Our next day in Paris was a Saturday. The streets were much more crowded than the previous two days, although the weather was still hot and sunny. We wandered again to the Ile-Saint-Louis and were mesmerized by all the beautiful shop displays. They seriously know how to tempt you - anything from cooking utensils to boars legs looked so enticing in the windows! The best windows to oggle at were the displays in cheese shops - hundreds of moldy or gooey or ginormous wheels of cheese, cheese, cheese. Also the bread and pastry shops, displaying freshly made goodies you never knew existed! My sister in law, Melissa, had suggested in an email that we take a picnic to Luxembourge park, so we decided to load up on supplies right then and there! We got bread, cheese, pear tarts, wine, and apples and walked until we came to the park. It's a HUGE park, complete with a palace and grass for miles that you arn't allowed to touch. We ate our lunch along with hundreds of others gathered at the park. We found some grass that didn't look too forbidden and Jordi conked out (he was pretty sick with a cold). I walked around and watched people playing Bocci Ball - seems to be quite the popular pastime!
I got back to where Jordi was sleeping on the grass, and noticed about 5 other couples or sleepers on the grass as well. I was congratulating him for starting a trend when a policeman came up to us and told us to get off the grass. Oh well, at least Jord got his nap!
We left the park and found the Pantheon, which was incredible to look at, but we didn't go in. We called our friend Dave Simonson again, and actually got ahold of him! We met him and his girlfriend Chloe in front of Notre Dame, and hung out for awhile with them. Eventually Dave helped us get our stuff from the hostel and took us back to the apartment, a twenty minute metro ride from the center of the city. Dave, Jordi, and I spent the evening eating cheese and bread and just hanging out at the house before going to bed.
The next morning Jordi and I took the metro back into town, where we walked around for an hour before finding a good cafe to sit in. We got a couple croissants and few tiny little cafes, which cost about 30 euro. Ridiculous, but it's Paris, and you just can't think about it too much!
We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe, and then walked all the way down the Champs Elysees until we got to the Louvre. By this time I was so hot and tired and grumpy, but we pressed on and got tickets to go inside. It was actually pretty amazing, and I forgot my grumpiness temporarily. We only looked at paintings since we spent so much time at the British Museum looking at other stuff. The painings and architecture were incredible, and I'm really glad we went. And yes, the Mona Lisa was there - surrounded by every Asian in Paris with a camera, so we didn't stop there too long.
By this time we were starving, since all we had were expensive croissants and miniscule espresso things, so we tried to find somewhere to eat. First, we tried to call Dave again, but our phone card wasn't working. So we found a little sidewalk cafe in a not-so-touristy part of town that Dave and Chloe had shown us, and sat down. All I wanted was a salad, or even something that contained a vegetable. Jordi went inside to order, and a few minutes later FOUR sandwhiches consisting of frech bread and sausage were brought out to us. Not only did I not want one sausage and french bread sandwhich, I really didn't want four of them!! So Jordi ate them all (what a good sport) and we looked for somewhere to buy a new phone card. We called Dave again, and him and Chloe wanted to meet us for dinner at the Moulin Rouge part of town. We took the metro up there, and found a little a little French restaurant where Chloe interpreted the menu for us :) I got ratatouille, which was delicious! Chloe showed us around the whole area - apparently it used to be a big artist community, and it's where Picasso used to live. It's a little far from the River, but it's on a hill and you can get great views of the city from up there. Little cobblestone streets and steep hills are everywhere, it was a cool part of Paris to see!
That is how we spent our last night in Paris - next morning we were off to the countryside!
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