Want to Come for Christmas?: Chapter 3 & 4:What Do We Do First/ Let's Go To the Top, Again

Angelea told us to go on a "bateau" ride (that's a "boat" ride), when we got here, and it was a beautiful morning to do so. (Btw, I was back to normal, time wise). We got to see a little of everything we needed to, and couldn't wait to tour by ourselves. A while later, we found ourselves in a bistro on a crowded avenue, and then the decision of where to go next. We were near the Isle de Citie and started walking toward Notre Dame. We saw San Chappelle, and thought it might be "the daughter of Notre Dame" (so to speak) so definitely needed to go there. Fabulous. The stained glass bible stories would be just what a little kid needed when the preaching got lame! Met some people there from Chapel Hill. The only ones in two days that spoke English!

Then, just as the sun was going down, we were presented with the glory of Notre Dame: the grande dame of cathedrals. Oh my goodness. There are no words for how beautiful it was inside that building, or outside, for that matter.

And yo know what else? Today is Alice's 28th birthday, and she wasn't here to celebrate: We have high hopes that she'll come to Europe before Grace leaves...but whether she does or not, we wish her a Happy Birthday, and love her, no matter what!

Then, off we went over the Bridge of Locks, where a man was playing the accordion: a real Parisienne we had there! We could take his picture IF we promised some change in his case! Over the bridge, there was a pile of locks: I can't imagine how we would get another lock on the pile. A bistro was found, and we sat out under a heatlamp on the avenue....and drank....and watched....and...saw how Parisiennes ended their day.

So we decided to end OUR day at the Eiffel Tower. Of course, no subway goes TO the Eiffel Tower... We got off the one we were on, and wow! It was "don't look at that man" or else "the ET Sellers" will get you! These men (I'm sure they were harmless) were very tall, very thin, very black and would stalk us as we walked toward them. They'd hold a ring in each hand, and shake it a little, to make the colorful brightly lighted Eiffel Towers on each one make a little jangling sound. "Want to buy?" they'd say. And then they'd fade into the blackness of the night...until around the corner was the real thing: THE Eiffel Tower. I wasn't impressed with the tower, as much as the SIZE of it. And how it was bathed in a yellow-gold light. And how it had the remembrance if Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) on it. As we were walking across a bridge, we turned around to look at it once more, and all kinds of white sparkling lights came on, making it even more spectacular. Good night Paris- time for another sleep.

The next morning, we went looking for the nountaintop. Sacre Coer has been compared to the top of an outlandish wedding cake. And all I could say was "Thank heavens for the Finicular!" But when we got out of our ride up the very steep hill, what we saw took our breath away. But first, I need to tell you about the experience of walking up to Sacre Coer: up on the sunny hillside, we could look out and see all of Paris. How divine. Against that vision was the sound of a harp, and we were drawn to this little man, who had a whole fan base of songs he could play: we heard the Theme from the Titanic and Alleluia, by Leonard Cohen. Surrealist, once again. I was looking at the building....and the statues...and look! The statue moved! Andy took pix, I gave the man a coin, and he was dramatically thankful. And then we entered the building.

I guess I realize why so many say the words, "oh my God" : it's a better way of phrasing what you're feeling when you jaw has just dropped to the floor. The Sacred Heart made me feel like maybe the Catholics were right about these cathedrals: one certainly feels close to God when the vault of the ceiling has a mosaic of Christ and all the angels - makes me feel like I'd like to be here on Christmas Eve. Something sacred must happen at this place.

Montmartre was a pile of hills and steps and no escalators/elevators. Artists, and bistros, and restaurants, and museums, and little shops and foreign shops, trinkets, Christmas stocking stuffers and all kinds of things (+The Dali Musee which costs a lot of money and were going to España anyway: we'll see him there!)

We just were going to go and get our Louvre tickets organized (and how can you really organize anything, when you've got so many choices of what to see!) so we went over to the musee to see where we'd be going tomorrow. And guess what? The Louvre is closed on Tuesday! We'll have to figure it out by ourselves! Arggggg. But we DID see the Musee and the Carousel (or the shopping mall) and the we set out for the Tuileries.

Now, if we had been there in the Fall, or the Summer, or the Spring, we'd have been more impressed. But we are here in winter. So there weren't many flowers and happily blooming trees to welcome us in, but it was something that was important for us to feel: the absolute bigness of the gardens, and the magnificent size of the Louvre. Andy and I felt like it was about 5 football fields between the Richelieu side and the Denon side of the Louvre - absolutely massive.

Aurelie, our host in Paris through AirBnB, suggested we eat at Bistro Des Dames, a local place. It was a charming little eatery on the Rue Des Dames and of course, they spoke mostly French, but a passable amount of English. The server was cute, blond, and she was what I would call "very Parisienne." We met a couple from England, had a great Pumpkin ("you know...like Halloween?") soup and saw the lovely gardens out back - another reason for a trip back to Paris next year, in the Spring.