A Little Less Planned Itinerary - A Lot More Action

Friday - September 12, 2008

Okay...so by this part of the vacation we have either already gotten to see some of the photo locations earlier than planned, or we have made adjustments for weather, opening hours, and Papal visit - so our idea for the day was to take it easy and just enjoy the day and not try to recreate the Oswald's European Vacation. [sorry - couldn't help the geeky movie reference]

We started the day with breakfast at Miss Manon again - quiche, brioche with coffee demi for me and for John, chocolate chaud. We sat for a little bit to soak in the sounds of people talking in foreign languages {we heard a lot of other accents other than French} along with the traffic and other sounds. I told John that every once in a while I loose perspective of where we're at exactly and just relax that we're on vacation - and then we'll hear the police sirens, which are so different from home, and it will remind me that not only are we on vacation - but we're in PARIS - so now whenever we hear a siren John leans over to me and says, "Honey, - we're in Paris!" which always gets a big smile from me.

We walked down the street to Hotel de Sully to take pictures - it was a lovely spot that shows its age. We took some photos and moved on.
One of the places that I had hoped to see, but wasn't sure if we would be able to was a little shop called Tumbleweed. I had seen it on the internet - its a little shop that specializes in mystery boxes, puzzles, and other unique toys along with handmade baby shoes and other accouterments. I was surprised to see how close the shop was to our hotel - I thought it was down the road a ways - when in fact it was only about five shops down. I was so very happy to make the visit there and meet the owner. We talked with her for a bit and she was glad to hear our story of making the trip to the city.

We walked back to Musee Carnavalet to take more pictures and we were rewarded with entrance into the courtyard of Square George Cain that rests alongside of it. Its a beautiful garden that John and I both enjoyed very much.

We then walked to try to find the memorial garden for Princess Diana, but were unsuccessful. We didn't see any signage (like the one I'd seen online) at all and the square by the are that I though it would be was having part of it renovated - so we weren't sure if we'd found it or not. So we continued on, although I was a tad disappointed.
To continue our disappointment we walked to Hotel Rohan to get some photos, but weren't able to get into the courtyard. The outside is somewhat interesting but I had hoped too see what was supposed to have been a stunning statue inside.
To further add insult to our injury - we had already heard back at Tumbleweed that the Picasso museum had just closed the day before for renovations through to October. That was to have been our next stop...we walked by to see if we could at least get pictures of the outside of the mansion that holds the artwork - but alas the gate was tall and had no openings to see inside. As we walked away and looked back it seemed that most of the building was enshrouded in the gauze wrapping that we'd seen on other buildings that are in the process of being restored. Although we were a bit saddened by not getting to go into the museum it is going on our "To Do" list for the next visit!

Although the three strikes gave us a little bit of pain, we did not let it destroy our spirit for the rest of the day's events! We made our way to the Pompidou Center and picked up a sandwich from a nearby vendor and ate it with our packed snacks. We sat on the concrete slope facing the building and listened to people who were performing. There was an Asian gentleman playing a Japanese violin and a woman not too far away from him that was playing a digeridoo. The sounds blended at times to sound like they were meant to be played together - and at other times clashed in an unusual way.
On our way to the famous Stravinsky fountain I stopped to use one of the public toilets that are automated. It wasn't exactly a stellar experience - but it was an experience none the less.
We hung out at the Stravinsky for just a moment - then we moved on.

We made our way through the labyrinth of streets to find La Defenseur du Temps, the Defender of Time, a metal sculptured clock that I had read about. It wasn't as beautiful as I expected it to be but it was fascinating to see the artwork. We weren't there at a time for it to perform so we stayed for only a moment.

We walked to Musee des Arts et Metiers, a museum dedicated to science and the progression of technology in everything from construction, audio, video, computers, textiles, printing, and so much more. It was very fascinating. We stayed until it closed and we didn't make it into the beautiful church building next door that held even more sights, we've decided we'd come back to it too next time.

We traveled on foot to the Portes St-Denis and St.-Martin, the two doors/arches that were original entry ways into the city a long time ago. They were imposing but yet beautiful to see. The area of St.-Martin was not as nice at St.-Denis though so we didn't linger too long there.

We took a metro back to the hotel and picked up our laundry, then we made our way to the laundromat. There was a definite learning curve on how to use the machines, but with a little help from a friendly Parisian we got it figured out. While I stayed to do the laundry John went to the cyber cafe to upload the videos and send emails home. When I joined him at the cafe I realized that I'd lost my coin purse somewhere between the laundry and the cyber cafe. I was pretty upset about it - it only had a little over 1,30 Euro in it so I didn't loose out on a lot of money - I was more emotional about losing my little backpack coin purse that I'd had for a long while. I'm sure that my fatigue helped to make me more upset - I finally rationalized that it was okay - it had been our only bad experience so far in the trip, so I couldn't complain. John put a more positive perspective on it that maybe someone who is stranded in the city was able to use it to call home for help, so that was the thought I kept in my head as I tried to overcome my ugly feeling about the situation.

We gathered up our things when the cyber cafe closed and we walked back to our hotel room for some very enjoyed sleep. It was a long busy day for not really having any set plans.

-Karen