Best garage sale find of the decade

So Matt sleeps a lot on weekends. This usually results in me waking up at 8, and him sleeping until noon or so. It's boring. So I try to do exciting things, like garage sale-ing. Actually, I've been going to garage sales about every weekend since we moved here. Two months ago.

But today was apparently quite auspicious on the garage sale front. The main objective was to find mugs to put in my office(s) for tasty hot drinks at work. I did find some. But the primary amazing find: a 9-quart copper saucepan. For those not obsessed with food, copper cookware is the best conducting, fastest cooking, prettiest, and most expensive kind. The pot I bought today probably retails about $250. And I got it for $2. I actually bought some Brasso to clean it for $3.79, almost twice the cost of the pot.

Our new apartment

We moved into our new place this weekend and most everything is unpacked and settled. It's a little eerie doing everything here for the first time and knowing that we'll be here for at least a year. I'm happy to have finally gotten out here, and thanks to families for all the moving help. Still need a bookcase for my cookbooks, but everything else seems to have it's place.

Why I love Boulder already

What a lovely town.  It seems to be a funny mix of outdoor enthusiasts, crazy hippies, rich retirees, drunken students, professional athletes, and occasionally a normal person.  Regardless of any previous notions, I'm going to have to pick things up a bit if I want to still call myself an active person.  Everyone here seems to bike 200 miles a week and run marathons several times a year.

The downtown area is very trendy and classy.  The Pearl Street mall has a wide array of cutsie shops and restaurant patios.  My favorite is Peppercorn, a cooking store that has more cookbooks than I have ever seen in my life.  It also has quality cookware and utensils and import specialty foods.  Today I visited the spice shop nearby, which has dried spices and spice mixes from just about every cuisine imaginable.  You can buy them in bags of varying sizes or in jars.  And they have tasters out so you know what you're getting.  And there are various nice bookstores.

Campus is very pretty and everything matches.  And I can't get over having the Flatirons just over your shoulder wherever you are.  Never any confusion about which way is West here.  

Yesterday went hiking with Erin in Eldorado canyon.  There were lots of flowers (including cactus flowers) and stunning views of the rock formations. 

The end of my wanderings

I'm writing from my new hometown of Boulder, CO.  I don't move here officially for a couple of weeks, but I feel pretty good about making this place my new home.  I'll keep posting occasionally when something exciting happens, so don't forget all about me.  This past year has been pretty amazing.  I feel like I have changed so much and have a much better grasp on life and its endless shenanigans.  I should be here pretty consistently for about 5 years until I finish my Ph.D. and I am really looking forward to staying put.  

Our shopping day in Paris

I don't know how, but Friday ended up being mostly shopping.  We got up a little late and headed past the Pompidou center to Les Halles, the old market area.  It's now a huge underground and street level shopping complex.  We bought a few clothes at a cheaper store.  Everything is on sale now.  Really everything.  We went inside the nearby St. Eustace church.  It was really tall and had an amazing looking organ that some woman appeared to be having lessons on.  Afterwards, we went around to corner to E. Dehellerin, a big old-fashioned cooking goods store where I got a lovely fat rolling pin (baton de patisserie sounds so much better), and wooden spatula, and a couple of rubber bowl scrapers.  While we were in the area, we stopped at a cookbook bookstore.  

We walked through some of the arcaded shopping passages that used to be much more widespread in the city.  It was vary charming.  Next:  Galleries Lafayette.  (we had a ham/cheese crepe to keep our energy up).  The shoe level was pretty entertaining, with lots of designers that Amanda educated me on.  And of course the food halls were pretty fantastic too.  We picked up some chocolate waffels to take home and some serrano ham and grissini for that night.  

We were feeling a little tuckered, so picnicked on the opera steps on our favorite Eric Kayser baguette and tune.  Refreshed, we hopped the metro to the Arc de Triomphe (it's bigger than you think) and strolled down the Champs Elysee.  We even stopped at Saphora for a massive whiff of perfume.  

At 4:30, we met some friends at a metro stop at the east end of the city near Maelle's apartment.  We made dinner together and Claire made her chocolate pear tarte.  Henni also brought German wine to share.  It was really fun to spend a last evening together chatting and reminiscing.  I don't really know when I'll see any of them again.  

As the evening grew late, we got back on the metro for the long ride across town and went up the Eiffel Tower.  Paris at night is not quite as breathtaking as in the day, but it's very peaceful looking and fun to pick out the important monuments from afar.  The tower itself was all lit up and occasionally glittered like a swarovski store from thousands of bright light fixtures.  

We finally got back to the hotel around 1AM and packed up a bit before flopping down for our last night in Europe.  

In the morning, we got up and went to the nearby Enfants Rouge market to pick up some last minute things and spend our last euros.  We got mom and dad a chocolate and almond croissant respectively and a nutella crepe for ourselves.  The guys at the crepe booth were funny old men and gave us crap for ordering nutella at our age.  Armed with our last 4 euros, we got an assortment of Moroccan pastries too.  We like sweet things it you didn't notice.  

We took the metro/RER to the airport, entertained by some awesome accordionists on the train.  The airport went smoothly and we found at the gate that we had been upgraded to first class and even sat next to each other (thanks mom for checking us in early!).  The Delta first class seats are very classy.  There are about 6 different adjustable things on your seat and you couldn't touch your toes to the seat in front if you tried.  So they wined and dined us home, including a warm chocolate chip cookie halfway through.  

Dad met us at the airport and we rushed home to unpack a bit before Amanda's EP tournament soccer game at 6PM.  Funny how you can wake up in Paris and play a soccer game in Minnesota in the evening.  

It's nice to be home, and feels like nothing has changed.  I'm a little restless to get out to Colorado, but it will be great to catch up with friends and family here for a bit first.  

Thanks Europe for a swell time.

Catacombs and Rodin. And more food of course

On the 9th, we tried the catacombs again.  but first we visited the Blvd. Richard Lenior open air market in the morning at the Bastille square. (The bastille isn't there any more, it was torn down in all the hulaballoo two hundred years ago).  When we got to the catacombs just after it opened, there was already an hour long wait to get in.  So we hunkered down and waited.  The catacombs were originally mining tunnels in the outskirts of Paris.  Sometime in the 18 hundreds, there was no more room to bury people in the city, so they started unearthing mass graves and sections of cemetaries to make room. The bones were carried by monks into the tunnels and stacked as much as 80 feet deep in the corridors.  Each section was labeled with date moved and origin.  When we got down, there was a little walk before the ossiary part.  Once there, we had to hold hands despite the plethora of people down there.  The bones were arrayed behind walls built of femurs and decorated with skulls.  It was hard to imagine all the thousands (millions?) of people whose bones we saw.  Very humbling.  I don't know if I've even seen human bones before in real life.

After we got out and dusted off the creepies, we hopped a metro up towards the river and had lunch at a neo bistro recommended again by Clothilde, Pre Verre.  They had a nice set lunch menu for 13 euros with two dishes and a glass of wine.  Pretty yummy.  Amanda actually enjoyed the wine.  We'll have to watch out for her. . .

Post lunch, we stopped by the roman baths outside the Cluny museum, and had a nutella crepe from a roadside stand.  We wandered through the left bank, stopping at pastry shops and chocolate store intermittently to the invalides area.  The Rodin museum is in a house he used to live in and surrounded by beautiful gardens littered with sculptures.  We decided we really like sculpture.  It's so expressive and Rodin's style imparts so much life into the forms.  In fashion eyes, it's like shoes while paintings are like clothes.  We still don't quite understand the bronze casting process (how do they mechanially enlarge them?) but approve anyhow.  In the gardens, we enjoyed our chocolated from Patrick Roger, even though their store was very intimidating.

We walked Rue Cler, which is an upscale foodie street with shops for honey, olive oil, cheese, fish, charcuterie, butchers, and produce.  We bought some cheese, a Rebuchon and a Sa__chon for a later picnic on the Champ de Mars.  We ate cheese on baguette under the eiffel tower, taking amusing pictures at intervals.  The S. cheese was amazing.  Kind of like a firmer camembert, but a little more pungent.  The R. cheese was very pungent.  On a scale of one to pungent, I'd say it was about 13.  Pungacity: high.  The inside resembles brie in taste and texture, but the rind imparted a little cow-flavored funk to it.  Oh lovely.  

By this point, we were pretty sleepy, so we went home a little early.

Paris, the city of foodies

  "please leave box five open for my use." -Phantom of the Opera

We had quite a wonderful day yesterday.  Not quite according to plan, though.  I really like to plan our days out, but the enjoyment is not really dependent on whether we actually follow the plan.  We started out visiting the Enfant Rouges market near our hotel in the morning, but it was a little early and all the places were still pretty sleepy and closed (at 9:15!).  Wandered down to Place des Voges.  It was built by Henry IV as a square for the high-class and home for royalty, but fell into disrepair in the 19th century, when it was a working class area.  Victor Hugo lived here.  At 10, we went to the Carnavalet museum of Paris history.  They followed the entire span of history in art and artifacts.  The french revolution part was the coolest, though I have a hard time keeping track of all the republiques and reinstated monarchies.  We were one of the only groups visiting so early, so there were a lot of curators, which made us feel very hovered over.  We stopped afterwards for a huge meringue in a pastry shop.  It was amazingly fluffy and light and delicious.

After the museum, we took the metro down to the catacombs, but on arrival, the line was super long (everyone else seemed to give us the impression that the catacombs were little visited).  We opted to postpone to another day and walked through the Montparnasse cemetary instead.  We were close to the Montparnasse station, so we stopped in at Creperie Breton for a creppy lunch.  This station is where trains from Brittany come in, so the people from there just stayed in the area and opened up an absurd amount of crepe places.  Not that crepes are ever really absurd.

We strolled around luxembourg gardens for a bit watching the cute kids playing on the playgrounds.  Poliane, one of Paris's bread celebrities had a place nearby, so we stopped in and picked up a quarter of a miche (large loaf of bread) for a later picnic.  We then went to Christian Constant's tea room (recommended by Clothilde) for a mille-feuille (Napolean) and a pot of oozing rich hot chocolate.  I really think this stuff at room temperature could not be classified as a liquid.  It was so rich and thick and delicious. Like drinking ganache.  We were very full afterwards, but lumbered to the puppet theater in the gardens for the 4:00 show.  There were a lot of little kids that enjoyed chanting and reacted to all the stage happenings in very cute ways.  

We caught a metro up to the opera and met up with my friends at 6.  The Opera Garnier (as in phantom of the opera) was built by Napoleon III and is a huge building with endless hidden corners.  The lobby is a 5-story atrium with arching marble stairways, golden gilding, carved candelabra, and mirrors.  The theater itself is also about 6 stories and has numerous boxes (for the classy types) and a ceiling that is now painted by Marc Chagall.  And a chandelier of course.  We got rush tickets for the opera, La Fille Mal Gardee, which is a classic French pastoral opera.  It was pretty amazing seeing something there, and wandering the building during breaks.  The opera itself was really good, apparently the best company in France.  

Afterwards, we strolled along the seine a little before heading back to the hotel around 11PM.  It was a lovely day in all.  

Today we have big plans, but again, we'll take it as it comes.