Anyways, Katie and I decided to sleep in a bit today. Alain and Marilu's twin granddaughters spent the night here last night (they're four, and adorable, and couldn't be any more different from each other), so I woke up at about 8am to them yelling for Marilu...not exactly what I had planned as an alarm (because I didn't set one to begin with), so I just dozed off and on for the next few hours and decided to finally get up around 10.
I ate my usual breakfast, and Katie followed suit shortly after. We took out time getting ready to start the day -- it was a chilly and rainy Sunday -- one that should be spent on the couch under a blanket watching a Harry Potter marathon with warm cookies and milk -- so we weren't in any hurry to head out. Just after Katie woke up, Pastel decided that my leg was a threat of some kind, and jumped up and scratched me on that back of my calf -- he actually drew blood! In two places! Marilu says that when the girls are around he gets jealous, so I'm guessing that he decided to take it out on me....Hopefully I won't get cat-scratch fever!
Finally, around noon, we walked to La Motte Picquet metro stop which is where there is a market every Wednesday and Sunday -- I've never seen such an array of goods. Everything from fresh cheese, to whole fish (eyes and all) and octopus, to fresh baked breads and pies, to vegetables and fruits. Goodness, it was quite the scene. Katie bought a scarf from one of the vendors, but that's all we walked away with -- as tempting as everything else was.
We got on the metro at Dupleix and took it to Denfort-Rochereau with the intention of going to see the Catacombs. After about 30 minutes of waiting in line and only moving maybe 30 feet, we decided that we would rather spend the day doing other things. I suggested that we have lunch in Le Marais, which is an area that I've started to get more familiar with -- like the area where we ate dinner last night, Le Marais has lots of little streets, fun shops, and good restaurants. We both settled on a charcuterie panini at a boulanger for "emporter" (to go) because it was 1,5 euros cheaper than staying and eating it there. So we wandered up the street with our sandwiches and saw the great big pillar in the center of the Place de la Bastille.
After that, we continued to wander (it seems that wandering was the major theme of the weekend), and eventually made it over to the Seine which we followed to the Ile de la Cite to see Notre Dame. Again, long long line to go in, so we admired from the outside. On our way there, we had stopped at some of the little booths along the river that sold old books and postcards and posters. Katie was in heaven -- she rifled through piles of old postcards and picked out 14 (I know because I had to count for the saleswoman) that she liked and bought.
We took our tourist photos in front of Notre Dame and decided that we had about had enough, and so after weaving through some of the tiny streets of the Latin Quartier, we found a metro station and took it back home. The rest of the afternoon was spent in my room (kind of lame, I know), but walking around Paris is unexpectedly exhausting and we were both feeling it.
Marilu fixed a simple but delicious dinner of bowtie pasta mixed with tomatoes and spices, and for an appetizer, she bought hummus, an olive tapinade, and this other spread that had eggplant and pomegranate seeds in it! All very interesting but very tasty.
I walked Katie to the metro station after dinner so she could take the metro over to the bus station to get her bus back to London! And I'm utterly exhausted, so I think I'm going to wrap it up for the night!
Again -- a quick email would be most appreciated! And any suggestions for topics or anything of that sort would be welcomed as well. Here are a couple pictures from the market this morning (and I've also uploaded a whole album on Facebook):
I'm reading I'm reading!!
ReplyDelete