Day 3, April 7

Monday, April 07, 2008 1930

Good afternoon. It is time to make my diary now. Luke and I woke up on our own time at about 0800. Luke showered. We ate fried potatoes, a fried egg, fruit, oranges and apples, and of course the most needed- coffee. I drank too much. I got kind of sick.

We planned to go to the historic Paris walk. We took metro to Notre Dame area. We exited the metro, and walked around a flower market at the Cite’ Metro stop, the one that had the art nouveau Metro sign. From here we separated from Rodger and Beth because we had already seen the Notre Dame church innards and park. We actually were at the back end of the Paris Walk, so we decided that maybe we should just do it backwards. That sounded fine to us.
The Pont Neuf was a block down from where we were at, and we actually saw some interesting signs across the Seine, so we trekked across the seine and weaved our way to the Pont Neuf Bridge. We found there to be many pet stores along the way. I thought that the pet stalls were going to be ON the Pont Neuf. In the pet stores there were all kinds of puppies, birds, bunnies, cats, rats/rodents and we also saw some small white squirrels (we thought it was a squirrel, he had a long body with a thin long brushy tail). We whistled to some parrots and they whistled back.

Once, we walked into one, and we heard a rooster crow. (What the heck?) Sure enough, they had a couple of roosters in the back of the store along with some ducks! We saw some Kaiser JRT doggies they were like 390 €. Half the dogs were dead asleep, and the other half were frolicking around and playing with each other. It was about the same for the cats as well. We felt bad for some of the animals; because of course they were caged. One was a Yorkie that was pacing back and forth like a caged fox. After the pet stalls, we finally crossed the Pont Neuf (New Bridge) and read about the history behind it.

So off we continued on the backwards Rick Steves Paris walk. We walked towards this little gravel park. We saw a loose dog at a store that was sniffing at something, and right next to him was a huge fat yellow lab that’s only activity would be to raise its head to see the people walking by. During the time we were in the park we saw the little dog run past us to find a spot to play/poop/pee at. No owner yelled at him or chased him, so either he was loose or trusted. A man left an apartment that was in this park with a young yellow lab, and the lab took off after the little dog to go and play, and all of this was going on right next to a sign that showed a picture of a dog on a leash, HA! This park was very small, but quaint, and quiet. All of Paris was almost shut out when we went in there. On our way out, we passed by the Police Station. I think it was more than just a police station, almost like H.Q. for the French/Parisian Police.

We then went to the Concergerie. We bought our 4 day museum card there for like 45€ a piece. It was a police type station in the Republic times where Marie Antoinette was held captive. They had some dummies placed in cells and a vignette of Marie and her soldiers keeping watch over her. After she stayed for about two months in a wallpapered jail cell, she was taken away to Place de la Concord where her head was chopped off. It was kind of a crummy little place. They had a few 3 minute long informational public TV quality movies playing. Oh, and the interrogation area had these giant gothic arches. Just like in Notre Dame. Beautiful, and they were lit well too, I hope I got some good pictures of them.

We tried then to go into St. Chapelle- which is the parliament building. There was line and we were there over the lunch type hour and a sign pointed out that it was going to be closed for that time. We decided not to wait for it to open.

So, again, on we continued on the backwards tour back across the seine to Saint Michelle Place. It was a fountain that was put up to commemorate something, and it turns out that is basically the gateway to the bohemian culture (free thinking, free spirit, beauty, truth and love) and there were a lot of revolutionary things that went on there. One such revolt was when the Parisians were pissed at the Nazi regime. Once we got to this point, we couldn’t really keep concentrating on history, so we started slowly noticing food stands/restaurants. Lisa noticed a creperie. I knew exactly what kind of crepe I wanted, but we also wanted to get a sandwich because it was basically lunch time. We ordered a nutella/banana crepe €3.50 and a sandwich with cheese and ham and tomatoes for about €3 also. We walked into a food type district and were inundated with food shops.

Luke saw a falafel house and was enamored. He bought a falafel were you add your own greens and stuff. It cost €4. It had a spicy mayonnaise and the falafels were a bit spicier than I had had before. I (Luke) was a little miffed at what you could put on the falafel. In fact, it was kind of a crappy little place to get food, because it was backwards. You walked in past the veggies, ordered whatever you were getting, and you both stood there and waited, or you sat down in one of 10 chairs with tables. So I basically waited while more people came in. I got my falafel though, and then walked back towards the door to put my veg. on it. It was a little confusing, but I think I figured it out. Lisa wasn’t much interested in the falafel as I was, so I ate most of it. After we emerged, we wandered around some more in the area and saw about 300 other places to eat. I believe we will be back. There is nothing like quick good food, especially from locals. I think most of my memories from all my trips that deal with food were of the little stands that I got food at. It often times is fast, cheap, and delicious. Maybe my mind thinks that it is good because it is so cheap.
Anyway, we ended up getting one more treat on our little excursion: French fries. Which I just realized that when we ordered them, I didn’t realize I was ordering French Fries. We got them with mayo and ketchup.

Finally we ended up crossing back towards Notre Dame because we were going to go to the Deportation Memorial. It was a memorial built for the 200,000 people that died due to the Nazi “deportation” or concentration camps. We got in free due to our Museum Pass. Well, I guess we technically didn’t get in free since we paid €45 for the four day pass. It was located behind Notre Dame in a gated park. We descended some stairs and through this narrow hallway and saw an inscription on the floor. Then you looked through this prison cell type iron door to another stone hallway- to see 200,000 lit “crystals” to demonstrate all that died in deportation camps.
Next we agreed to take the metro to a food place that we researched. The difficulty is that Luke only marked the location on the map, not the name of the store or what kind of store it was; like kitchen store or fromagerie or artisan bread place. So we went blind.

What slowed us down was the metro. Usually the metro keeps us on time. The metro had some breakdown or difficulty on our line. There was a French message overhead and we didn’t know what to do other than take our cues from the fellow local passengers. We eventually moved to a different line that required lots of walking up and down and on moving sidewalks. We even had to wait for line difficulties at our alternate route. Oh, well at least it was running. We exited 1 stop too soon. But we did find our sought after food place…..it was closed. Closed. There was a chance it could have been closed for lunch so we waited around a bit and shopped at a neighboring grocery store. Bought some nutella, senape, Buenos, etc. Then took metro home.
Mom and Dad arrived about 15 min after we arrived home. We all went out to explore the Rue Cler a bit. We bought some bacon for a gratin potato dish. Luke made white asparagus soup. We are about to eat now.

Dinner was great. I have on my list to talk about a few more things. One is the weather. It has been cool and rainy off and on. Mom woke up last night and came out here to look out the window at the Eifel tower (which you can see from our apartment) and she said it was “snowing to beat hell.” “big flakes!” She also said it snowed for a little bit during the day when they were touring. We must have been in the subway at that time. Anyway the rain has kept the sun away and the temperature in the low 50s/high 40s. It was certainly enough for a windbreaker, a sweater, scarf and mittens if you were lucky.
Here in Paris, they have only 1 color of TP for the consumer. PINK. PINK TP? Who prefers pink tp. Just thought I’d vent.

We have been to some grocery stores Leader Price is our favorite. They have a lot of frozen stuff and ready made stuff, like take it home and warm it up. I suppose they have to because there are basically no cooking facilities in the apartments. They don’t have biscuits or gran cereale like we had hoped to see. They have quite a bit of wine as well. The prices are slightly more than Italy, I think. The meat is exensive, like 4-5 pieces of ham in a package for like 3.00€. They don’t have much fresh stuff, or if the do it is out their front doors and only in the AM.
We bought a Carte l’orange card to get us from a-b day after day for 7 days. It is only good Monday –Sunday, for a given week. So if I buy it on Tuesday I will only be able to use it until Sun before I have to go buy another one. We paid €45 each! EACH! It should pay itself.
I haven’t been killed with kindness here in Paris. People have been short with us and not smiling or greeting us in the grocery stores. This could be normal in any big city in the world. They haven’t been nasty to us though.

Paris hasn’t been particularly dirty or particularly smoky, so that is fantastic. Ok. That is enough observations and miscellaneous stuff for now.