Paris-Part 3

I've finally gotten the blog to cooperate so I can load the rest of my pictures.  The following are pictures of the amazing apartment. It was perfectly placed next to one of the great roads in Paris, Rue Cler. Mom and Nama liked to get up before everyone and go check out the market in the morning. It worked out for us because at the end of those trips they'd stop by a boulangerie and grab some croissants, YUM!

This is the view of the Eiffel Tower from our window, Nama had her watch figured out at night to catch its hourly sparkle show.

Wednesday:

was Mom's birthday! We had a giant day 'o museums. We started at the rodin museum, then le musee d'orsay, l'orangerie, and finally the louvre. If I were to rank the museums from Wednesday it would go something like this:

1. L'Orangerie

2. Musee D'orsay

3. Rodin

4. Louvre

I imagine everyones would be pretty similar to that as well, except Margaret who was WILD for the Louvre.  Mary Beth and I have both determined the Louvre to be a death trap for at one point we were each lost and alone in a panic thinking we would never get out. Poor Mary Beth was surrounded by Egyptian art (that she has no interest in) I managed to get lost by the venus de milo so I got the opportunity to see three well-known works in one day (Mona Lisa, and Winged Victory of Samothrace). Somehow I found Mom and Nama by the Mona Lisa and the three of us got incredibly lost so we ended up just tracing our footsteps back to where we started. All the while Margaret was by herself happily imagining what life would have been like to live in such a grand palace.  Now, on to pictures!

I love this picture of Mom and Nama, it's on the pont des arts, where we crossed to get from musee d'orsay to l'orangerie/louvre.  The bridge is known as one of the most romantic in the city so people bring padlocks known as "love locks", they engrave or write their names, lock it on the bridge and throw the key into the seine.

This is Nama and her three Granddaughters on the same bridge.

Mom, Mary Beth, Nama and I walking in the jardin de tuileries to l'Orangerie. I'm a sucker for the perfectly lined trees. 

After all of our museums we managed to get ourselves back out of the apartment for a fancy Parisian birthday dinner. The restaurant was awesome! We got to sit on the second floor to have a good view of the street and coincidentally the place where Napoleon rests.  Our waiter was really great and spoke enough English to make the dining experience a little less stressful for me. Everyone seemed very pleased with their meals, even Mom who ordered a soup that had a bone with marrow in it, that was a bit of a surprise when it came! Our waiter couldn't wait to jump into the picture of Mom with her dessert.  She ordered a sampling, coffee, creme brulee, chocolate cake, and pineapple. She was in heaven! Big thanks to Dad for picking up the bill on this one!

Thursday:

Mom, Nama, and Margaret went to Versailles (they absolutely LOVED it) All three of them were raving about it when they got back, from what I got their favorite part was Marie Antoinette's pretend village, I can't wait to go this spring, to have a picnic and ride bikes. Kathleen, Mary Beth, and I ventured out to the St. Germain des Pres area, we spent about 45 minutes in the metro to get there hopping from train to train, it could very easily have been Mary Beths favorite part of the day, she was AMAZING to have as a guide on the metro. We started by going into the Jardin de luxembourg, my favorite park in Paris and on to various churches, including the oldest in Paris. 

This is MB and Kathleen in the luxembourg gardens.

Sisters by the water, I secretly wanted to push her in, oops!

We wanted to get into the pots on either side of us, but the voice inside of my head saying "that's a bad idea" was a little too loud.

We found this awesome tree, Kathleen ran to it for her picture and then spent about three hysterical minutes trying to get up.  This picture features Mary Beth and I, and is courtesy of Kathleen, as were the two above, thanks!!

After a while we had a yummy sit down lunch and then we literally walked into the shoes of my dreams, of course I bought them and they haven't come off of my feet yet.  They look a little something like this: 

 

They are the keds/converse of France, called Bensimon mine are a slightly darker shade of purple, and I love them! 

This was one of the funnier things I've seen on a wall in Paris, there is a bandaid to the right, and I'm not sure if you can read it but the building is the Academie de Medecine, HA!

This picture is for my cousin-in-law Jay. He loves Alice in Wonderland and we found a French copy, I wanted to buy it for him, but it was a little more expensive than my student budget would allow so I settled on a picture.

Wednesday night, Mom, Kathleen, MB, and I went out to the Pompidou, it was awesome! Rewriting my list from earlier, this one goes on top and everything goes down a notch.  In my opinion it had the perfect balance of strange modern art, with more mainstream pieces, almost all of them were thought provoking in some way or another. Plus the gift shopS, that's right they had two, were great! Mom got a plastic post card that was filled with two different colored liquids, and Kathleen got an interactive one (like a pop-up book) that changed the eiffel tower from day to night. I was so tempted, but again the student budget is a killer.

Friday:

Mom and Nama went on a tour of the Ile de la cité, while the girls went off to canal St. Martin.  Our guide books told us the shopping was great, and we figured it was a bit off the beaten path so we did not hesitate much. I also learned that the canal was built by Napoleon so Paris could have fresh water, just so you know.

The three sisters in the metro, Mary Beth commented on facebook that this is her "favorite place, with her favorite book, and her favorite sisters."

Kathleen, Margaret, and MB walking up for a photo. 

The lovely ladies!

This is the canal, it was different to be by a body of water that didn't have a strong current like the Seine, that whole part of town was much more tranquil. 

Paris has street art of Artists that I recognize, this one is space invader, we saw him all over the place this is my favorite picture, with the water and all, so he made the blog!

That afternoon we reconvened and did our first really touristy thing, a boat cruise of the Seine, it was great.  We got vin chaud, so everyone could taste it's wonders and spent the tour laughing at the recorded  guide. He was ridiculous!

Nama listening to her tour guide, he's probably telling a terrible joke.

Mary Beth asked before we took off if she could have the camera, I was more than obliging because I have grown tired of constantly taking pictures.  What I didn't realize was that the whole time as she was saying, oh man, I'm really bad at this, she was! the next few pictures are a sampling of the pictures we got from the tour.

HAHA

view from under the bridge!

I actually like this one. 

This was the least embarrassing of the pictures she took of me, she claims she wanted to let me know what I look like from behind. I think this one is saying "cut your hair!!!!"

this is my personal favorite, all of the faces were different!

Intently listening to our guide, I have a feeling Margaret knew something the others didn't.

Big thanks to Kathleen for taking a picture of all five of us! I wish the trip didn't have to end.

Friday night we pulled out all of the stops, we ate the rest of our cookies, went out and bought champagne and more wine, and had a GREAT last meal together.

Kathleen's Mom sent her bananagrams basically a personal scrabble game, we played a few rounds, this one Mary Beth spelled toblerone, and quit. 

Saturday:

Mom, Nama, MB, and Margaret left me bright and early. Thank goodness once again for Kathleen who was in the apartment with open arms as I returned from saying goodbye to them.  We had a wonderful relaxing morning together in the Apartment, a much needed affair after a long busy week in Paris.  Kathleen even made a giant breakfast for us (shown below), she is the best!

We had to be out of the Apartment by 12, and our train wasn't until 6:45 so we spent the rest of the afternoon in Paris lugging our bags around.  We had a great lunch of pasta, and met up with Kathleens friend Pierre-Amaury in the outskirts of Paris, him and his friend rode with us to the train station where Kathleen kicked my but in bananagrams over and over again, I'm ashamed to say that one of the times she was playing with French words! I'll get her somehow! We rolled into St.E a bit later where I dropped my things and fell fast asleep.

The visit was terrific, It was great to see some of my family again.  My friend Katherine always reminds me that no matter how far you think you've gotten in your life you always go back to square one when you go back to your family and she's right.  I just picked up where we left off, both a comfort and a worry.  The next family member I will be seeing is my Grandmother Baba, my Dad's Mom, in Barcelona. The plans have not been finalized yet, but I found some great flights, fingers crossed it all works out.