THE PARIS LETTER: Nesting...

37 Weeks preggo, with toys

Happy Fall Sunday everyone -

Paris has finally been visited by those sunny, crisp fall days that just make you want to walk by the Seine and stop in at a cafe to share a hot chocolate or a bottle of wine. It is just beautiful out, and today Matt and I are hopefully going on another date of sorts, if I can come up with some good ideas - I have two drawbacks currently: I can't walk much farther than 10 blocks at a stretch, and I don't have a coat that covers my bump - BUT hey, if I plan things right neither of these should really be a problem. I just have to build in plenty of places for us to stop ...

Right now, Matt is at an Irish pub watching the Rugby World Cup final - New Zealand and France battle it out!  Neither of us had ever watched rugby before, which is - apparently - a big sport in the rest of the world ;). New Zealand beat Australia last week; these are usually the two best teams, and nobody can understand how France made it into the final -not even the French!  Parisians are not really the most team-spirited in any case, but their response still seems to be "I don't know how Les Bleus are in the final, they are not a very good team" - and now they're playing the New Zealand All Blacks, the best team in the world.

THE PARIS LETTER: Dating My Husband

Hello there folks -

Montmartre - Follow him!

It's a rainy Sunday here in Paris, and the Claire Lundberg-Matt Valley household is being really lazy as a result. In fact, Matt is still sleeping over there in the bed -though it's almost 2PM ! In fairness, we did have a nocturnal visit from two friends who had a twelve hour layover here in Paris on their way back to New York from Russia. Armen and his brother Grisha showed up last night around 11:30, and we hung out drinking the Belgian beer Matt brought back from Bruges a couple of weeks ago, and then Matt and the guys left to find fun and excitement (or more beer and food) before they had to head back to the airport at around 5:30AM. Matt discovered a 24-hour Belgian beer bar right on Place de Clichy - about 7 blocks from us! Matt said they had a great beer selection but that it was also full of about 5 or 6 bachelor parties all eyeing each other seeing if they'd have to fight later. I should mention that this part of our neighborhood is pretty close to the Moulin Rouge and Pigalle districts, so these dudes were probably either coming from or going to that area. All in all, a good find but one that resulted in him getting back home around 5AM.