Staycation a Paris

Two days in a row in Paris? Busy!

Friday night Lilah decided it wasn't a good night to sleep. So Kimmy stayed up practically all night too, which means Lilah and I (Chris) got the morning together; in this particular case, the early early morning. We headed out to the patisserie together with the dog, picked up a pain au raisins and walked to the Pièce d'eau des Suisses for dawn sun, duck feeding, Wilson swimming, and hay fever.

Wilson swimming half the length of the lake with a tree branch way too big for him.

After returning home we washed up, picked up Kimmy, and headed to east Paris for a beer tasting at a new brewery called Deck & Donohue. We drank our first IPAs since leaving America and quickly bought two for home. Continuing with the American theme we caught lunch at a trendy Mexican restaurant called Candelaria, and had veggie-alternative street tacos that maintained a very authentic taste: carrots and molé,  and citrus salsa fresca shrooms. A few art galleries and baby boutiques later and we were hungry again, so in the next arrondissement over we picked up the "The best on the street" falafel sandwiches at Mi-Va-Mi, and ate in the park. I quickly fell asleep in the grass. Lilah slapped me awake, we got ice cream, listened to Quasimodo ring the bells of Notre Dame and went home. We got home and boy was I tired, but luckily Kimmy took the evening shift and I passed out for the night.

My cute ladies waiting for their Falafels

Post lunch zzz's and scoots at the park

1st taste mama's ice cream...safe to say she likes chocolate!

9 hours later I was having a dream that I was Venom and was snarling at Spiderman, but actually I was just snoring and Kimmy was plugging my nose and Lilah was crawling on my chest. Morning shift again! But, this time I fed Lilah baby-friendly pancakes and took a trip to the farmer's market for picnic supplies. It is the first Sunday of the month meaning lots of museums are free. Since the Picasso museum is still closed for renovations, we went to the next best thing,  the Centre Pompidou (modern art). Its a huge building designed by an architect who thought it was futuristic to make it look like a glorified deep sea oil platform, all tubes, escalator fire escapes, and plexiglass. The 4th floor held an expansive permanent collection of over 1000 pieces displayed in chronologic order from 1905-1970. There is a really good video trailer of it here. I didn't know there were so many different -isms inside modern art. Among the many well-known artists, we also liked some we'd never heard of like Henry Valensi and Louise Janin.

The view from the top of the museum. Do you see Eiffel?

We emerged from the museum and began a long hunt for a patisserie that was open on a Sunday, so that we could buy a baguette for our cheese. Eventually we found one, and our picnic commenced; tasty mystery hard cheese, meaty olives, cous-cous salad, salami, and a Rose drunk out of jam jars (when the park guard wasn't looking). We chose a grass patch mainly populated by fashionable napping homeless people, oh well. Lilah scooted about and played Godzilla on our food spread.

Brouwerji Huyghe - Belgium

A couple weeks ago the whole family piled into a tiny rental car and and drove to Brussels, Belgium. The EU has open borders between their countries, so we drove right through the border crossing which had fallen into a state of disrepair and resembled an apocalyptic stronghold. We took a wrong turn, which would have been potentially disastrous due to road-signs being in a strange language and a data plan restricted to France, but miraculously we wound up on the right street and drove straight into Ghent. Apparently the medieval city/castles of Ghent are a popular tourist destination but we didn't know this, and besides we weren't here for culture, we were here for beer.

Huyghe Brewery

Ghent (well technically Melle) is home to Brouwerji Huyghe where they brew Delirium Tremens, one of my favorite beers (the best beer in the world actually). It is a tripel, a strong champagne-like beer with a very mild fruitiness rounded out with a golden warmth. I think it has been getting popular in the US in the last few years; I seem to spot the pink elephant at more and more beer venues. We donned hairnets and began our tour, and were a little surprised when the tour ended up being in Flemish. So we didn't get much information, but now and then the guide would step aside and give us some explanations in broken English. We saw the copper stills, a complex filtration system, the bottling plant, and the warehouse. There were stacks upon stacks of creates headed all over the world.

Lilah is very embarrassed by her mother.

bottling plant

Then the tour came to an end, and the real fun began... beer tasting. For the 7-euro tour admission we got unlimited beer pours from a trio of adorable Belgians. We were probably there for 2 hours and no one was rushing us out. They even filled up a giant, over-sized Delirium Tremens chalice for a guy dressed up in a lion costume on his bachelor party. We tried all the beers on tap, and both decided that La Guillotine was actually a far superior beer to Delirium Tremens. Also on tap was a Floris Kreik cherry beer, which Kimmy really enjoyed. The bartender saw this and took it as his cue to open up the private reserves hidden in a fridge behind the bar. He brought out an assortment of fruit beers (Floris & gluten free Mongozo), ranging from mango, apple, raspberry, honey, and passion fruit. We even enjoyed a coconut beer out of a coconut shell. Bizarre! This treatment solidified my opinion that Delirium Tremens is the best.

Apparently it was completely normal for the Bachelor to be wearing a fur suit.

I love my drinking partner (She's holding a draft cherry beer that wasn't sweet)

The Bar... the best, sorry I didn't get the bartenders to pose.

Lilah absolutely loves coasters. It gives us a solid 15 minutes of freedom.

Coconut beer might sound gross, but I thought it was great. I mean there is a time and place for coconut beer... but it worked here.