Sunday, June 01, 2008

Paris 2008 - 31 Mai

Samedi - As usual, the day started a bit late, I didn't get up until around noon. But, after all, we didn't even go to bed until after 02h30, so that's not that bad.

When we were at Place de l'Opéra the other day, we had seen an offre exceptionnelle at the Finsbury shoe store. Robb wanted to go and take advantage of the sale, so we hopped onto the 69 bus and were off. Once we arrived at the Palais Royal stop, I thought it might behoove us to go to the Opéra métro station and renew our passes pour le moi de Juin. We should have taken the 27 bus, but another came along and we jumped on. Do you hear that annoying buzzer again? It barely went a block before I knew we were on the wrong bus. And then, the damned thing just kept going and going, until I thought we might be out of the city before it stopped again. I was wrong, of course, and we ended up only a couple of blocks from Place de l'Opéra and the métro station we wanted.

Once in the station, we had little trouble finding the ticket window. Of course, there was a guy holding up the line of several people while he argued with the attendant, who was quite obviously becoming more and more annoyed with him. He finally left and the line moved quickly. We had our new passes in no time at all after that.

We were both feeling a bit hungry, so we stopped at the Brioche Dorée where we each had a slice of pizza. I had a glass of jus d'Orange and Robb had a café. While we were eating, we thought we saw Frog across the street chatting on his phone while awaiting the bus, but before we could get out to check, his bus came and he was gone. We're still not certain it was he.

Then it was off to find Finsbury's. I wasn't really sure where it was, so we started walking. After a couple of blocks, I remembered that we had been sitting at a sidewalk café when we had seen it across the street. As we continued to walk, I saw the café and, sure enough, the Finsbury shoe store was just across the street. We went in. Robb, in usual Robb manner, took quite a while to choose the shoes he wanted. The feat was finally accomplished and we started the walk down to rue de Rivoli and the quest for the bus back home.

However, when we got to Place Collette, there was a group of musicians playing beautiful classical pieces in front of the entrance to the Palais Royal Jardin, so we stopped to listen. I liked them so much, I bought one of their CDs. Then, we decided to take a walk throught the garden and wouldn't you know, there was another group of three young people playing for whatever people were willing to give them. I couldn't very well just walk past, and beside, they were playing Greensleeves and we both love that song, so I gave them a few euros. I joked to Robb that I couldn't afford to hear any more music, it would break me.

We entered the garden area and began walking to the far end, passing this lovely fountain, notice the daddy playing avec son enfant I told Robb that the garden area reminded me very strongly of the Piazza del San Marco in Venice, with all the restaurants and shops side-by-side all the way around.

After the walk through the jardin, we were faced with a decision. How would we get back to the apartment? We could walk down to the quai and try to find the bus stop, we could take the métro which was right there, or we could take a taxi. It dawned on me that there was another choice: we could walk to rue de Rivoli and take the 69 bus to the Champs de Mars where we could re-board it for the return trip. And that's what we did. But, surprise, surprise, when we got to the Champs des Mars, we didn't even have to get off. We just kept our seats and rode all the way back. It was so nice.

Plus à venir, mes amis.

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