We are all moving pretty slowly today after our blow-out at Disney yesterday. I know my excuse - I’m getting old ...
We set off this morning with the goal of reaching Musée des Arts et Métiers (Museum of Arts and Crafts or, alternatively, the ‘Lineup at the Louvre is Too Long Museum’). Charlotte pitched a fit before we even got out of the elevator so we had to bribe her into the stroller with the promise of a croissant from Laudree. Jack ordered up a few pastries en français and, as you can imagine has gotten quite good at it with all the practice he’s been getting these last few weeks. Well, the cute pastry girl behind the counter then asked him something in French and he stared blankly at her before saying he only speaks English. She giggled and said (and I quote) … “Your French is very good”. Well, he strutted out of the Laudree, all proud of himself and, after he recounted the story to me, I said, “I’ve heard your French, it’s not that good. She must have been flirting with you”. Surprisingly, he seemed disappointed!
We continued on toward the museum with everyone happily munching on their pastries when we happened upon the Palais Royal - one of our kid books said that this is a nice stop since the children like to climb on the sculptures in this courtyard. And, in fact, they did.
It was approaching lunchtime at this point so we stopped in at Pied du Couchon for what was renowned to be the best Gratinée à l'Oignon in the city. I am a huge fan of French onion soup so I was bitterly disappointed when they served me what closely resembled a steaming bowl of dishwater with tepid cheese on top. The girls shared a plate of the duck confit and loved it. Once recharged, Natalie and I headed home and Jack and the girls headed to the Aire du Jeux on top of Les Halles for a quick scamper and then to the square in front of Saint-Eustache.
Jack is now incapable of heading home in the afternoon without picking up a little sweet treat … for the blog of course … so, they wandered down the pedestrian market street, Rue Montogueil in search of something blog-worthy. They found it at L’Atelier du Chocolat where they picked up some of their famous chocolate bark. Sadly, there was none left for me so I’m not actually able to write about it …
I left everyone to their sugar crash and popped off to a yoga class in the 17th. Due to some really terrible signage and the characteristically serpentine Parisian streets, I was exactly 4 minutes late for the 5:00 pm class and the front desk lady would not let me in. She made me wait for the 6:00 class. That was not very zen of her. I found that the class, although all in French, was fairly easy to follow along – knowing gauche and droit really helped. I did notice how formal the instructor was – all so very much down to the business of yoga. And she didn’t even end the class with a little Om or a Namaste or anything. Just ‘merci’. I’ll take California’s chatty, hemp-wearing, chanting, Namaste-ing yoga teachers any day of the week.
We stopped in at the movie theater to enjoy their air conditioning and watch ‘Killing Bono’. It was meant to be a comedy but was really pretty sad. After all the meals out these last few weeks, we are starting to suffer from restaurant fatigue so we decided to have dinner at home tonight. We’ve only got a few days left and feel like we’ve checked most of the big to do’s off of our list. I think everyone is ready for some down time in beautiful, rural Canada next week. The question is, where are we going to get our pastries every morning?!?
I'll make them for you. Come to Canada! Ack. Who am I kidding? Just come to Canada! xx
ReplyDelete