This and That

 Summer in the city.

When I think of Paris I think of sidewalk cafes, the Louvre, flower markets, the Eiffel Tower, food and wine. What I don't see in my mind when I think about this beautiful city is - sunburn. It was blessedly cool and cloudy our first five days here, we even got a little rain. But then the temperatures started rising and the clouds went away and walking the sidewalks of Paris felt like we were walking on the surface of the sun. We stayed in museums the first few days of heat (and let me tell you, the Louvre gets pretty warm inside, that was no respite from the heat, only the sun), and we walked on the shady side of the streets whenever possible, but when the sun was directly overhead then that wasn't even an option, and I ended up with a slight sunburn. Nothing too obvious or too painful, but I needed to buy a sunhat as soon as possible. (Note to self: Always, always pack a sunhat!) I ended up buying a sunhat for 10 Euros at a huge farmers market. It's cute and it fits and it does the job, however, I can now add it to the collection of sunhats from around the world that I have back at home, because I didn't think I would need a sunhat wherever we were going and/or forgot to pack one. I keep a small corkscrew in my suitcase because you never know when you might need to open a bottle of wine, I think that's where I'm going to put the new sunhat I bought, that way I'll always have one when I travel. Sheesh.

A waiter saves Don from making a horrible choice.

We were at a little cafe and trying to decipher the menu (it's nice when they don't have a menu in English, it means that we've gotten far enough away from the main tourist areas to have a typical French meal in a cafe and it won't cost an arm and a leg) and we were trying to figure out what Andouillette was. Don thought it might be a form of andouille sausage. When Don asked the waiter about it the man looked at Don and said, "That is not for you!" Don looked at the man with a question on his face and the waiter then said, "It is for big men (here he held his arms in front of his belly to show a really fat man). "It is from the stomach, the insides." We ordered steak instead and then looked up Andouillette on google. Here is a brief description from Wikipedia: True andouillette is rarely seen outside France and has a strong, distinctive odour related to its intestinal origins and components. Although sometimes repellant to the uninitiated, this aspect of andouillette is prized by its devotees.

Here is a (probably more accurate) description from the column Grubworm:

"Mrs GW put down her fork, worrying that I might have poisoned us with bad meat. I, having partaken of a number of stomach related dishes recognised the clearly faecal hint of intestine. (emphasis mine) Never one to shy in the face of a culinary challenge, I swallowed hard, tried not to breath in and carried manfully on through the taut bag of innards.
Some intestine I’ve eaten has had me rhapsodising (I’m look at you Chilli Cool). But this? This was bad. I had to admit defeat two thirds of the way through. It was really really bad. It wasn’t off, it didn’t make us sick, in fact I felt fine, apart from sections of my nose and tongue that seemed to have died in protest at what they encountered."

So, thank you Mr. Waiter, you saved us from making a horrible mistake.