Friday

Friday, April 11, 2008, 1815
Good evening. This morning started well enough, up at 08. Luke was still at my side in bed, believe it or not. Dad left to go pick up milk and eggs at the store this am after much detailed instruction regarding the door locks.
We are in a secure apartment. It takes code to get in the outer door, a key to get past the inner door and then a key to get into your apartment door. It seems he had never seen the door unlocking process yet. We had fresh croissants as well. Mom made the fried eggs, Luke had an egg sandwich as usual. I had a croissant halved; one half with jelly/cheese and the other with butter. I like the butter one better.
Luke and I left to go do his “fun market day.” We had marked a few spectacular stores on the map that all had something to do with cheese or food. We first decided to go to the place we were at the other day that was closed. We figured that at least we knew how to get there now. We went. It was in the Monge neighborhood. We also stopped at the am market. They had mainly fruit and vegetables, some clothing, jewelry, purses, fish, meats and that’s about it. There were 5 big rows of tables. We were quite satisfied, but bought nothing as we were going to be leaving tomorrow. We saw artichokes large as small cantaloupe or big grapefruit.
We then visited the cheese store. It kind of smelled bad. I would get sick of that smell if I worked there. We saw, yes about 200 kinds of cheeses but, alas, we didn’t buy any. I told Luke I was kind of cheesed out. We have about 5 kinds that are still partially eaten in the fridge at the apartment. We gawked and gawked, and then left to walk around some more.
We found two of my goals that I wanted to complete. We came upon a not so busy patisserie. I went in and ordered as Luke asked me to. I didn’t really want to order because I get scared. I did it in as much French as I knew how. I think I did a good enough job. We bought 3 sweets. One was a pastry filled with mousse and had a pastry outside and bottom with a filled mini crème puff on top. It was very pretty and probably the best tasting one, it was VERY rich. The other was a cream puff with chocolate mousse inside. The third was an apple torte or something. The apples were sliced so thin and the glaze or sauce was so apple-y and smooth, it was the best apple filling I had had like ever. I was so happy with that. The pastries cost like €7. We walked around the block to find a place to sit and not be so out in the open. We sat at a not very busy coffee shop. I ordered 2 gran crème and we ate sitting down and paid like €6. We had a very friendly waiter. We people watched a bit.
We wandered around the street a bit; saw what looked like a cooking store on the outside. We went in and it was more of a hodge podge store. We kept eyeing a Peugeot automatic pepper grinder for like 69€. Needless to say we passed. We didn’t see anything here we needed.
As we walked we came upon a kiddy store. There were stuffed animals in the window so we thought we would take a peek inside to see if there was any bunny we could not live without. We saw some bunnies, but not he perfect one. We did come upon something very interesting, a display of music box insides with 100 different tunes. I bought one for myself, Moon River. I looked for Katie and I picked out 2 for her that they didn’t have in stock. I gave up looking. So unfortunately I didn’t give her one. I feel bad. It would have been a spectacular gift. We got a spinning top that you prime with a lever and then let it go, and almost to match it is a little box where you spin the handle it makes a little tune. It is cute and old fashioned type toys. Not garbage toys.
We eventually went back to the metro to another food place. We eventually found it and it was yet another cheese shop that was a little better than the last one. We walked around that neighborhood, looked in an aisian food store, looked only. Then we saw a Shopi store. We did not know what that was. We took a closer look cause we thought it was a variety store. It was better. It was like the biggest grocery store we had seen. How exciting. We saw the most variety of brands and food types here more than anywhere else. We always like to look in the limited kitchen section. I bought a café ole bowl and then saw a glass coffee glass set with the metal handle and frames. I didn’t know the price but I did know I wanted one. Fantastic. I bought it. I love it. It only cost like €7 or so. We also bought a bottle of Orange light (the generic orangenia). I found a Shopi plastic reusable decorated bag that I decided I needed- €1.30 perhaps.
Then we meandered on home, got of at stop Motte- Piquet a stop where we would have to change metros and only ride 1 stop. We got off early and decided to walk around and maybe find a place to eat. We didn’t, but saw some good prospects. We walked home near the rue cler to pee and drop off our stuff. It had been a nice day except for a few stray strong breezes. I had been wearing my scarf as a shawl. We left our jackets and the backpack and walked back to that area, found a café that was open. It was kind of an odd time to eat as it was like 1500 and most restaurants were closed for the break between meals.
We stopped at a café that was open. I tried to order a generic salad, but inadvertently ordered salad nicoisse- a mixed green salad with green beans, tuna, anchovies, dressing, hard cooked egg and a few cold cooked potatoes. It wasn’t too bad, but when you got one of the many anchovies it was VERY vinegary and sour. There was like a whole can of tuna on it, tuna in oil, it wasn’t drained very well. The salad was suitable. I left a lot of it and all the anchovies except like 3 that I ate. Luke ordered a croque monsieur with a small green salad. The sandwich had an egg, ham and cheese on it. It was a very good samich. I had I bite and I was impressed. I then ordered us another large coffee and we enjoyed that for a while. We tried to pay with visa but they did not accept, thankfully Luke had just enough change to pay for it €24. Just our coffees were like €4 each, the entrees were like €7 and then the sit down fee added. I enjoyed this meal even though I got my wrong order.
The Eiffel tower was next on our list. We walked around the park to one end of it. We came upon an impromptu dog park gathering. We were amused watching 6-7 doggies run and play, both big doggies and little doggies. There was this min pin that was especially naughty, he would go away from the gravel doggie area and walk to the green area where tourists were picnicking, basically begging for food. Bad dog. He wouldn’t come to us though; he just peed on the garbage can next to our bench. Luke and I got our fill watching doggies as we missed Kaiser very much. We walked directly under the tower and sat for a while, watched the lines and the dark clouds roll in. It got a little cooler. I convinced Luke to let us walk home.
That we did. We did take a different way home. We thought this would give us a better understanding of the neighborhood and that maybe we’d find a hidden food or general store gem. We did not. We walked home in a zig zag motion. The walk home was unremarkable except for we saw a stray JRT with no apparent owner visible. We crossed a few streets to get closer to him. Lukie petted him and I got to pet just his tail before my shawl scared him. Poor doggie, he ran away.
We decided to walk home more and we eventually came upon the far end of the rue cler. Home again home again. We stopped and stocked up at the leader price. We bought SEVERAL choc covered crepes, 6 bottles of orange pop (lite), and a big box of Buenos, can’t remember what else.
Came home and put the stuff away. Luke is almost ready to serve the French onion soup! We have been waiting the whole week to have this delicious meal. Now we will discuss our day with mom and dad. Just hope we get the cheese eaten and that we don’t leave it in the fridge like we did in Italy. We must commence to pack and clean up the apartment. The finish of this diary will be tomorrow. ljf