasing cell phones this weekend.

After waking up “early” today, ironically I could not leave the house since I had no idea when Luke would possibly show up on our doorstep. So I went about tidying up our humble abode. Not much to blog about there. Brandon gets home and then Luke shows up. We show him our place, blah, blah, blah…and we head out to eat.

We are crossing our fingers to eat at Les Papilles, the restaurant that I fell in love with last month when I was visiting and apartment hunting with Brandon. We walk up to the restaurant and it is packed. We stare through the large glass window in front and gawk at the lucky two top seated in front. Drool. I open the door to go in and ask if there are any openings and we are all entranced by the mouth-watering smells casting their siren song upon us wafting up in a chorus from every table. OMG. The salivating is overwhelming now. I give the maitre d’ my best puppy dog in the store window, doe-eyed look as I ask if there is any chance of eating here this evening…and he was nice, he didn’t laugh in my face. But alas, of course, on a friday night, with no reservations, like Mary & Joseph, we were turned away. Sigh, I love you NY Times for revealing Les Papilles to me, but hate you for having so many other readers! So our eyes looked their last, our noses took their last inhale, and our lips could only smack at the delicious meal that was not meant to be ours tonight. (WHEN YOU COME BACK LUKE, WE WILL GO THERE!)

After we mourned our loss, it was on to option 2. Ha, I didn’t even bother to see what it was called. I’ll ask Brandon when he wakes up. It was a wine bar/restaurant that serves decent food that Brandon has been to with a few of his co-workers. And decent it was. Probably the best steak tartar that I have tasted thus far in Paris.

Here were the evenings winners…

Brandon’s vegetable soup

Luke and I both selected the french onion soup

Oh yes, my friends, cheesy goodness right there.

I guess Luke and I were just on the same page tonight. We both ordered duck confit. The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and was like M&M’s (melt in your mouth).

But Brandon’s beef tartar was my favorite dish of the night. I wanted to order it too, but for the sake of trying new things, I ordered the duck. Ah well, like a good hubby, he traded plates with me in the end. Muhaha…

I know to some of you this probably looks like a train wreck, but rest assured, it is absolutely de-lish.

So after our sodium OD, we strolled on over to Saint Michel in search of something sweet. Debating over the most difficult question on earth, crepes or gelato? Tonight, gelato won.

Luke and Brandon with their manly cones of flowery shaped gelato. Real men eat flower shaped cones of gelato.

I think Luke is smelling to sweetness of his lovely flowery gelato. Nice.

Okay, let me just get this off my chest. WHY is it so hard for strangers to take pictures for you?! Do they shoot their own photos this poorly?! So I normally seek out someone young, and who look like they know a thing or two. Yes, I age profile my “could you please take a photo for us” candidates. Its not pretty, I know, but it just has to be done. Usually I look for someone who actually has a digital camera of their own, but there was none to be seen this evening so I went up to a girl around my age and asked. To my horror she hands the camera to the white haired gentleman next to her and tells him to do it. In the aftermath, Brandon says, she probably didn’t know English. What does knowing English have to do with pointing a camera in a subject’s general direction and pressing down a button?! OMG. So it gets worse. The “older” gentleman turns around, we pose, and <just shoot me now> he fully extends both his arms straight up in the air and snaps our picture.

And this is the result. Its a point-and-shoot camera! Not a fully-extend-your-arms-don’t-look- at-the-large-LCD-display-showing-you-what-you-are-taking-a-photo-of camera! Well, I guess it would have been a pretty decent photo of just Luke and Brandon if I weren’t hanging off to the side. Maybe he decided I shouldn’t be in the picture, but the full extension of his arms were powerless against my large face.

So I gave him what he wanted. A photo of just Brandon and Luke in the crowded streets of Saint Michel.

And the evening was over. We both took our separate RER B trains home in opposite directions. So very French. Or so I say it is. :D Ah, Luke, such a good sport. Allowing me to take pictures of everything for blog fodder. He laughed at me when I whipped out my camera but gave me a nice wave from the train. Au revoir friend! We hope your work sends you our way again very soon! Thanks for the wonderful dinner and for giving me something to write about other than my home cooking.

Okay, tomorrow is le weekend! Hopefully they’ll be some good stuff to report back to you guys on. Until then…stay tuned. This is Piggy signing off. Oink! Oink!