A Day Divided

Thursday, July something

From Gail:

Today Kat and I slept in until 10:40. Yes, you read that right. 10:40 (a.m., not p.m. c'mon now)! It is a beautiful, sunny, only slightly warm day (in the 70s). Kat met up with Ben at Notre Dame to head on over to the Eiffel Tower. I wanted to continue exploring around the Marais, so I stayed here and did a load of laundry before heading out.

An expressive manhole cover

A photo for Jay

I decided to go to Rue Montorguiel where there is reportedly an outdoor market of sorts. It turned out to be a delightful street full of boulangeries, patisseries, ice cream places, carniceries (meat) and fruits and veggies. Lots of cafes, too. Since all I had for breakfast were multigrain Cheerios and yogurt and it was 2:00, I decided to sample a chausson de pomme (a flaky pastry with apple filling). Delicieux! There was also an Oliviers and Co. store there.

The end of R. Montorguiel, looking back. Sorry about the photo position. It's going the right direction in i-photo, but not on the blog. Turn your computer or head sideways!

If you look very closely in the upper right hand corner of this case full of sandwiches and pizzas, you'll see a small bird that I watched land there and start nibbling. Ewwwwwwwww.

A photo for Judy and David

The plaza outside Les Halles

I walked both sides of that street then headed off to the Forum Les Halles, a huge shopping mall surrounding a square. Kind of like trying to walk four floors of the Great Mall. Interestingly, the floors go down rather than up. I looked in a post office there and noticed they had something I'd read about earlier this week--a new issue of stamps that are chocolate scented! Unfortunately, my limited French wouldn't allow me to purchase any. But I did get to look at them on the wall. Under glass, so I couldn't smell them. Each looked like a piece of a chocolate bar. I looked around in various shops, but didn't buy anything. The French are famous for window shopping, for which they have a name I can't recall right now, but it means "to lick the window."

The plaza outside Forum Les Halles shopping mall

The ubiquitous garbage bags seen everywhere in Paris.

After the Forum Les Halles, which by the way, is surrounded by a lovely open green area, I headed back toward the apartment via Pompidou Center where I just happened to buy my lunch: another mandarin and chocolate gelato. This time in a cone so I could show how they serve it up, looking like a flower. I only did this for you viewers, not my own desire to munch the good stuff again.

The artistic gelato--tastes as good as it looks!

Three hours later, I got back to the apartment and to my great joy, FINALLY found where to dump our garbage! Believe it or not, I learned this from the novel I'm reading. It said all Paris apartments have the same set up: a door with a push-button combination (check), leading to a dark hallway with mailboxes (check), past which one finds a glass door with another combination to punch in (check), then a vestibule with elevator, if available (check) and trash room (finally check!!). We had previously cautiously opened a couple doors in that vestibule, but only found stairs and a boiler room. This time I braved it and opened the last door that didn't appear to be an apartment. Voila! Our apartment is now free of two large bags of trash that have been sitting in the kitchen. In case you are wondering, yes, I did contact the owner of the apartment and she replied that we should just "put it downstairs." Hmmmm. No help there. Reading mindless novels can have surprising benefits, however!

I will stop here and get back to my reading. Who knows what I'll find out next about Paris.