PARIS 2005

The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, The Picasso Museum. Place Vogues, L’Opera, Chartes, Notre Dame. Phew! What a trip. This time, because we had such a long time, we did a lot more and we found time to hit the wonderful January sales almost everyday. But by hitting the sales, you also get some of the best views of Paris, from some of the most beautiful stores in the world. We bought tons of CDs, books, kitchen stuff, shirts for Steve, a fake fur for me.
With so much time, we got to do lots of silly things too. We ate a lot of lunches out and then, exhausted from the long day of walking, we had sandwiches or similar fare in the room and watched foreign films. A German one without words and an Icelandic one were my favorites. We saw The Aviator in English with French subtitles. We decided to see for ourselves some of the covered passageways or arcades that we had read about, that became the model for shopping malls in the US. Although shabby now, they have quite a history to them. We watched hockey and ice skating at Montparnasse station and the Hotel D'Ville. We walked through the Pere Lachaise cemetery and picked out Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein. We got to an evening at a Jazz Club, heard some fine organ/boy’s choir music in a local cathedral, and got to watch the inner goings on of an underwear convention held a few blocks from our time share. More later!