Paris Snow 28-29 Decembre

28 Decembre (Lundi) - Remembrance of things past: To get through these doors, you need to punch a series of digits into this DigiCode machine. M. Perez, the apartment owner, had sent us the digicode in an email before we left, so we thought we were set. Ah ha! When we arrived at the apartment, we punched in the code and pulled the door. Nothing. We tried it again, and again, nothing. We were about to try a third time when a little old lady came out and we discovered that you don't pull the doors, in spite of the handle, you push the door closest to the digicode machine. We started to enter but the litle old lady wasn't having it. She wanted a full explanation of who we were and why we were trying to enter HER building. I finally had to tell her the digicode before she would let us enter, and even then, rather reluctantly.

There is a nice washer/dryer in the apartment, so we decided to do some laundry today. The only problem was that I couldn't fully remember M. Perez's instructions on how to use it. I'm pretty sure I left out a step, becuse there was very little water in the machine. Robb insisted that it was working correctly and we didn't really have a choice, because evidently, once it starts its cycle, you can't stop it and must let it run to completion. When it finally finished, we looked at the clothes and they seemed to be clean so we put it into dryer mode. Again, we weren't certain of the proper way to set it up, but took a shot. After two hours and forty-five minutes, it stopped. The clothes were not entirely dry, but passable. We hung them over the back of the kitchen chairs to finish the job.

We bundled ourselves as warmly as possible and started walking to the taxi stand a couple blocks up the street, where we got one who drove us to Italie2, our favorite shopping mall in Paris. I wanted to go to Tati to see if they had any thermal socks and Robb was still wanting to go to FNAC. Tati had no thermal socks that I saw, so we were off to FNAC, until Robb spotted a shoe store having a sale. He bought a very nice pair of Guess trainers, and even got an extra €30 off the sale price. The FNAC was just a couple doors down. Robb bought four CDs. Grégory Lamarchal, Joe Dassins, Marc Lavoine and a compilation of famous French singers. After FNAC, we wandered about for awhile through Printemps. Then Robb decided he wanted to go to Aimee's tearoom, so we walked down rue Bobillot to rue de la Butte Aux Cailles and L'Oisive Thé, quite a trek. It was closed. We walked back up to Italie2 and decided to stop at O'Jules to refresh and warm up a little. It was an interesting event because the table we chose at the very back of the restaurant, was next to the table where the waiters ate their dinners. Robb had a Parisian sandwich (ham and cheese on a baguette), while I just had a café. Then it was off to find the taxi stand which turned out to be just on the other side of Italie2. Back to the apartment where we crashed until dinner time.

29 Decembre (Mardi) - The weather is absolutely balmy today. We walked up the Supermarché G20 which is almost adjacent to the Saint Paul métro entrance. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who were enjoying the beautiful weather, the area around the métro was bustling. It was almost as if the métro was pushing people to the sidewalk like candy from a Pez dispenser. Then, I looked about and was amazed. Sunshine! A sight one doesn't often see in Paris in the winter. On the way back to the apartment with our booty, which hopefully will get us through a couple of days, I snapped this picture of a patisserie window.

Around 20h00, we walked up to l'Hôtel de Ville to see the lights and the ice skaters, about whom I had totally forgotten. They hadn't. There were beaucoup des gens skating about. The other day, on the way to la Tour Eiffel, we passed a building that was brightly lit. The only name I saw was 'Baudoyer'. Tonight, I saw the sign pointing the way to Biblio Baudoyer, so I now know what it is. Kind of. I shot a couple videos, but my batteries were too weak and I'm going to have to do them over. Maybe tonight if the weather holds up.

After, getting the videos and just 'chilling' in every sense of the word, we walked up to Quai de la Mégisserie and Pont au Change and caught the 96 bus to Fontaine Sully for dinner. The waitress surprised us with another little treat tonight. She presented us with a little plate of petits fours when she brought our coffee.

À la prochaine, mes amis