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Our Apartment!
Living room... slash my room Bonjour! We have arrived in Paris! We spent our last full day in Barcelona at the Maritime Museum (I assume that you know that by “we” I do not include myself) and frolicking around some of our favorite spots. Chelsea and I made a valiant effort to go to the beach, but of course as soon as we stepped onto the sand it started storming, so we spent the day eating patatas bravas and shopping instead, which was fun. We walked into Zara and “Please Don’t Stop the Music” was on, so we obviously acted like we were in Logans again. Chelsea expressed concern that another group of girls may be taking over Logans as we speak, but I refuse to even entertain the idea. I was sad to leave her that night ☹.
We spent yesterday traveling Barcelona to Rome, Rome to Paris, all the while lugging our massive amounts of luggage around. As I have said many times, I do not claim to be a light packer, but there seems to be a huge benefit in spending the money on those cute little suitcase sets that just fit right together and roll along, rather than trying to go
the Beverly-hillbilly way and stack cheap, unfitting bags on top of each other. As mom says, this gives us “distribution issues”. Anyway, we survived, made it to the airport in Paris, and got a taxi to take us to our apartment. This time we had the forethought to print out a map of where our apartment was and hand it to our cab driver to avoid getting dropped off “very near” the plac. Unfortunately for us, that wasn’t good enough and we had to get the cab driver on the phone with the apartment people anyway after he drove around looking for it for what seemed like forever. We finally found it, met a funny man outside who was supposed to check us in, and then walked into the foyer of doom.
I call it the foyer of doom because it was quite possibly the scariest 7 or so minutes of my short life. First of all, it was dark when we got here, and the foyer of the apartment building was pitch black when we walked in. The man with us finally found a light switch, lit the room, then pointed to a teeeenny elevator like the kind
you see in western movies in old hotels or banks. He motioned me in, ALONE, with my baggage, held up six fingers and told me to go. I obediently pressed for the 6th floor, and then rode up, in the pitch black elevator slowly watching mom and Mary get farther away and wondering what types of songs they would play at my funeral if they lived to see it. I passed floor after pitch dark floor (this thing just has a grate in front so you can see everything), and right when I was sure that I was going to shoot out of the roof, the elevator stopped and I opened the door into a pitch black hallway. Haunted house central. I found a light switch and waited, petrified, until Mary made it up, then finally mom and the strange man. We lived!!
Our apartment is nice - on the corner of the block with great windows and a great view. It is larger than any place we have stayed the whole trip. We are right across from the Georges Pompidou (the modern art museum). Today there was a huge parade/demonstration outside our apartment with bullhorns and signs and
such, but we had no idea what they were protesting. Perhaps war, perhaps political stuff, perhaps the 79 bajillion stairs you have to climb every time you get off of the metro. Who knows?
Mary and I ventured out this morning, going first to a church near the Louvre that I wanted to see. It was, of course, beautiful. Next we took the metro up the Montmartre area and the Sacre-Coeur Cathedral which is at the highest point in the city. The views up there were breathtaking, as was the cathedral itself. We elected not to climb the 400 some-odd steps to see the view out of the dome, assuming that we could achieve quite the equivalent view upon our visit to the Eiffel Tower without the muscle spasms. After taking it all in, we headed downhill a bit, grabbed some lunch, and metroed it back to the apartment.
This afternoon we all three ventured out again, first to do some shopping then to the grocery store and produce market to stock our fridge. We got some fruits, veggies, milk, bread and chicken, and left it at the apartment. We decided on dinner at a place down on
the Seine that was recommended to us, and once again took a chance and ordered things all in French that we had no clue about. This time it was a winner!! The food was delicious and we were all “stuffed” ☺. We caught the metro again to satisfy my burning desire to see the Eiffel Tower at night, and emerged from the metro station to see it sparkling against the night sky. So so so incredibly beautiful!!! We stood there and watched it for awhile, took way too many pictures, and then came home. We plan to go back again another night with a bottle of wine and sit on the grass down below it for awhile and just watch it and stare at it in all its glory.
I have decided that I love the metro. It is like a puzzle. You have to find where you want to go, find the nearest metro to that, and then decide which combinations of colors and numbers and directions you are going to take to get there. It really satisfies my ADD tendencies too - much better than sitting in traffic and at stoplights. Plus, mom and Mary can’t read
the metro maps because they are too small, so I am completely in charge of getting us where we need to go. How empowering - the delights of youthfulness.
Tomorrow we are visiting Notre Dame, the Centre Georges Pompidou, and a big photography gallery that I want to see. We have the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay planed for Saturday, and Versailles on Monday, all peppered with some shopping (of course), some more Eiffel Tower, and some delicious food. Can’t wait!!
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Helen
non-member comment
paris!
Krista, Glad to know you made it and are falling in love with Paris. Poor Marla in that elevator.... I bet that unnerved her or maybe she was too tired to care by then. I loved the comment about the metro map, etc. A new take on HIGHLIGHTER GIRL talent. Color coded metro maps should be just up your alley. Helen