Paris 2011-7

11 Juillet (Lundi) - We had to go back to the banque because Robb wanted to transfer more money to his French account and it required filling out a lot of forms.  It took quite a while.

After, we caught the bus to l'Opéra stop, after which, we walked past the Opéra to Celio.  Robb bought a nice shirt.  I was going to buy a pair of jeans but decided not.

We left Celio and walked to Galeries Lafayette.  What used to be Lafayette Homme (behind Bouchara), is now an H&M and it's for women only.  We crossed over the main Galeries Lafayette but decided fighting the crowds was too much and left.  We started back to catch the bus, but we stopped for a breather.  Then we noticed a lot of empty taxis held up by the traffic, so we jumped into one, gave him our address and....sat there.

It took forever in the rush hour traffic.  But we passed some nice churches on the route.  Saint Laurent, which I photographed way back in 1999 on one of our frequent trips to Gare de l'Est(when I could actually walk for miles and miles).  Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, which I've seen a few times, but was moving too quickly to get a shot.

We kind of decided, during the ride, to get off at the Franprix, instead of going to the apartment and walking back, but the driver turned down rue de Turenne since rue Saint-Claude is one way from there.  It was just as well, we dropped off our packages, made a pit-stop and went to the magasin (store).

Watched a TV show on France3 called "Copains" (Friends).  It was/is all about music from the late fifties and early sixties.  I think it's a weekly show.  The thing that really got to me was the way everyone looked so young.  I was young then also.  WOW!

12 Juillet (Mardi) - It rained most of the morning, but by the time I got out of bed, it had stopped.  We didn't make ay plans for the day because we believed the weather forecasters when they predicted rain for the day, off and on.

We did want to walk to Carrefour to get some stuff.  The Carrfour is a lot larger than the Franprix, which of course, means you can get things there that Franprix won't have.  It kept raining off and on for most of the afternoon, but finally seemed to be clearing up around 19h00 (7:00PM), so we took off and hoped for the best.

Just before we entered the Carrefour, we felt some intermittent drops and thought we had just beaten the rain.  But it never did get worse. We spent some time wandering around the store, trying to be cautious about what we bought because I can't carry too much weight.  Still we bought some nice wine and some stuff for dinner,  It's just amazing what you can get in Paris for only three or four euros.

13 Juillet (Mercredi) - The weather has turned chilly again.  Robb wanted to walk to Fontaine Sully because he thinks it's close.  A few years ago, I would have agreed.  I wore my leather jacket and my hat.  I considered wearing my scarf, but didn't.  Robb eventually shed his coat, but I was quite comfortable.

We finally made it to the restaurant and took the table at the window with the view of Hôtel de Sully, across the street.  We ordered a picher du vin rouge (St. Emilion) and a planche de fromage (plank of cheese).  There were five varieties and I only recognized two; the brie and the blue cheese.  But they were all great.  So we sat there eating cheese, drinking wine and watching the parade of people on rue Saint-Antoine.
After, we dashed into Monoprix to pick up a couple items, then walked up to the Saint-Paul bus stop for the 96.

When we got back to the apartment, I nodded off for at least an hour
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14 Juillet (Juedi) - Le Quatorze.  The original plan was to go to the Esplanade des Invalides, meet some friends, drink a little wine and chill out until dark, when we would walk over to the Champs de Mars for the fireworks show.  But I decided that would be too much for me so we decided to just go to the Champs de Mars.  The problem was we weren't sure the bus would be running.  We checked with a friend who said the RATP had put up a special page for Le Quatorze, which we checked.  According to the RATP, all the busses were running.

We caught the 69 bus and started on what we thought was going to be our first Quatorze experience.

We were wrong.....again!

The bus ran it's normal route until it got to rue de Grenelle where it stopped and the driver told everyone to get off.  Incredible!  There's no way he didn't know he couldn't go all the way, why didn't he just tell us, instead of dumping us in the middle of nowhere?

This would have been bad enough if I was healthy, but in my less than stellar condition, it meant we would have to walk to the nearest bus stop, which turned out to be on Boulevard Saint Germain.  We made it to the bus stop and I figured we would have to take the 83 to Place d'Italie, get the 57 to Gare de Lyon, and finally get the 20 back to the apartment.  All of that turned out to be moot, because while waiting for the 83, we flagged a taxi.  We changed our mind about going to the apartment, and went to Fontaine Sully for dinner instead.

Once again, we've been screwed out of participating in Le Quatorze by the RATP and the city of Paris.

The REAL news will be in the next installment!

You can see ALL the Paris pictures at Paris 2011

À la prochaine, mes amis.