Dare 2 FINALLY Complete

This is one of the first Dares to Donate that we received from a long time buddy of mine from growing up, Taylor Buckman. It was a solid dare - to cram some locals into an autophotomat in Berlin and take a picture. For those of you who don't know, an autophotmat is a picture booth, mostly found in the metro, and convincing others that don't speak your language to squeeze in one with you is rather difficult. That being said, we pulled it off, only to find out that the machine didn't work. Since we didn't have our camera, we asked the Germans to take the photo on their phone, and gave them our email to send us the picture, however, we never received it. So we offered Tbucks a second option to dare us, and I'm glad we did. He dared us to go to one of his favorite bars in Madrid, El Chapandaz, an underground cave bar, and order the famous "Leche de Pantera". Sounds intimidating, right? I told Sarah it was actual Panthers milk infused with alcohol, and she wasn't very excited about the dare. The drink was phenomenal, like a cinnamon milk, and it packed a punch. Sarah and I split one and we definitely felt a little buzzed after (Tbucks how'd u down 3 of these!?). Even at 9.80 Euro per drink (that's $14.11), it's well worth it. Good one, Taylor!

The milk for the drink literally comes out of the ceiling. Then they throw a bunch of liquors and spices in it to make it the "Leche de Pantera"

I was pleasantly surprised by this drink. Similar to a White Russian, but with different spices and liquors.

Dare 9 Complete

Adam Leclair, a long time friend of my sister and family, is a veteran of Spain. He dared us to find Jamon de Iberico in Spain and try it and take a photo next to the leg. This stuff is considered a delicacy in Spain, and at 10 Euro per 100 grams (that's about 40 Euro a pound), it better be! It comes from Iberian pig (with black hooves), which is fed natural elements and mostly acorns before slaughter and then hang dried and cured for anywhere from 12-48 months. I like to describe it as a bacon jerky, and it was delicious. I would have never gotten this without the dare and thoroughly enjoyed it, thanks Adam!

You can barely see the black hoof, but that's the telling sign that it is Jamon Iberico

Cheers!

Ben, the Baguette Man

I just had to post this one.  Ben has been doing this daily, getting up and going to the Boulongerie on his bike and getting us a baguette.  He puts it in the basket and he looks so Parisian doing it I decided to get a photo of him today on his way back.  This will be our last French baguette for a while!  How sad!

Packed and ready to go to Spain

Tomorrow we leave our apartment in Paris after nearly 3 weeks here. It is a little bittersweet as we have really become accustomed to life in the city of lights, but onto Spain! It's amazing when we get our bags packed, realizing how little we have for the duration of our trip. We are getting better at packing our things though, and have actually shed some gear since the start of the trip. We now have 2 check in bags and only 1 carry on (we started out with 2).

My bag is on the left, Sarah's on the right. Sarah is using an Osprey Ariel 65 from REI. It is lightweight, with a built in frame that aerates itself with a mesh lining. So far she loves it (thanks uncle Charlie!). You can see our old carry on bag strapped to the front of it. Her total pack weighs about 24 lbs.

I am using an Eagle Creek Switchback Max 25. I bought this bag from REI the day before we left for the trip. I have a nice backpacking pack, but with my back problems, I decided I needed something that can roll as well so that I am not putting as much pressure on my discs. This bag is great because it rolls, but also has backpack straps that zip into the back of the bag. I primarily use it as a rolling bag, except for when we have been in large metro stations. I'm sure this feature will come into use later down the line as well. Our carry on is actually a small backpack that zips to the front of the luggage piece. It has a lifetime warranty, and all in all I am very happy with it so far. My total pack weighs about 34 lbs (with the carry on attached).

Dare 8 Complete

Our last dare for Paris is complete.  Linda dared us to get a bite at La Grande Epicerie in Paris, which is basically a Whole Foods on steroids.  We gladly accepted this dare, and each got a small bite to eat that we would have otherwise not been able to afford.  I got a mini quiche, and Ben a chocolate pastry called an opera.  Both were absolutely amazing.  I highly recommend stopping by this store if you are ever in Paris, just be ready to fork out some Euros.  Thanks Linda! 

Many different types of freshly cut meats laid out perfectly

Ben was in heaven when he saw this

Happy eating these culinary delights!

Dare 7 Complete

Thanks Amanda for the dare and drinks at Mont St. Michel! The wine came at a perfect time, a nice break from the herd of tourists that we were navigating through.  We hadn't originally planned on going to Mont St. Michel, but because of your dare we looked into it and ended up going to it as well as Dinan, great dare!

Having a much needed glass of wine at Mont St. Michel!

Dare 6 Complete

Bradley Smith, thanks for the beers, we made sure to drink them in an authentic spot!

This tank sat in a roundabout right in front of our hotel

Funny story about this roundabout where this tank sits. After checking into our hotel at Avranches, we decided to look up Avranches on wikipedia to see if it had any significance in WW2. Turns out it was liberated by General Patton, and that there was a monument to him in the town. Great, we thought, we'll head out and find that monument, but first, let's have a beer by the tank outside of our hotel so we can get a good shot for Brad's dare. Upon going up to the tank we realized that it was on General Pattons memorial, and the hotel we were staying in was called Patton Hotel! Funny how this stuff works out sometimes.

Patton Square

Normandy

Anyone who knows me knows I have been fascinated with war stuff since I was about 10. That being said, I'm known to dork out pretty hard on WW2 and D-Day stuff (Band of Brothers anyone?), so bear with me on this post. This week we decided to drive out to the Normand coast to do some WWII sightseeing. We rented a car for our journey, check out this sweet ride I got!

Picked the color out myself

As small as the car seems, there was sufficient headroom for me, so I was happy. The first night we didn't have any hotel reservations and figured we would just wing it. However, we knew that we wanted to see Mont St. Michel the first day, so we headed in that direction. We saw this little hilltop town called Avranches and decided to look for a hotel or B&B there. As luck would have it, the first hotel we went to had one open room left, and for cheap, so I booked it. I immediately became grateful that we had the car because it allowed us the freedom to check out small country towns not on the main D-Day route. We went to this medieval town named Dinan. It is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe, and we were able to walk along an 11th Century castle wall and watchtower that used to guard this French town from the English. It was pretty surreal, check out these pictures to get a better idea.

One of the town square areas

Sarah and I on a cobblestone residential street. People still live in these homes.

Picture of the Medieval Castles wall that still surrounds the downtown area

Picture from the wall of one of the watchtowers that overlooked the river

After Dinan, we went to Mont St. Michel, an island type place that looks like something out of a Disney book, built in the 8th century. It was very nice from afar, but its narrow streets were so packed side to side with tourists, it kind of killed the ambiance.

Sarah and I outside Mont St. Michel

The next day we began the drive to Caen, where there is a WWII museum that chronicles D-Day in depth and the events leading up to the war (the best in the world). On the way to Caen we decided to stop in many small towns, almost all of which had some sort of memorial to soldiers or civilians from that town that were killed in the war. We came across this monument, and upon getting out to look at it, realized it was originally a World War 1 monument which had added to it WW2 victims.

Original WW1 monument that had been turned into a WW2 monument as well

You can see that a lot of fighting happened in this town as the monument was riddled with bullet holes.

What was also really interesting was that you would see really old stone houses right next to new modern ones, something you don't see a lot of in the French Countryside (most of the homes are older). We later learned that the modern homes were replacements of homes that had been destroyed in WW2. The homes next to this particular monument were almost all newer homes.

We got to Caen around 3, checked into our hotel, and went straight to the museum. I am not a huge museum buff, but if you are ever in Normandy, this museum is worth a full days visit. We arrived at around 4 and left at 7 when the museum closed only to return the next day at 11 to finish seeing the museum before our bus tour of the landing beaches in the afternoon. The museum went in depth not only about D-Day, but the whole war. Upon reading the information about the battle of Normandy, we found out that the town we were in with the memorial that had bullet holes in it was one where heavy German resistance occurred.

The tour of the beaches was great, but also kind of weird. We started out at Pont du Hoc, where the Rangers landed between Utah and Omaha sector to scale 90 foot cliffs so that could take out heavy German artillery. This was my favorite visit because it was all original and preserved. There were bomb craters everywhere, German bunkers, and trenches still intact.

Picture of a bomb crater with a German bunker in the background

Sarah even had a little fun

Next, we saw one of the American sectors, Omaha Beach, nicknamed "Bloody Omaha", where heaviest fighting occurred. Nothing has been preserved here, except you could see the cut outs in the cliffs where the Germans had their machine guns set up. It was surreal to stand at the oceans and look up at the bluff, but it was also weird because there were little kids playing in the water where this battle took place. After Omaha we went to the American Cemetery where we saw the wall of the missing and the graves of nearly 10,000 American soldiers, including Roosevelt's oldest son (see picture below). The site was huge and very well kept, but again there were so many tourists it was hard to appreciate. After that we went and saw Arromanches, which is the floating harbor that was floated over from England for the Allies to unload supplies for the effort.

Roosevelt JR grave at the Cemetery. Great story behind him. He was an American businessman and political leader who fought in both WW1 and WW2. He had arthritis so bad he used a walking cane, but still personally requested to join the first waves of troops on D-Day at Utah Beach. He landed, and was able to redirect his men and advance, but later died of a heart attack on July 12th.

All in all the tours were great, but the museum was by far the best. Caen itself was not a very good town to stay in. 80% of the town was wrecked by Allied bombing, therefore most of it is pretty new and it doesn't feel much like an old French town. Normandy, however, is one of the most beautiful and peaceful countrysides I have ever seen, which makes it hard to imagine that the largest military invasion in history took place there.

Paris 4

The rest of the week was really good.  On Thursday we decided to ride our bikes to the Luxembourg Gardens.  For those of you who know me, you know what a total klutz I am...and, well, on the way to the Gardens I definitely fell off my bike trying to ride up the lip of a curb...pretty pathetic.  The next day we took a walking tour of the Latin Quarter and discovered what is now one of our favorite streets in Paris, Rue Mouffetard. It is a classic Parisian cobblestone street but much better because it is near the Universities, so they have cheap food, an abundance of bars, and people closer to our age.  We decided that we would head back there that night to check out the bar scene.  But, in the mean time, we went to the Catacombs.  We got in line about 3 hours before they closed, with approx. 200 people in line before us and the Catacombs worker told us we might not get in before it closed.  This was our second attempt at going to the Catacombs, so we figured we would wait it out.  And we got lucky.  After nearly 3 hours in line, we were the last group to be let in, and about 100 others who had been waiting behind us had to go home.  The Catacombs are super creepy, about 5 stories underground and 2 km long.  They are underground hallways piled 6 feet high on each side with human bones.  You know Ben, not much of a fan of these types of things, so he pretty much scurried through.  

Ben was pretty sketched out by the whole thing

That night we went out on Mouffetard, and had the time of our lives.  We started at a bar with a great happy hour, but soon I discovered a serious cockroach infestation.  For those that don't know, I have an irrational phobia of cockroaches, and there were literally teams of them running around the walls and ontop of bar.  It was disgusting!  Unfortunately, I didnt see any of the roaches until after we had already ordered drinks, and since they had a good Happy Hour, Ben thought that was justification enough to stay. No way!  I drank my beer outside in the street and then made us leave.  We then went to a bar with a shuffle board table and met some realy cool Parisians.  Sadly, they beat us in shuffle board.  However, after befriending them they invited us to go play a French game like Bocci Ball with them the next day.  Unfortunately it rained the following day so we didnt play but hopefully before we leave we will get to.  The next bar had beer pong, and this is where we got our pride back.  We met some Croatians and Parisians, and challenged them to a beer pong game, and put them to shame! 

Our Croatian and Parisian Beer Pong Friends

Sunday we went to Versailles.  It is an awesome palace but there weer so many tourists there that it kind of killed the experience.  By the end of the day it was taking every ounce of our power not to push people out of the way.  Hoards and hoards of tourists being funneled through hallways and rooms.   It was very impressive and King Luis the XIV was definitly the craziest, most lavish playboy of his time, but the amount of tourists was unreal.  Just look at the line we had to stand in to go through security AFTER spending an hour in line to get our tickets!

That is the line in the background, and it snakes back and forth!

On Monday we went to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral.  Then we stumbled onto this Italian religious dance thingy going on, and Ben decided he wanted to get in on some of the action. 

Look at his intro into the dance

After, we went to the Paris Plage which is a tradition in August where they bus truckloads of sand into the city and make a beach by the Seine river in the middle of Paris.  Since Monday was a holiday, it was packed with Parisians, tourists, and street performers.  We spent all day here hanging out with different people, laying in the sun, and people watching...so much fun!

The Paris Plage 

At the Plage drinking wine and playing French songs

We met a really cool group of Parisian guys that told us where to go that night for fun - Montmarte, the red light district we had previously toured.  So we went home, ate dinner and then got ready for a night out.  Upon arriving to Montmarte we asked these two girls who had obviosuly been drinking which bars were good.  They insisted on taking us around and we spent the night with them drinking, dancing, and chatting about Paris.  We ended up by the Arc de Triomphe at 2 am with them having a drink and finishing up the night.  Fabulous day!

Hailey, Petra, and Us

Decadent

I have to get a post in about the food recently.

Desserts from our local Boulangerie

I tried the Eclair and the Chocolate Meringue. The eclair was really good, it had a nice thick gooey filling, different from what you would get in the states. The Meringue had the consistency of styrofoamy chalk. The taste was sweet and sugary, but I couldn't get over the texture.

One of our staple dinners after the Pig Intestine incident. We decided to stick to what is easy: pre-made pizza, rotisserie chicken, salad, and beer.

Dare 5 Complete

My dad dared us to go to the 5 most popular bridges in Paris and kiss on them. We did so, and didn't realize until after that we could have taken the pictures ourselves. Needless to say it was a little awkward asking people to take our photo while doing this, adding some good flavor to the dare.

On Pont d'lena

On Pont Neuf, looking down on the Seine and the Plage.

Pont de Archeveche - Sarah thought it would be really funny to "dip" me on this one...it was a back breaker! Significance of the locks is an old tale. Apparently people come here and put a lock on the bridge to signify their love and throw the key into the Seine, thus locking in their love forever. Funny thing is, the city has to come around and cut them all off each year because they get too full (no wonder the divorce rates are so high). Sarah and I opted out of this cheesy tradition.

Pont St Michel, looking back on St Michel Fountain

Pont au Change, overlooking the Paris Plage

Paris 3

On Wednesday we took a free walking tour of Paris with neweuropetours.com, the company we have been using for all of our tours. They do free intro tours to many cities in Europe, we strongly recommend checking them out. It was a long, hot day, and we both got super sunburned (I was bright red). The tour was ok, not too interesting, but we did get to see almost all of the must see sights of Paris, i.e. the Louvre, Arc de Triumph, etc. We also met a cool Canadian couple, and ended up going to get drinks with them after the tour.

Jeff and Laura from Canada

After a few drinks, we decided we would knock the Louvre off the list, thinking that it was free for us on Wednesday nights and hoping the extra drinks might help us endure a longer time frame inside the Louvre. We were totally wrong about both assumptions, but since we were there we decided to just pay full price and go see some things (Ben was not happy about paying retail, of course). We had both heard such bad things about the size of the Mona Lisa, that it was super small. I would tell you it was, except Ben and I nudged our way through hoards of Chinese tour groups to get to the front and see it. It isn't huge, but when you get to the front of the crowd of tourist photographers, its not that small. We didn't spend much time at the Louvre, per our museum tolerance, got in and got out.


Then, Ben had read about a pizza place in the area where the chef had won second best pizza in Italy a few months earlier, so he wanted to go there for dinner. After searching for the place for about half an hour, we finally found it, only to discover it is closed for the month of August (like a lot of places in Paris).

Trekked across the city to find his pizza place closed

That's ok, we have to expect failure when we travel, and since he had his heart set on pizza, we set out on a search for a new pizza place and quickly found it. Victory, we thought, the Pizzas being served looked delicious, and we were excited for it. We were looking at the menu, and I saw the word "saumon", and told Ben to order that because it meant it was a salami pizza. Looking back on it, that was silly reasoning because saumon looks a lot more like salmon than it does salami, and that is indeed what we got, after searchng for over 2 hours for the best pizza in Paris, a beautiful pizza covered with raw salmon. Ben saw the chef take the pizza out of the oven and throw raw salmon on it and Ben just laughed. It tasted terrible, tainted in raw fish taste and smell, but we were so hungry by then we just picked all the salmon off that we could and ate it. Another food win for us!

Look at that stack of raw salmon...WTF!? Who eats raw fish on their pizza?

Dare 4 Complete

My dad dared us to attend a mass at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, so...we went mass this morning.  The church is beautiful, it was built in the 11th century.  I grew up Catholic, so I was familiar with everything that was going on even though the Ceremony was in French.  The choir and organ was very loud and overall it was an interesting Mass.  Thanks for the dare, Dad!

Me getting the Eucharist

Paris Subway Music Performers

These musicians are everywhere on the subways. We have seen clarinets, saxophones, violins, guitars, and lots of accordions. Here are a few of what I was able to catch on video. This one's for you, Cha!

Guy with smallest and quietest sax, gets good around 0:53

This guys facial expressions are priceless

French Guitar Player

Dare 3 Complete

We have been working on our dares recently, they are a lot of fun to complete. My sister dared us to go to Ile St. Louis, one of the 2 islands in the middle of the Seine river, and find Berthillon Ice Cream. Since it is closed on Monday and Tuesdays, we decided to go this morning before we went to Versailles for some post breakfast ice cream. Good call Mara, while this is the smallest ice cream scoop I have ever seen, it is up there with the tastiest I have had, especially before noon! I got praline flavor which tasted like a creamy blend of regular ice cream and gelato in the form of a scoop. Sarah equally enjoyed her sorbet! Great dare.

Paris Post 2

Paris has lived up to its reputation. In the beginning, people were rude, kind of pushy, and not too much in favor of the English language. Everything we had expected. But as we became more comfortable with the city, the people seemed to become less rude. The city is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of a French version of Venice, Italy.

We have seen a lot in the past few days. On our first day, we decided we would brave the French tradition of going out to a restaurant for a nice lunch and some wine. We ate at Chartier (7 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, www.restaurant-chartier.com), a two century old restaurant that Hemingway used to frequent...just hangin out where Earnie used to write, no biggie. The waiters also lived up to their reputation, fast, rude, and impatient. It was great. We had no clue what we were ordering and after dissecting the menu we thought we had a decent idea. We decided that if we were going to do this lunch we had to do it Parisian style, so we ordered escargot, celery roumelade, duck confit, and steak, and a nice big bottle of red wine. The escargot was not our favorite, but we managed to eat all of the snails despite the chewy rubber and gooey like texture (check the picture of Sarah below). All this for only 40 Euro (if we would have come at dinner, same meal would have been about 80).

Chartier Restaurant 7 - Rue du Faubourg Montmarte

Escargot and Celery Roumelade

First time trying Escargot

Sarahs first time too...ICKIES

After this lunch we went to the Eiffel Tower, sat right under it, had some wine and people watched. It was a nice warm day out, and we decided a photo shoot was necessary.

I think this shot captures our personalities best

That night we explored the area around Montparnasse. Stumbling on cafes, having a glass of wine and finishing the night with a Doner Kebab, currently one of our favorite foods in Europe. Although Paris is a foodie city, the Berlin style Doners are hands down the best I have had in Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab#Germany). If you are ever in Berlin, strongly recommend hunting down one of these establishments.

On Monday we took Sarah's friend Alexis' advice to grab a falafell from L'As du Falafell (34 Rue des Rosiers, Marais) in the Marais District (thanks Alexis!). The Marais District is a classic Parisian neighborhood, with cobble stone streets, old buildings with white shutters, etc. We got to the falafell place to see a huge line, so we knew that this was going to be good. You know you cant go wrong when this place is personally reccommended by Lenny Kravitz. The falafell was cooked perfectly, crisp on the outside, with just the right amount of spices. The pita was soft and chewy, and they topped it all off with garlic yogurt and chili sauce. The best falafell I have ever had.

L'As du Falafell - 34 Rue des Rosiers, Marais

We then went over to the took a tour of the Montmarte district, which is where the Moulin Rouge is, which is essentially Paris' red light district. Montmarte is the district where all of the poor artists were pushed out to when Paris was rebuilt in the late 1800's, because the Montmarte area was cheaper at the time. Because of this it turned into a a seedy area where the Can Can was invented. We got to see where Van Gogh lived, where Picasso ate everyday for free by painting the owner of the restaurant a picture a week, and Picasso's studio. We also went to Basicilla de la Sacred Heart, where there is a great view of the city. It has been raining a lot since we got here but the rain let up just as we got to the church, leaving a giant DOUBLE RAINBOW over the city. I clearly tried to make several double rainbow jokes at this point, none of which had any success. After the tour, we went with the tour group to get some wine, then hung out the rest of the night in the Montmarte district, only to finish the night off with, yes, a Doner. But this Doner place was different, these guys that worked there loved us. Since everyone is so prissy about the French language, we thought we would purposefully speak French while clearly using the wrong words. So we walked into this Doner place and said "au revoir" about 3 times in a row, which means goodbye in French. These two Turkish guys were really confused at first, until they realized we were joking around. They immediately loved it. They started saying all sorts of incorrect words to us as well. For instance, they would pick up the yogurt sauce and look at us (asking us if we wanted it on our doner) and would say "Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour". They did this consistently throughout our meal so much, that at the end they asked us to take a picture with them. Im pretty sure they were drinking that night.

After this we came across this air duct outside the Moulon Rouge where people were playing on top of it.

Today we woke up kind of late, and decided to ride our bikes to the Boulangerie for some fresh breakfast croissants. The rest of our day didn't go as well as planned. We were originally going to go to the Catacombs, but once arriving, realized the line was way too long and there would be no way that we could get in before they closed. So, we decided to go to Musee D'Orsey instead, which had an equally long line. We decided to wait it out, and finally after about 1 hour, we got into the museum. Neither Sarah nor I are that into art, so we kind of just went to the museum because we felt like we had to more or less. I must say, my attention span is not an asset when it comes to appreciating artwork. Not much else to say about the museum. After we came across some street performers, one who had strapped wheels to his sneakers (like roller skates) and was doing tricks while his buddy played the Clarinet.

Then we went to a supermarket my mom reccomended to get food for tonight, as we decided we would cook at home. This supermarket was everything I imagined France to be. Ripe produce stacked perfectly like art, whole cheese and chocolate sections, fresh meats I have never seen before (some that cost 85 Euro a pound). It was a very high end French supermarket. We decided that this place was a little on the high end for our budget, so we left and got food at the first place we found, and yes it was a Doner place. One thing about Paris, they don't have many basic cheap places to eat. Many of the places in Paris are sit down cafe restaurants, where a basic salad or pizza will run you about 13-15 Euro, which is about $20. This makes finding cheap eats very difficult in the city, so you kind of have to just eat where you can sometimes. It was not the most sanitary place ever, and we are praying that we don't get food poisoning tonight, but at least we are full!