Today we walked the short way to church by following a lovely trail of vomit. We saw the beginning of what looked like a very lively Gay Pride parade last night, and it must've been quite a night on the nearby streets. Seriously, we were dodging and hopping over vomit on a couple of streets on our way to church - that's a first - a little change from the walk to church on the quiet streets of Holladay. All parts of the experience...Anyway, we were in an overflow room which had a screen and the meeting was translated into English, which was kind of a bummer. I wanted the girls to get a sacrament meeting in French. Oh well. We met up with some friends from Danville, the Berthas, there at church and toured around with them a bit after church.
We started at the Pompidou Center where we took the escalators to the top for another great Paris view. Then we did a quick tour of the museum hitting the highlights. We saw some great Matisses and Picassos, Miro and Kandinskys. It was the perfect amount of modern art for us, and the modern art that I actually like, so it was great. From there, we walked through the Jewish quarter, through the Marais to Place des Vosges. It was a beautiful, sunny day, so there were lots of people out by the fountains and on the grass. There was a small playground (yahoo - we love these! they keep the Goose going especially), and there's now a small museum at Victor Hugo's home there. Where it used to just be a plaque you walked by with nothing to see, now there are rooms to visit and a restored house. (Am I forgetting that and it's always been there?) Next, we made our way across Ile St. Louis, and since I'd read about Berthillon ice cream, we decided to get some. Lots of interesting flavors, and it was really good. I got fig - interesting and yummy. Next stop was Notre Dame but the line to get in was way out the door. I don't remember ever seeing it that way. We decided we'll hit it again another day first thing in the morning. At this point, we said good-bye to our friends and got lunch to eat in the park behind Notre Dame. Guess what? Another little playground and even water to fill up our water bottles. These are the little things that make all the difference :).
When we were refueled, we wandered a couple of streets over until we successfully found the bird/pet/flower market I'd read about on Ile de la Cite. I remember doing it once before, but it had been so long, I'd forgotten about it. It was really fun - beautiful flowers, amazing variety of little birds, and even chinchillas and bunnies to pet. Obviously, this was a hit! Now I'm getting lots of pet requests, though, so maybe not my best idea...
Nearby is the Sainte Chapelle, so we made our way inside, and had another treat of stained glass windows. We decided we felt like we were inside a jewel box. We tried to read some more windows, and saw where the relic of Christ's crown of thorns had been here. I like the small size of this chapel and the way the roof, walls, and ceiling are still painted. We still can't help taking lots of pictures, despite knowing they won't capture the stained glass at all! At this point, it was time to call it a day, so we wandered home along the Seine, stopping for another game of wave to the people on the boats, this time. If they got a certain number of people to wave AND blow kisses (because they were), they got crepes. We ran out of boats - randomly, the boats all stopped and there were none to be seen, so then the girls had to name 6 sites on the walk home to get a crepe. We got baguettes and had another great French dinner at our apartment. By now, the man at the crepe stand around the corner knows us, and gave the girls free slushies, too. Fantastic day!
No comments:
Post a Comment