Paris - Day 5

Cindy and I got up bright and early with the plan to visit the Louvre because we knew it was supposed to be a rainy cold windy day. Our plan was practically perfect...until we got to the Louvre and found that it was CLOSED on Tuesdays. We were so wet by the time we got there that all we wanted to do was go back to the apartment to dry off and take a nap and eat cheese.

But we decided to take a roundabout way home to see a few shops that had been recommended by Jordan the day before. Cindy stopped in a tourist shop for a cheap umbrella because the one she had loaned me for the trip wasn't much of a two-person type umbrella...not that our heads were wet from the walk to the Louvre it was our legs and feet that were soaking. Turns out her cheap umbrella was so defunct that she was better off not using it at all. But it did have the word "Paris" printed on it over and over...I wish we had umbrellas in Utah like that only I'd want the word "Brigham" printed over and over on my cheap tourist umbrella. FYI Cindy left it as a thank you gift to our host when we vacated the apartment the next day. What a gal!

There was a need for a handy street bathroom experience. Cindy looks very frightened to enter. I was wondering if she'd end up stuck inside during the wash phase of the public toilet...like in some murder-mystery-CSI show I saw recently. She didn't, she got out, and the experience apparently wasn't all that exciting...I don't know for sure because I didn't go inside.

Here is a street cleaner taking a break. He probably thought I was silly for taking pictures of my friend Lou at the loo. ( I should have taken one of Lou at the Louvre at the loo. Zut!)

So we found one of the recommended shops, Merci. It was great. I saw several things I liked...now you have to endure photos of things I liked in the shop so I don't forget.

I love these dishes!!! I want to take a pottery class now.
I want a rough wood umbrella stand.

I like these recycled paper stools and the rough wood stool. I want both. I want to make both.

This wooden bench made me happy too.

I want wood baskets in my house.

And I really like these cutting boards. I need to find me some fallen logs.

As much as like the stools around this table I really really REALLY like the table. (I think chairs around a table should have backs on them so these aren't what I'd want to be dining on).

Like.
Like.
I like this wood and steel table too! But I DO NOT like the chairs.

After some shopping we made it home to our lovely cheeses. We bought a baguette and chowed down. The first cheese (left to right) was my favorite but I can't remember what it was. The next one has two cheeses in one separated by a line of ash - it was good too. The next one was very very strong to the point that I couldn't eat any more of it than the little morsel I had taken to sample it. And the last was sea salt butter. Not a big fan of cold butter on my bread but I ate it anyway and it wasn't bad.

Then as we finished lunch and looked outside to see blue skies and sunlight we both fell asleep and napped away the great day. We woke up ready to make the most of the evening and off we went to see the Arc de Triomphe and what ever else decided to delight us.

A typical roundabout.

These dog balloons delight me. They are funny. And they appear to walk because they have accordion legs and a slight breeze makes them sway.

A floor in a covered mini-city-thing-of-a-ma-bob which is basically a mall...but old school.


I want to make these tinkling bell stars and balls for my christmas next year.

A feathered gown. The picture is horrible but the dress is exquisite. I want to raise pheasants so I can have a dress just like this.

This is to get a project rolling because someone is going to scoop it if I don't do it first.

Oh, yeah. We tried to see the L'Hôtel national des Invalides but it was closing when we got there. We walked around for 10 min but couldn't go inside the building. Drats! We missed seeing Napoleon's tomb. Guess I'll have to come back to Paris at least one more time.

Here is the bridge leading up to Les Invalides.




This was something else we missed seeing. Another reason to come back to Paris.

On our way home we stopped at the Church of the Madeline. It was pretty and had just finished an organ recital so it was after tourist hours. We ended up taking pictures inside because we missed the small sign telling us it was forbidden and nobody was on monitoring duty.

Baby Jesus is missing still.

We also missed seeing the opera house so I guess I'll have to come back.

But we did see a small bit of this fancy mall. We bought expensive macaroons and looked at the Christmas window display.

I like this bowl and vase...but the colors didn't come out very well in this photo.

The lights above the window displays for Chanel. I didn't take any pictures of the window displays...funny me.

Then we made it home. I lost my mittens when I bought an eclair at a pastry shop. And we did a lot of walking. And we had fun. And then we went home. Tomorrow we are going to try and cram Versailles and the Louvre into one day. Fun!