From Rockville to Paris, Meeting My Longtime Friend

Yesterday, we met up with my very best friend from high school, Rebecca, and her French husband Guillaume.  Rebecca and I met in junior high school when she was 13 and I was 14, living in good ol' Rockville, Maryland. Although our interactions have been spotty over the past 3+ decades, we did reconnect recently when Rebecca was visiting Berkeley a few months ago.  We agreed upon this rendezvous in Paris then, and thankfully, it came to fruition!

Rebecca and Guillaume live in Le Havre, on the coast of Normandy, about 3 hours from Paris.  They lived in Paris several years ago and said we have to try the falafel from a famous restaurant not far from our apartment in Le Marais district. 

The line outside L'As du Fallafal was unending, twining for blocks down the street!  To be seated in the restaurant, the wait was over 1 hour.  Even the takeout line was a 20 minute wait, which was what we opted to do.  Meanwhile, not even one block away, there was another falafel restaurant with nary a customer!  The workers there tried to lure people into their establishment, but all the savvy diners seemed to know that L'as is where it's at.

The falafel was very good, but maybe we'll have to go back to the unpopular falafel place to get a fair comparison of the two.  It's sort of incomprehensible to me that falafel could be all THAT different in quality.

We found a little enclosed garden courtyard to eat our lunch and get acquainted with family members.

Then we walked over to Place des Vosges, best known for being where Victor Hugo lived when he wrote Les Miserables.  We parted ways after much too short a time, but it was great to see them.  Guillaume is a painter, so he had a lot in common with Adrienne.  They shared website links and have already viewed each other's work.

Earlier in the day, we also stopped at Hotel de Ville, where they had a large exhibit of colorful glass animals.

There is a sign on the platform in front of each animal, which when translated, says, "You may climb on the platform for taking photos with me, but do not climb on top of me or you will break me!"