We saw the Eiffel Tower every day

I took pictures of the tower from every angle

Many pictures from the Elysee Palace

We took lots and lots and lots of pictures of the Elysee Palace:

more:

and even more:

Slide shows

I promised pictures and here they are.

We saw weird things:

and wonderful things:

and more wonderful things:

Day 12 Our last day Finally

Our last day. We are having company tonight, so went out for some last minute purchases. Packed a little and then went out for lunch. We chose the same thing so it made it easy.

Fish Soup


Skate Wing with green beans

We had been discussing what we wanted to do for our last day. A museum perhaps? Nothing was really exciting us. We ended up doing our favorite thing - which was just wandering around taking photos of ineresting things and talking. A fun time was had by all.

We watched the truck park between the 2 cars - a very impressive feat.

We found another Statue of Liberty:


We took a picture of ourselves at the Trocadero with the Eiffel Tower in the background. (This took many tries!!)

Finally saw a bride. She was freezing to death.

Marie in picture taking mode.

Then we went home an got ready for dinner. The guests are Philippe and Evelyne. Bill and Philippe play golf while Marie and Evelyne tag along. Evelyne has the eyes of an eagle and is the ball spotter. They used to have the wine store in the area, but retired. Perhaps we will have wonderful wine? No, they brought chocoate.

We started with gazpacho

Next came veal stew

We had cheese, salad and bread. We shared 2 small chocolate cakes for dessert.
Marie brought out two regular candles so that we could sing Happy Birthday to Philippe and Happy Anniversary to both of them.

Evelyne has 17 sisters!!! There was one boy (the last) but he died at birth. Philippe is an only child. He said it was a big adjustment when he married into such a large family. The have only one child also. Evelyne said that none of her sisters has many children. I wonder why??

We seemed to have a lot to talk about and they didn't leave until after midnight.

All good things must come to an end and this is the end of our adventure. I leave you with one last picture:


The ponies walk down Marie's street on their way to their job.

Day 11 Sept 22 Monday

The end is near. We went to Au Bon Marche to get some of the things that we need to take home. I was looking for eye cream for Jef; we needed tea; and I wanted to look at the knitting area.

The windows here are quite droll. They have little white animals (of various types) with to article for sale.

We lunched in their café. They have nice sandwich kinds of things at a cafeteria counter. You choose and pay and then it is delivered to your table.

Another neighbor invited us for dinner. She also created an all girls dinner. We started with champagne, olives & bread. At the table we had stuffed duck neck (much better than at the restaurant) and a tomato salad. The tomatoes were from her husband’s garden in the country. She was getting a little snarky about the wonderful French vegetable gardens that of course we Americans didn’t do, so I told them about my “farmer” and all of the fruit trees and vegetables that I have in my garden and all of the things that Alec and Jef have planted in their garden. I am sure that they think I have an enormous piece of land in Los Angeles.

Then she had ham in cheese/cream sauce and pasta. There were two kinds of cheese and Marie had taken an almond pear tart for dessert.

After dinner the conversation turned to computers and email and Ann said that she was having trouble with hers. Marie piped up, “Oh, Joan worked for IBM and is very good.” I was escorted into the office (I know that Marie really did this so she could see more of the apartment!!) plopped in front of a completely strange computer. After messing around a bit, I told her that I thought her problem was with the internet company and that she should call them. Giving her permission to believe that she hadn’t done something horrible to break it made her feel much better.

On that note we merci’ed all and went home to bed.

Day 10 Sept 21 Sunday – a day of rest

Some views of Marie’s apartment:

It came completely furnished.
This was the dragon fruit. Inside it looked like this:
We strolled along the river to the Brasserie Ile St. Marie for a Sunday lunch. After our tiring day yesterday, we deserved a break. The weather was sunny and crisp and a little windy.

The Brasserie was really crowded so we had to wait. But since we are special people, our wait was with a glass of champagne and sitting at Michele’s table where she holds court. We had a good time telling her all about our adventure. Being a good Parisian, she had never been.

We both chose the plate du jour – beef with a marrow bone and potatoes “Pont Neuf” (that’s the local bridge.) Since we had champagne, we didn’t order wine.

Two gentlemen were seated at the table next to us. (In this restaurant, that means at the same table.) They also were friends of the family, so we started to chat. When they realized that we hadn’t ordered wine, they offered a glass of theirs. (Does this count as picking up guys??) We thanked them but refused.

After lunch we wandered down the Ile looking in the shops until we came to Bertillion. This the famous ice cream shop that is closed in the summer and for all school holidays. They always have a line at their window when they are open. We opted to go inside to the new salon for a sundae. I had cherry and Marie had chestnut.
They have a new bathroom with a very chic sink.
Still wandering we found the center point of France in front of Notre Dame. Everything is measured from here.
It is right in front of Notre Dame. You can see what a wonderful day it is.

Still trying to be a little cultural, we stopped at Sainte-Chappelle, but it was closed and then only part of the Conciergerie was open. We gave up and took the metro home.
We had a light dinner of sausages, fried potatoes and salad. Watched a Poirot and after taking more Advil went to bed.

Day 9 , Saturday, Our day of culture

This weekend is the Journees de Patrimonie. Many museums and monuments are free. Some places are only open this weekend and we decided to go to the one that was the most special: The Elysee Palace. This is the French version of the White House – but they don’t do regular tours. We knew the line would be long, but realized that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Neither one of our husbands would be willing to endure the wait.

We got in the line around 10 am. It was already very long, but we met a very pleasant family from Brittany. (near Cancale – famous for oysters) We all chatted. The eleven year old, Timothy, tried out some English. (How are you? What is your name? etc.)





The 2 hours passed quite quickly. It seemed like no time until we reached the gate.





Went through the search like greased lightening.





And then we were in a beautiful garden. This is where they hold the “Garden Party” on Bastille Day.





We thought that we were home free. We should have known that we were in deep doo doo when we spotted 2 large screens showing a film about the palace and state dinners and other info.





The line was packed about 10 across and we were all jammed together for another THREE HOURS.


The guards were very nice and let small children onto the grass, but the adults had to stay in place.



Was it worth the 5 hours in line? Yes. It was FABULOUS!!! It was like visiting Versailles, but you could take pictures. Tables were set for state dinners, flower arrangements were in every room.




The library where many of the formal pictures of the presidents were taken:

Sarkozy’s desk:

And notice the ordinary ball point pens next to the gold writing set

We hobbled home about 5. Just walking was difficult after standing so long – our ankles, knees and hips had frozen.

We quickly ate a kiwi (the first thing since toast at breakfast) and took the metro to M & S’s. We had promised that we would help them make their phone ring in the USA. We had to turn on the computers and phones and then call Stewart so that he could give us the instructions on how to do the pass along. They had forgotten to do this before leaving and it cannot be done remotely.

We met Pascale for dinner. She asked where we wanted to go and we replied, “Any place close.” She chose Le Comptoire which is close to her publisher. It is very tiny and busy.

For starters I had snails
Marie had stuffed duck neck (in french it sounds much more elegant.)

And Pascale had a terrine of chicken in aspic:
For the main course, Pascale had tuna with green beans.
Marie had a lamb tagine
And I had stuffed cabbage. I expected rolls, but instead got a slice which had all of the stuffed cabbage ingredients.

We passed on dessert and had coffee and tea.

We limped to the closest metro, almost afraid to sit in case we wouldn’t be able to stand again.

Marie even took the elevator to the apartment. She normally runs up 4 flights. We both took Advil to help us sleep because our feet were throbbing so.