Friday, August 10th, 2012

We slept in on the comfy beds and to my great surprise the sheets didn’t pull up. They were actually nice sheets too, thick 100% cotton. One question I have though, why do the French people yell when they get drunk? In Aix and again here in Paris we were sleeping with our windows open (another nice thing about this apartment, wonderful cross breezes!). When the bars get out, between 1am and 3am, people leave and they yell in the streets. Not talking too loud yelling, but actual “aaaahhhh” yelling. It is such a mystery. It happened every night, so not a fluke.

We hadn’t seen a good bakery nearby, so we just had cereal and yogurt that we had bought the day before. Then we headed out to walk around Paris. We walked through some of the other passageways (some much nicer than ours, either better cared for or rehabilitated because they had tile, not stone, floors). We found Le Pain Quotidien where they girls got a little berry tart which they ate in the Jardin du Palais Royal. We continued through that garden until we got to the Louvre and saw our first gypsies, and then walked along the Seine until we got to the Pont Neuf. On the way we passed the tourist shops and I got a cute Paris shirt and the girls got Eiffel Tower keychains for their friends back home. We went to the Left Bank for lunch and found this cute little creperie, La Petit Tour Creperie, where we had a very nice lunch. This time we didn’t even fool around, just let the girls order dessert crepes for lunch.

Next up, the Cluny Museum, recommended by my Mom as something she remembered from her trip to Paris 40 years previously. The museum houses medieval art, and it’s cool, but the real treat here is that it’s in the old Roman Baths and they are so well preserved you can really imagine people hanging out in there. Once we got out of the Cluny we went to Notre Dame but it was very crowded and there was a line to get in, so we just walked around it, went to the playground there and then continued along to the Ile St.Louis. Then we headed to the Left Bank again for some shopping. We found a La Cure Gourmande where I got all the presents I needed for the people covering me for aerobics and work. Never mind that now we needed to carry that bag with us for the rest of the day. We also went to a cheese shop where we got truffle cheese and I’m sure there was a chocolate shop in there somewhere as well. We started to walk home but we didn’t realize how far West we’d gotten so this took way longer than we thought. But we did finally get home (to Charlotte’s relief). We hung out at the apartment for a while, then went to the Wagon Wheel restaurant downstairs, which was set up like a fancy dining car in red velvet. As you might imagine, a super cute restaurant in a heavily touristed area equals not very good food, but at least we didn’t have to walk far to get home. We did walk around the area a little bit and what should we discover just a block away but a La Cure Gourmande. Sure glad we carried that bag! There was also a patisserie that was closed but I made a mental note for later. And back to the apartment and bed.

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