Paris- Day 5

Today was our favorite day in Paris and for the whole trip so far. We woke up at 11:30. ‘Nuff said. The scrunchin’ housekeeping lady woke us up! Seriously they sound exactly the same in every country, “housekeeping!”- just like on “Tommy Boy”. The doors to our room were extremely hard to open. The lock was weird and there was a stationary knob in the middle of the door you have to somehow pull up towards you and out as you are unlocking the lock! It took us 5 or 6 minutes of loud banging and lifting to try and open the door.

So after getting ready we headed down to our neighborhood café across from the hotel. They only had French menus, but the waiter was super nice and told us everything they had. We skipped breakfast altogether and had lunch. I had the greatest meal of my life (up to that point). Pasta with 3 frommages (cheeses)- that’s a word we learned and used frequently! :) The penne pasta was cooked to perfection and the cheese was soft and supple in the middle. We would take the cheese and spread it on the baguettes and it was tasty!!!

We then strolled over to the metro, we went to see the Orsay Museum that has our favorite paintings in it, from Van Gogh to Picasso but it was closed due to a strike. (lame!) So we decided to go shopping! We bought some Paris stuff for the kids, and then we saw this bakery!!! I bought the most INCREDIBLE chocolate éclair in the world!!! Steph got a Raspberry tart covered in juicy raspberries. When she ordered it, the boy was confused…he tried to pronounce the word “Raspberry”. He had never heard it before in his life! We had a good laugh. As he handed it to Steph the manager made the boy say it in English. He tripped over the word a few times! We all had a good laugh.

We took a bus to Notre Dame and luckily a nice Frenchman helped us find the right bus to get on. It was crazy confusing! The sky was very cloudy – we were worried that Steph’s one umbrella wasn’t going to be enough. We walked down an old, beautiful street to Notre Dame, saw it for 2 seconds, and then the rain CAME WITH A VENGENCE!! Steph put up her umbrella, and is really bad at sharing. She held it off to the side and only my belly was covered. J I made fun of her the rest of the trip for her sharing skills.

We ran over to the nearest café yelling and paughing and the Frenchman (who had helped earlier) was there, cigarette in hand, laughing at us! Since we were there we figured we might as well buy a hot chocolate, and we ate our éclair and tart. Twenty minutes later, the rain had stopped and we walked over to Notre Dame!

The railings on the bridge leading to Notre Dame were covered with padlocks and ribbons with initials on them. We asked someone what that meant and she responded in her broken English that it was a romantic bridge were lovers wrote their initials on padlocks to show they would be together forever. At that moment we missed our hubbies and thought it was sweet.

We went into Notre Dame and it was massive and ornate! We walked around for free and enjoyed listening to the Organ music.

After Notre Dame we went to a street that had a bunch of specialty shops. One shop was a formmagery where they made incredible specialty cheeses. We ask a guy to help us chose the best ones and we sampled a few. They were SO good! Next store was a specialty bakery, so we grabbed a large baguette that was perfectly crispy on the outside, and soft and delicious on the inside. We stuffed the cheese and baguettes in our bag for later. Then came the greatest dinner of my life in a café down the street from Notre Dame. I ordered the duck after the waiter suggested it and because it sounded good, and it was absolutely AMAZING in every way!! Steph ordered Salmon served between two crusty pie-like thingy ma-gigs.

It was getting dark so we headed to one last look at the Eiffel Tower at night. We were expecting it to be closed but it was actually open! By the way, the Metro and the Bus took 1 ½ hours to even get there! It was super busy, we took the wrong bus and it was on the other side of town. It started sparkling right when we got there! It sparkles 5 minutes to the hour at night. It was still open so we got to go up all 900 feet! We also happened to get in a group of all Asians on our elevator up, complete with Asian tour-guide. Only in Paris can you learn about France in Chinese. Steph was freaking out on the way up and was really nervous; she doesn’t like heights. But, she was super relieved when she discovered it was all enclosed. It was absolutely beautiful up there, and just a wonderful end to a perfect day in Paris. We skipped public transportation on the way home and paid for a Taxi. We ended our night with the Baguette and Cheese in our room while watching “Merlin” in French (you thought it was good in English!!) Versailles tomorrow!