November 13-16, 2006: Back to Paris and then Home

We checked out after breakfast and went back to the train station; Anne and Bill had decided to take the train back to Strasbourg with me and then they’d rent a car there and we would part ways: them to spend another week in France, me to go back to Paris for a couple days by myself. I wrote this on the train to Paris—I was totally hoping I was on the right one, and was assured when I saw some highway signs. A word about France’s numbering system: it doesn’t make much sense to me, no rhyme or reason, just however they slapped the numbers on. The reason for this statement is because I had trouble finding my seat on the train and had to ask a very nice Frenchman. I had only been looking on one side of the train (where I found seats 25-28 but then suddenly I was at seats 17-18. I felt like such a doofus when the nice older man I asked for help went right to it—on the other side of the aisle, which I had ignored. Oops!

It was a long train ride—boring, and I was hungry—but we finally pulled into Paris Gare de l’Est (Paris East station) and HOLY COW, was it crowded! Especially once the crowd got to the metro and stalled at the little ticket gates.

I finally made it back to Rue Montorgueil and my hotel –and of course I was put on the third floor (American fourth). By this time I was hot and miserable and still starving, so I snuck out of my hotel room and bought a ham sandwich at a bakery, and then stopped at the little grocery and bought some potato chips (of all things! But it’s what I was craving) and snuck back up to my room. I ended up going to bed super early—I was SO tired.

The next morning I skipped breakfast and headed out to walk around a bit. I ended up circling the Pompidou Centre a lot and attempted to walk to the Musee Carnavalet but didn’t make it there. I bought a terrible chicken sandwich (by far the worst thing I had in France) and then went back to my room to rest and rehydrate—and get a new contact lens as one had torn. Later I finally again made myself go out—I walked to Les Halles and scoped that out to make sure I knew where to get on the train to the airport. Then I hopped on the metro to St-Germain-des-Pres to have hot chocolate one last time at Les Deux Magots. I stayed there a bit to people watch and then wandered around the (ritzy!) neighborhood. Then I went back to Montorgueil and had a dinner of confit de canard (duck) and dessert of mousse aux deux chocolats—which I discovered was white and dark chocolate mousse, a layer of each.

Back at the hotel, I didn’t sleep well that night because I was worried about getting to the airport. Wednesday I was glad to have decided to go ahead and leave the hotel at 9. I got the RER figured out (train to airport) but then the airport got confusing. I had to take a shuttle from the RER station to the air terminal and then check in and go through security. Gosh!

I stayed awake the entire flight from Paris to Chicago—I had read that doing so would help you adjust more quickly to the time change. Once in Chicago I discovered that I had to re-pack my bags so I could check the bottle of wine I had bought (and the foie gras). That was a long line to wait in. Then I had to go to the domestic terminal and wait in another long security line, and finally I was at my gate. Only to discover that my flight was delayed—I was on the phone with friends to find out who loved me best (translation: who would be willing to pick me up very late at night from the airport in Austin), when I realized that my flight was going to be delayed nearly 3 hours! I let my friends off the hook because a very nice fellow passenger lady was willing to give me a ride home. Bless her heart! She lives in Pflugerville, and my place was on her way. In the end, instead of landing in Austin at around 11:30 pm, we landed at 2, and by the time I got home it was 3 am. I was so wired for some reason, I considered just staying up all night because I had to work the next day, but I decided finally to get at least a couple hours of sleep—I had been awake for roughly 30 hours straight. Thursday I went in to work about 8:30 (not bad!) and ended up leaving at 1:30 when my eyes stopped focusing.

It was a wonderful trip! I can’t wait to go back!

November 12, 2006: Colmar, France

We had considered renting a car in Strasbourg or Colmar, but those plans were shot to hell—none of the car rental places were open today. So we all took the train to Colmar—about a 20-minute trip. We got rooms at the Hotel Kempf and dropped our bags off, then we wandered through the “old city”, which included “Little Venice”.

Colmar is a very pretty Alsatian town—with lots of really old half-timbered buildings, and they’re all painted in pastels. It’s like a postcard! It was awesome and wonderful.

We enjoyed a lunch of soup at a little tea room—Anne had vegetable soup with noodles, I had the best cream of broccoli soup EVER, and Bill had a cream of escargot soup. (We all tasted each other’s—they were all good!) Then we shared a plate of cheeses, and I discovered a cheese that I’m not fond of—Munster. We noticed as we were eating that the background music consisted of American showtunes! The lady at the tea salon was very pleased to be chatting with Americans—she told Anne and Bill that they spoke French with no accent: an extremely nice compliment, to be sure. I’m so envious!

We then wandered through town, took lots of pictures, and stopped at another nice place for a hot drink; first I got hot chocolate and Anne & Bill tried the "vin chaud"--but then when we decided to just stay for another drink, they each had a beer while I got my own mulled wine (vin chaud = hot wine). It was delicious! It had star anise in it, among other things--the star anise made me crave my mother's homemade anise candy. :) Afterward we walked around more and found another nice little restaurant for dinner. It was obviously family owned, and when I tried to order the lamb cutlets, they had changed the menu offerings and didn't have that anymore, so I ended up with grilled duck. Delicious! Again for dessert I tried to order "mousse aux deux chocolats" (two-chocolate mousse) but alas, they didn't have that either so I got profiteroles instead: little eclair-like pastries, each with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream inside, and lots of chocolate syrup. Anne ordered the "crunching with chocolate" which was essentially chocolate mousse on a little thin cake with chocolate chips in it (hence the crunching, I suppose!) Then back to our hotel--not a bad hotel at all, but it's the one I've liked least so far...I suppose I got a little spoiled having the apartment first. :)

November 11, 2006: Strasbourg

We checked out of our fabulous little hotel in Dijon (this is seriously my favorite one of the whole trip)—the lady had a little trouble with the credit card machine, and then I had to stop at H&M to buy another pair of gloves as I had lost one. By the time I was finished in there, we practically had to run to the train station (ow! Shin splints!) and got there with about five minutes to spare. Whew! We took the train from Dijon to Deacon (or something?), changed trains there (we had 8 minutes, which didn’t seem like very long!) to head to Strasbourg. The train went through the Vosges mountains—very pretty scenery! SOO pretty.

Once in Strasbourg, we met up with Bill and had a beer and got caught up on our travel stories. Then we all got rooms at a hotel near the station (the Hotel du Rhin) (I stayed in a room by myself). Once we dropped our bags off, we went and wandered to this little “island” in the middle of Strasbourg—Le Petit France (The Little France). It was gorgeous and cute, I loved the buildings. We grabbed a quick dinner at a Turkish kebab place—it was SO good! Then we wandered a little more and headed back to the hotel to make our plans for Sunday and head to bed.

November 9-10, 2006: Burgundy

This morning we got up early and checked out of the lovely (expensive!) hotel, and bought a sandwich and chocolate beignet on the long hike back to the train station. We bought tickets back to Paris and then to Dijon, and then we went to go out to the platform to wait for the train. We figured out after a couple minutes that we needed to be on the other side of the platform, and we saw some train workers letting someone in a wheelchair be pushed across the tracks. We thought we could do that too (of course not!—but we feigned ignorance anyway) so the workers let us cross. (We were supposed to go down stairs, under the tracks, and back up the stairs…who wants to do that if you can just walk across??)

So we hopped on the train from Chartres to Paris (Montparnasse station), and took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon station, where we got on our train to Dijon. This time we called a hotel from the train station in Dijon and ended up getting a room at the Hotel Le Chambellon, a cute, funky hotel run by a very nice French lady. It had a very cute little courtyard area—I bet it’s gorgeous in spring and summer!

On Friday we had the hotel’s breakfast, which was simple but nice: pain d’epice (a regional spice bread), croissants, toast, and baguettes, with honey, butter, and/or jam, and we each got our own little carafe of coffee and shared a carafe of steamed milk. It was so good! Then we left for the train station to head to Beaune for the day.

Beaune is a major wine hub of Burgundy, apparently. We didn’t stick around to visit any wine caves or anything, which might be nice to do next time..Instead we rented a car at Beaune and drove around the countryside. Navigating the roads and highways in France is very confusing. We had trouble even getting out of the city of Beaune! We finally did, though the signs were just not very helpful, and you have to know what major city to head toward, to know which road to take.

We ended up driving to Autun and Seaulieu and then back to Beaune. The French countryside is absolutely beautiful, breathtakingly so. There were grapevines covering the hills, little towns tucked in the valleys, and each town we stopped in was just adorable and pretty. The sunset was just gorgeous, all purple and coral and pink. Once we got back to Beaune we had trouble finding the train station (it’s not like they had signs, not really, and then all the streets are winding) so we could return the rental car. Then we took the train back to Dijon. Whew!

I don’t regret renting the car because it was so awesome to get to see France NOT from a train, but it also would’ve been wonderful to have just stayed in Beaune and toured some of the vineyards and wine caves. Next time!

November 8, 2006: Chartres

We leapt out of bed at 7 am this morning to finish preparing for our departure from the apartment. We left for a few minutes to find a hotel room for me when I return to Paris to catch my flight home, and we found one at the Hotel Marmotte, right across the Rue Montorgeuil from our apartment. Sweet! Then while we were out and without bags, we thought to get breakfast. Our usual little bakery was closed so we had to decide on another…I ended up getting a ham croissant and chocolate éclair. Then we grabbed our bags, locked up the apartment, and headed to the Montparnasse train station. Buying a train ticket on the SNCF was super confusing but we finally figured it out (we had to ask for help), and then we had to ask just where our train was—there were no signs posted. All this trouble and confusion because of a “social movement”—apparently train workers were on strike. Yay. ;)

Finally we got on our train and headed to Chartres. The French countryside is absolutely beautiful! The green of the fields is nearly fluorescent in its greenness. I tried to take pictures from the train but my stupid camera hesitates before actually taking the picture, so I ended up with impressionistic photos of trees going by very fast. Oh well. Maybe next time I go I’ll break down and buy a better camera.

Our train pulled in to Chartres. We hadn’t made any hotel reservations because, again, it’s not the height of tourist season so we figured it would be no trouble. We had another thought coming! Chartres is a very quaint, pretty town, and we saw an awful lot of it in our quest to find a hotel room. We walked by 4 different hotels; two had no vacancy, one was closed for remodeling, and the fourth was expensive but only had three rooms left. So we took it. Sure was a gorgeous hotel room! It was the Best Western Grand Monarque. It was really cool, but for 140€ it should be! (And we found out why all the hotels were booked--there was a cosmetics convention in town or something.)

After dropping off our bags and checking out our room, we went and perused the cathedral. It’s famous for its stained glass, particularly what is called the Blue Virgin Window which unfortunately we didn’t get to actually see. They had taken it down pane by pane to clean and then put up a protective film over the outside glass to protect the stained glass. We wandered through the rest of the church and came back to watch them lift each pane through the scaffolding to the level each belonged. It was amazing! The guy on the ground stood on a plastic toolbox (we were aghast! Didn’t they know these were priceless??) and lifted a pane up to the guy on the first level of scaffolding, and so on. We could even see each pane flex each time. There was a woman recording the process for posterity, and when Anne asked her about it, she said something like, it wasn’t like this was the first time these people had done this. (They seemed so young, though!) Another thing about the cathedral at Chartres: in the stonework of the flooring in the main room is laid a labyrinth, which was made to symbolize the path to spirituality or enlightenment. Unfortunately for us they only remove the chairs once a week so people can walk the labyrinth, and we were there on the wrong day. Check out the link above to someone else's photo of it.

Finally we left and wandered through town a bit. We walked alongside a medieval wall (with slits, even!) that was breached in some battle in 1568 or something like that, according to the street signs. Chartres was a very picturesque (and clean) little town. I was impressed.

Finally we wandered back to our hotel and decided to try to find a Laundromat. We did—about three blocks or so from our hotel, so we fit our clothes together into one load. It seemed to take forever! (Guess I'm spoiled having my own appliances!) Finally our clothes were dry, and we decided to haul them with us (in bags) to go in search of dinner.

Funnily enough, it seemed that Chartres was just like small towns at home, where everything closes by 8. We were almost in a panic before we finally happened upon a nice little Italian restaurant where we had kir avec la peche (peach kir--white wine with peach liqueur) and shared a pizza so big the edges were well off the sides of the (large) plate. (Of course, being in France, we ate the pizza with forks and knives ;) We followed it with dessert—I had (finally!) chocolate mousse (mousse au chocolat) and Anne had Il Flottante (a large mount of soft meringue floating in a vanilla sauce). Hers was really tasty too.

Finally we wandered back to the hotel, where Anne took advantage of the glorious bath in our room and I had to ask the concierge for a bag of ice for my ankle...Word to the wise: Never go to Europe within a few months of spraining your ankle!

November 7, 2006: Out and About

We jumped out of bed bright and early this morning (at 8!) so we could shower, eat, and get to the Musee d’Orsay early. Orsay used to be a train station; they were going to tear it down until someone decided it would make an awesome museum. We made the decision to split up and meet back up after a couple hours, which we did and then we went up to the little café and bought some water and ate our fruit. Then we split up again for a couple hours—near the café was the Impressionism area, which includes my favorite artists. It was wonderful, but not nearly enough time. I think Renoir is still my favorite, but it was nice to see some Monet paintings that didn’t involve water lilies. There were also some sculptures that I liked. Of course, all the various pictures I took here, I didn’t note the names of the pieces nor the artists who created them, so I guess I’ll just have to go back!

After we met back up, we decided to walk to the Rodin Museum. It was interesting but it made me want to watch “Camille Claudel” again—I know many of the works that he took credit for were actually done by her. I got a nice shot of Le Penseur (the Thinker) and some other pieces. They were cleaning (removing pigeon poop, perhaps?) The Burghers, which I got a couple shots of. How often do you get a chance to see something like that? I can’t describe the sculptures I liked—they were awesome.

Then we took the Metro to Montmartre (the Pigalle station—home of purse snatchers and pickpockets galore!). Anne told me that we should be okay as it’s not the height of tourist season, but I still kept my bag close. We stopped for paté sandwiches (YUM!) and then found Sacré Coeur and the famous stairs. We took the funicular up to the Sacré Coeur and then walked down the stairs (much easier than going up, I’m sure!) But we got some cool pictures of the stairs. It was very pretty.

On the way home, we stopped at our little cyber café that we had found, and then we had dinner at a little Italian restaurant on our street—I had a truly excellent lasagna, and we got flirted with—a very nice, cute Frenchman who initially scared the crap out of us when he opened (with a roar, I think) the plastic flap of the enclosed patio area. He apologized profusely, of course, and at some point asked if we were Swedish (Anne realized it was because we were seated outside, where it was a bit chilly, but the patio had heaters). His friend told us that he had never spoken to Americans before. They seemed excited to hear we were Americans, and from Texas at that! (George Bush's home, they pointed out ;) After dinner it was home to pack--it was our last night in the apartment!

November 6, 2006: Bell Towers and Cemeteries

So Monday we really did hop out of bed at a decent hour, though with two of us to get dressed and ready and then head to the pastry shop and café, it’s still not “early” by the time we really get going. Oh well. We had decided to do Notre Dame first thing in the morning, so we could make sure and actually DO it—since I had bragged to everyone at home that we were going to be climbing the 400 steps to the top, it just wouldn’t do to go home and have to face the music.

They only let 20 people go up at a time, so we had a short wait before we were allowed up the stairs. The stairs were crazy! Very narrow, winding, and steep, and with a worn-down spot in the middle of each step from centuries of people (monks?) going up them. It seemed like we climbed a thousand steps before we finally came out into the open, and what a view! We got some great shots of the gargoyles and the spire, and of course of the scenery (though it was a bit hazy that day). Then of course as we wandered around we saw another worker who asked, “Going up?” We still had more steps to climb! Fortunately all the other tourists were in about the same shape—we did pretty well, I think, as far as keeping up and not slowing down too much. Finally up at the top (which, really, the first stage must have been only have the number of steps or something, and then the second stage must have been the rest? I didn’t actually count…) we were at the top of the belfries, and suddenly the bells started ringing! It was beautiful! I was disappointed to find out that no person actually rings the bells—it’s all electronically done these days. Bummer! But we did get to go into one belfry where they had one of the oldest bells on display—it was gi-normous! We wandered around a bit at the very top (I took a picture of the lightning rod;) and then we headed back down the nine million steps so that another 20 people could come up. (Well, it certainly felt like nine million!) By the time we got to the ground, our legs were quivering. But it was so worth it!

Since our legs were all watery and tired, we decided to take the bus to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We didn’t make it that far before we got off, at Saint Paul (the edge of the Marais district). We were hungry so we wandered around a bit looking for restaurants and found this great little Italian place. It was super busy, and our waiter was kind of a jerk (we’d had better!) but the minestrone was absolutely fabulous, and we had a pizza with salmon, mozzarella, and crème fraiche. Have I mentioned that in France they eat things like pizza with fork and knife? After our fabulous meal we hopped back on the bus and made it to the cemetery. We wandered through it a bit—I wanted to take a picture of Jim Morrison’s grave, which actually had a guard posted by it. We found some other very interesting graves as well, including that of Heloise and Abelard, the oldest occupants of the cemetery. Finally after more wandering around we realized the time and practically ran out of the cemetery before we got locked in, and we caught the bus again to go home. I think the bus went all of two stops before everybody got off—except us. We just thought the driver was taking a break or something, until finally he told us, “Fini!” Okay, then! So we hopped off and backtracked a bit to take the Metro to the Canal St Martin. By this time it was dark so we did the canal walking tour pretty quickly, but we saw a canal lock and a drawbridge or two—as well as some bum “villages”: they had tents, chairs, and I think even a couple tables set up under the bridges. (We saw them from on top of the bridges—we didn’t go near them.) Then we took the Metro home and stopped at a bakery for sandwiches and the grocer’s for salad and a jar of soup. It was all so good!

November 5, 2006: First Sunday of the Month

We had planned to jump out of bed again this morning to go to the Orsay, maybe St-Sulpice for an organ concert, and then the catacombs. Unfortunately, I hit the snooze button a couple times, and we didn’t get up until about 8:30. Which isn’t terribly late until you consider how long it takes to go to the pastry shop and then to the café, which meant we didn’t get to the Orsay until around 11. Oops. Bad idea for a Sunday! (The first Sunday of the month, no less---most museums have free admissions on Sunday, darn it!)The lines were horribly long, so we opted to try Notre Dame. We walked along the Quai to the cathedral—a nice, pretty walk! We took a couple of “artistic” photos on the way…there was this iron ring that we guessed must’ve been used to moor boats?...it was so old that it had worn into the wall. We walked by some Parisiens doing Tai Chi, and kept out of the way of joggers and cyclists. Once we got to the Ile de la Cité, we walked through a famous flower market (on Sundays it’s more of a bird market), and then bought some postcards at a little nearby newsstand. Then we walked the block to Notre Dame. It’s very imposing. We got to walk through and take pictures of the interior, the great hall and the little saints’ chapels on the sides. I felt weird, though, because there was a mass going on right then—I kinda felt like I was intruding (though there were other tourists who were darn near obnoxious in their touristyness!) I got a couple photos of these carvings of Jesus and His lessons and disciples which had been created in the mid-1300s. Then we came to the end of the interior tour and had to ask how to get to the bell tower to climb up the 400 steps. Unfortunately again, it was one of those free-admission sites, and the line was quite long, so we decided to leave. Before leaving the Notre Dame plaza area, we went to the toilets near Charlemagne’s statue. It was so funny! There was a sign on the door to the restrooms that had its hours of operation; we had to wait about 5 minutes before they opened—apparently the “gardiennes” get to take a lunch break. They were so cute, though! These ladies were laughing at all of us and seemed so nice and funny. Then we decided to go to the catacombs. These were really cool! All these ancient bones dug up from cemeteries and deposited and arranged so intricately. Wow. And of course there were signs of quotations about death everywhere. The workers were very strict about tourists not using the flash on their cameras—I guess because the flash would deteriorate the bones? It was many steps down to the catacombs and not quite as many up. At the top of the stairs at the end was a worker who was checking bags. We saw a skull and some bone fragments on a nearby table and figured he must’ve caught someone trying to take a souvenir. Now that’s just morbid and disrespectful.

Once out of there we decided to find a restaurant, and made a good choice. Our waiter was such a nice man! I had entrecote (a steak with green peppercorn sauce), green beans, and potatoes au gratin—the best au gratin I’ve ever had! Then we checked out the Montparnasse cemetery since we were close by. It was so crowded, it made me realize why the catacombs were deemed necessary! There were some really cool gravestones, and in the middle of this cemetery was a really old windmill—there were no longer any blades on it, but the building part of it was still there. There was one particular sepulcher or tomb that was beautifully done in mosaic tiles: pretty daisies and vines, etc; but we didn’t take a picture of it because there was an old man at the tomb, presumably visiting his relatives. I think he might've been weeping. After the cemetery we wandered through the Montparnasse area, where we found a little arty flea market that was a couple blocks long (lots and lots of art!), and then we decided to try to find Les Deux Magots, a restaurant we had read about that supposedly had the best hot chocolate in the city. We asked a couple of ladies if they were familiar with it, and they made sure to tell us that it wasn't in Montparnasse (well, duh!--ok, at least Anne knew that :) but they did tell us which Metro stop it was near. So we hopped on the Metro and got off at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Lo and behold, there it was! But there was also a really cool old church there that we felt the need to explore. I think it was built in the 6th century (or at least one version of it was) and it was just really cool. And old. Somehow it was kind of cooler than Notre Dame--maybe because it was slightly less touristy? Right across the street from the church was the cafe we were looking for, and my GAWD, they have some damn fine hot chocolate! It was very dark, almost bittersweet, but very creamy. SO good!

We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night. Beautiful! Every hour on the hour, for ten minutes, they make it sparkle--there are strobe lights on it, and this was set up for the Millennium celebration. It was cool! Since we were there already, and didn't know when we would have time to make it back, we decided to go ahead and go up to the top, since there weren't any lines for tickets. Up we went! It was a little freaky to go up the elevators, since it's not like a straight building. I kinda felt like we were in space. It was weird! They let us out at the second floor, and we had to go to a different elevator to go to the top. Once at the top (the 3rd "etage" or floor), I was a little disappointed because it was all enclosed by glass. So I was taking all these pictures through the glass (none of them came out, I don't think), and then I realized that, hey, there were stairs going up! THAT's where it all was open! They had little rooms set up with mannequins re-enacting scenes from 1889, which of course creeped me out. But the view was gorgeous, and we could watch the fog roll in. It was surprisingly not cold at the top. While we were up there, it was the top of the hour again, so the strobe lights started flashing. Cool! We spent a few minutes trying to figure out where these beautiful blue-green lights were, which building on the ground. Finally after a bit we decided to make our way back down. Finding the down elevator was a bit confusing, but we finally did make it back to the 2nd floor, where we saw the very very expensive ($300/plate) Jules Verne restaurant--it was closed, of course, but I took a picture of its awning. Then we took a few more pictures from that floor and headed back down to walk to where the blue-green lights were.

Interestingly those pretty lights were part of the gardens of some kind of modern art museum or something, but we didn't go in. We started walking around and decided to walk down the Champs Elysees since I had never seen it. It was a bit of a hike, but my ankle could take it (I'd make sure of it!:) On our way to the Place de la Concorde, which is one end of the Champs Elysees, we passed an Aston Martin dealership, which of course I took a picture of. When am I ever going to see something like that again? (well, next time I go, of course!) It was a beautiful walk, even so late at night. I think it was about 10 pm when we left the Eiffel Tower. On our walk, we also passed the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, beautiful buildings. I took a picture of the trees on the Champs Elysees...the perfectionism of the French and their hedgetrimming really cracked me up. The Champs Elysees is lined with perfectly square/rectangular trees!

Finally we arrived at the Place de la Concorde. The American Embassy is somewhere close by. There was a huge roundabout--it made me think of "European Vacation" where they keep driving in circles and Chevy Chase keeps saying, "Look kids, there's Big Ben!" There was a really gorgeous fountain there, I guess it might have been Neptune and some mermaids...I'm not up on my mythology, I just know it was beautiful. A short distance away was a huge obelisk that commemorated the spot where Marie Antoinette et al. were beheaded.

After taking several pictures here (a nice one of me in front of the fountain--thanks Anne!) we decided we were pooped and hopped on the Metro to go home.

November 4, 2006: Hitting some big sights

Staying up so late made it a short night. We jumped out of bed at 8, stopped at the same little pastry shop for breakfast (had the same little quiche and also a chocolate and pear tart—I could totally get used to this!) and tried a different place for café au lait. Then we headed to the Louvre by bus. I knew I could very easily get overwhelmed by it all, and I also knew we didn’t have a lot of time to see all of it, so I had told Anne I just wanted to hit the famous pieces and that would be good enough for me. Once we got inside, we bought Museum Passes and headed on in. We wandered a bit and saw some great sculptures in one big room, and kind of walked around there a bit, then we found each other again and went to go hit the “biggies.” First we came to “Winged Victory of Samothrace”, c. 190 B.C. According to Rick Steves: “This woman with wings, poised on the prow of a ship, once stood on a hilltop to commemorate a naval victory. Her clothes are windblown and sea sprayed…Originally, her right arm was stretched high, celebrating the victory like a Super Bowl champion, waving a “we’re number one” finger. “ She was beautiful! And according to the description at the museum, the best view of her was from her left, which shows more…motion(?) in the statue. Then we wandered through the corridors and saw the Venus de Milo, and followed the crowd to La Jaconde, the Mona Lisa. We saw some other gorgeous paintings (and ceilings! I’m going to have to have a painted ceiling in my house someday!), and then we left. In the park outside the Louvre, we took a break and each ate a banana, and then we headed to the Metro to get to the train to take us to Versailles.

Ah, Versailles. So beautiful in such an awful, gaudy way. All the excess makes you realize, “Well, no wonder there was a revolution!” It was extremely crowded and so hot inside…we were surprised at the crowds, even though it was a Saturday, because it’s November, NOT the height of tourist season! I cannot imagine how crowded and awful it must get during the summer. Ew. We wandered outside after seeing all the inside that we could stand, but it was too late to rent a little golf cart to go out into the gardens. We still saw the reflecting pool, which is an interesting optical illusion: it looks like it’s straight and all the same width down the length of it, as you look at it from the chateau…in reality, it is widest at the farthest point from the house, to provide that illusion. Cool!

We went back and wandered a bit in the town of Versailles and finally ate at a place that had galletes, and when I asked for a “carafe d’eau” the waiter teased me because I hadn’t specified a size. He wasn’t being mean at all, more a little flirtatious. On our way back to the train station we wandered though a little flea market.

Then we boarded the train and headed back to Paris.

Once home we stopped at the little grocery store near the apartment for a few things and called it a night. I nearly fell asleep at around 8 or 9, so we finally went to bed at about 10-ish. (Must've been all the fresh air at Versailles;)

November 3, 2006: Day 2 in Gay Par-ee!

We didn’t wake up until nearly 11 am, but we felt great! We finally left the apartment at about 1 and stopped by a pastry shop for a little chevre (goat cheese) and spinach quiche and then to a café for some café au lait and to eat, and then headed to Notre Dame. We didn’t quite make it there…

We got sidetracked and found ourselves at Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie. The Sainte-Chapelle was built to house Jesus’s Crown of Thorns and has some 1100 Bible scenes portrayed in its stained glass. The basement area was for commoners, worshipping under a sky filled with painted fleurs-de-lis, and royal Christians worshipped upstairs, where all the stained glass is. The altar was raised up high to better display the crown of thorns.

Before the Revolution, the Conciergerie was a prison where people were tortured and executed, and was the final stop for guillotine victims during the revolution. It was interesting and impressive but quite grim, of course. They had mannequins and scenes set up to show how conditions were in the cells depending on how wealthy you were: the poor people slept on straw, several people to a cell; the middle class had maybe two people to a cell and slept on cots, and the wealthy had private cells with cot and desk. Really quite grim. I think we didn’t see the museum where there was a guillotine blade, but I’m not sure.

After Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie, we stopped for hot chocolate near the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden)—this hot chocolate was better than last night’s! We didn’t have time for Notre Dame today, but we walked by it and wandered through the Latin Quarter a bit, checking out souvenir shops and restaurants.

Bits of French slowly started coming back to me, and it helps that it’s all much less overwhelming today. After wandering around, we went to Le Bon Marché, a big supermarket, and bought assiete du canard (a lovely, creamy, duck pate), a couple kinds of cheese, and bread, and stopped by a pastry shop for dessert (and walked by where Anne had lived here--it was her turn to get a little emotional!), and then ended up at a bar for a beer. We didn't even get home until 9:30 or so, and we stayed up eating and figuring out our plan for the next few days until we realized it was 1:30 am! So we went to sleep.

Since we had slept so late, it was a short day as far as seeing and doing, but it was so fun nonetheless!

November 2, 2006: Our first day in Paris!

We arrived around 9:30 am at Charles de Gaulle airport. It was so confusing! It took for-freakin-ever to figure out where we had to go to get out and get on the train (RER) to get to Paris! Before we found that, though, we asked the lady at the Information desk where the train was, and she was so helpful: “walk about 5 or 10 minutes that way!” Thanks! We also decided it might be beneficial to change some US dollars over to Euros….don’t do that at the airport if you can help it…it was the worst exchange rate we saw, plus they charged a few dollars for it as well.

So we finally found the RER station, bought tickets and got on the RER to Paris. The whole ride (which was my first train ride ever!) I was peering out the window excitedly looking for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. Anne finally told me we were way too far out to be able to see it. Bummer!

Once off the RER we took the metro to a stop near the apartment we had rented for the week. I was SO confused by the whole mass transit system! And overwhelmed! (Then again, I was in those states pretty much the whole day…) We hauled our bags up the narrow winding stairs to our apartment, which was very cute. It was one-bedroom, and had a toilet and bath/shower, so we were set. And it had a very tiny but cute little kitchen area. We had already decided Anne got the bedroom and I was going to sleep on the futon. No matter! I was in Paris at last!

We cleaned up a bit (washed our faces, mainly) and I dozed off on the couch for maybe half an hour, and then we were off! We stopped at the first little restaurant we saw, right on the corner near our apartment, called Le Pain Quotidien, and had open-faced sandwiches there. (Apparently the French eat open-faced sandwiches with forks and knives! I struggled…at least once the knife slipped and a piece of my sandwich went skittering across the table...embarrassing!)

Then we went off to do a walking tour of our own. I had left my camera at home—Anne had hers, so she took the pictures. We went to the Eiffel Tower first, where I was so overwhelmed with emotion it was all I could do to keep the tears at bay. Seriously. I was so happy to finally see it, after wanting to for nearly 2 decades! The lines were long to go up, so we decided to do it later. We wandered through the Latin Quarter (I had decided I might do a spot of souvenir shopping) and around Notre Dame. It was a really long day…several times we were like, “Oh! It’s only 3! (or 5! Or whatever!) I thought it was MUCH later!”) Finally we went to the neighborhood where Frank Woeste was playing. I had emailed him a few weeks before; I had gone to high school with him (he was a German exchange student) and looked him up—he is a musician in Paris! Cool! So he was going to be playing at a jazz club (Le Sunside) in Chatelet-Les Halles, so we went to go see him. They didn’t start seating people for the show until 9, so we had to go find other things to do to kill time (hence the really long, slow-moving-time day!) We went to a place next to the Pompidou Centre that served buckwheat crepes (called gallettes) filled with meats, eggs, mushrooms, whatever you want. It was SO good! Finally it was time, and we ended up with seats right up at the front, kind of on one side (we were behind Frank). They played some good music, though the slower songs nearly put us to sleep, and the guy who sang scat was totally awesome! They took a break after one 50-minute set, and I jumped up and ran after Frank (he had beelined for the bar). I think I tapped his shoulder or something, or maybe I said “Frank!” and he heard the Texan in my voice? I can’t remember, but I got his attention either way, and he recognized me. We had a nice chat for a few minutes, and then we left to go get some sleep. It was good to see him!

Once we got back to the apartment I was tired but still a little wired, and it was nearly midnight, so I took a sleeping pill and slept nearly 11 hours.

November 1, 2006: On my way!

I slept horribly last night and ended up waking up really really early—I was nervous about being ready and getting to Anne and Bill’s or to the airport—whichever way it was going to happen. My friend Amy was supposed to take me to the Hanrahans’ after her meeting, but when I couldn’t get ahold of her I really started worrying.

Finally Amy called me; was I ready? Her meeting had run long, but I was ready and waiting. She picked me up and drove me to Anne & Bill's, and we all rode a taxi together to the airport. Whew! On our way!

Of course we had arrived a solid 2 hours before our flight to Dallas, which was fine with me. I would’ve just paced a hole in my carpet if I had waited any longer! Larry (Bill’s brother) met us in the airport, and I think he had an earlier flight to Dallas.

We four met back up in Dallas—Bill, Anne, and I were on the same plane, but Bill was seated across the plane from us. Larry had had time to walk approximately a mile before we arrived; it was a good idea to get a little exercise before being squished into a little plane seat for 10 hours or whatever.

After finding our gates and wandering around a bit, it was finally time for the boys to board their plane. They were flying to England for a couple days and then on to Germany, to retrace their father’s WWII POW footsteps. Interesting!

So we saw them off, and then we went back to our own gate and waited for us to start boarding—fortunately it wasn’t too long a wait by this time. The plane was crowded, which sucked—it meant we had no room to spread out at all! We were crunched into our little seats with all our crap, of course.

It was my first time eating actual airplane food, and it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t too good either, but it was better than I had imagined. :) We both got the beef, and I couldn’t even tell you exactly what it was supposed to be. Roast, maybe? I dunno.

Then the movie came on at some point: The Devil Wears Prada, which I had already seen in the theater. Oh well. I had books to read, anyway. Anne and I each took a tiny portion of a sleeping pill to help us sleep. She seemed to sleep better than I did—I tossed and turned all night, it seemed.

Finally we landed in Paris. Yay! But lordy, I was tired.