Paris week 1 + visitors...it just doesn't stop

*sigh, what can I say, it's Paris and it's beautiful.  The food is beautiful too, and we've only been here a week.  We managed to stumble on a bakery that was voted "meillure boulanger 2008" in the 10th - had to buy a half loaf, could not resist.  More on Pierre Hermé later,  all that I will say is: they're expensive, and yes they're worth it.

Fraser struggles to mount the block, not the spry little guy he used to be, but just wait and crank some of Paris' "grime-y" electronic beats into him.  Note in the background how others are using the blocks to take pictures, using perspective to make it look like they're holding the tips of the pyramids.  Joke/gag pictures abound in Paris and the Louvre.  So many nude statues, so many opportunities and hy-larious photo-memories to be had.  Fraser never fully got up on his feet, something about his hip.

Ian waiting at our metro stop.  We're staying in the 5th for the month of May.  The apartment is a bit run-down, but the outside looks lovely...and it's super central.  

Lunch.

We went for a beautiful dinner at a restaurant in the 11th called "le Chateaubriand".  All male-wait staff in threadbare white shirts and scraggly french beards.  It was perfect.  So very casual, serving beautiful, seasonal and thoughtful food.  They do a 5 course tasting menu, starting with a cold tofu and fish foam for an amuse bouche.  Then it was seared mullet with fresh garden peas and a chicken liver mouse, cod with white asparagus and black olives, and a bavette with some sort of shallot and fish-roe sauce.  DESSERT?  Fresh mint ice-cream served with "sticks" of chocolate and vanilla meringue and a basil butter.  The basil butter was a gift that really kept on giving - basil butter burps, you get it.

Ian took this amazing picture (he's a pro and has shared some amazing photos with us).  This was off from the Pyramides from the Louvre.  This little girl was rapt with attention watching the fiddler.  Just her, and the guy, his fiddle and the music.  I died, it was so cute.