Lots to do today!

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Bonjour!

Yesterday afternoon, while Robert worked (and napped…) I took the bus down to our favorite Monoprix (something akin to a Target, I think, including groceries) where I was able to pick up my favorite Toothpaste (Colgate) in a stand-up pump, which for some reason, we don’t have in the U.S.! 

Alain and me at dinner!

Excellent warm goat cheese salad

Alain's pate

Go figure!  I remember the days when I used to bring back bottles of Coleman’s prepared mustard, but we’ve now got that in the U.S. And I never did try to figure out how to get Magnum Classics into the States for obvious reasons!  Then back to the flat to get ready for dinner.

Alain and Graciela met us at Coup de Torchon, which is just a block or two away, and one of our “go to” places to dine when we’re in Paris.  We had a very nice dinner.  (Nowhere as good as Graciela’s dinner, but fine, nonetheless!)  Graciela had a mushroom omelet, and Alain had their pate to start.  I had a really excellent chevre chaud (warm goat cheese) salad with bits of bacon and greens, and R had the shrimp and avocado salad.   

For mains, I had their entrecote (steak) with sauce Bernaise; R had duck breast, and Alain had duck skewer.  Desserts were tarte au citron for Graciela and me, and Tarte tatin (apple tart) for Alain and Robert.  All in all, a very pleasant evening, and we very much appreciate their coming in to town to spend time with us!  Home about 11 p.m. and I went right to bed, as this morning … is laundry!

R's duck with frites

My steak with frites and sauce Bernaise

R's shrimp salad starter

So, back from laundry in a little over an hour, picking up today’s croissants and pain au chocolate along the way!  I LOVE that Laundromat!  It is clean and modern and all the equipment works well.  The washer took only 27 minutes, and the dryer took 30, and voila!  Fini!  (All that may not sound like a big deal, but once you encounter washers that run for 2 hours and dryers that spin in opposite directions after 20 seconds or so, it’s really the little things that matter!)

We were out about 8:30 a.m. and bussed down to I’isle de la Cite, which is home to Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle.  First to Notre Dame, where, surprisingly enough, it wasn’t wildly mobbed with tourists, although there were plenty there.  We had a lovely walk around; beautiful windows! 

Alain's duck skewer

Wonderful lemon tarte with meringue

Apple tarte with cream

The day right now is very overcast, but there is absolutely no mention of rain in the forecast.  From Notre Dame, we walked around the block to the entrance line for Sainte-Chapelle.  Sainte Chapelle is a masterpiece of Flamboyant Gothic architecture (Wikipedia’s words, not mine!) built by Saint Louis in the heart of the Palais de la Cité.  In other words, at one time it was the King’s chapel.  Robert and I had visited it fairly often in the past, but we just got an email from our friend and neighbor, Stew LaCasce, that the glass had recently undergone a thorough overhaul, and we wanted to see it.  (Thank you, Stew!) 

There was a line to get in, but it moved fairly quickly, and soon we were there!  And all I can say is WOW!  A marvelous job has been done by all.  It’s even more beautiful than before!  The wonderful thing about Sainte Chapelle is that the chapel itself is almost all stained glass around three sides of the building, with the fourth side having its own beautiful rose window.  Over the years it has been many things, including a storage depository for a time, which is really sad.  But now it is back in pristine condition.  There was a wonderful video about exactly what they had to do to restore it, and it’s amazing.  There was so much gunk and pollution on everything that had to be taken off first; what an incredible job that was, dissolving the guck of ages.  But now, as I said, wow!  As the place wasn’t jammed with people (unlike the usual crush at the Sistine Chapel in Rome…) we were able to take our time and walk all around the room.  They also do concerts there, and after touring the chapel, we went across the street and got tickets to tonight’s concert, which is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.   We are very much looking forward to it!  

Nave of Notre Dame

A bit of detail

Stunning rose window

Notre Dame Cathedral

From Sainte-Chapelle, we bussed over to Musee d’Orsay, which we hoped to visit this trip, but the queue was absolutely insane!  No way were we going to wait in that!  So, next we headed for the FNAC store on Saint-Germain, where you can also buy Museum tickets.  However, as it turns out, the FNAC store on Saint-Germain has been closed and turned into an H&M, so we decided to head back to the flat for lunch. 

Sainte-Chapelle newly cleaned windows

More Sainte-Chapelle

Detail of one panel

Sainte-Chapelle beautiful rose window

I had suggested salads, but R decided that he really wanted to go to our favorite little Japanese restaurant in the area.  We got a nice table by the window, and I ordered chicken potstickers to start, with sliced beef, onions and noodles, and R had four pieces of tuna sushi followed by shrimp with vegetables and noodles.  We were both very happy!

Then we went back to the flat and organized everything else that needed to be mailed home, and took it over to the Sorbonne area and the nearest post office.  Not too much of a crowd, and now we’re back to where we were before I started buying Colgate toothpaste at Monoprix!  We also found a new FNAC, on Rue de Rennes.  That’s where I found out that I could have made the reservations for Musee d’Orsay myself and then just gone over to FNAC to actually print the tickets.  Hopefully I will remember that for next time!  At any rate, it didn’t take too long to get our tickets, so now tomorrow morning we can go directly to Door C and avoid the majority of the rush! 

Morning hot chocolate!

Robert's shrimp with noodles

Sushi and potstickers!

My beef and noodles!

Oh, one thing that Robert just reminded me.  I realize that we’re in France where the French Open is currently being played. I also realize that for people in the U.S. the coverage begins very early in the morning, and goes on and on until the end of play at night.  Well, this year, for whatever reason, the coverage here isn’t starting at ALL until somewhere about 3 or 4 p.m. and then it is fair to party spotty!  We have both been surprised, and I’m wondering if there isn’t some cable channel that we don’t have access to that is showing earlier coverage!  At any rate, next year we have decided to watch it from home … unless we come back to watch it in person, of course!

Back to the flat for a bit of a rest before our concert tonight!

More later!

m

xxx