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Oh HAIL no!
Entry 8 of 9 | show all | print this entry |
If we thought we got wet on the Bateau Mouches, we had no idea! Funny thing; I remember us commenting that it was so cold that we wished it would just be 10 degrees colder so the rain would at least be snow. Well, what we forgot is that between rain and snow, there is HAIL!! We got up yesterday and headed straight to the Louvre, after a few lines that were not yet horrible, we got in and saw the main attractions and a few others in about 2 hours. Again, very different from '95 now that everyone is allowed to take pictures. They've redesigned a bit so that people can get a better shot, and to handle crowd flow as well. They now have Mona Lisa conveniently in the same room as Wedding Feast at Cana (and a few others) so that you can take one picture, and turn around and take another. Again, I got a number of good pictures of the crowds taking pictures of the pictures. Good stuff! Lots of little school groups as well, which was both cute and annoying at times. So, after culturing ourselves up a good bit, we got some baguettes to take away for a picnic in the Touilleries Gardens, which stayed dry enough just long enough for us to get settled. Luckily, we were on a bench under a tree in a clump of trees. We were a bit sheltered and a bit trapped. We were not yet soaked, but if we ran for cover, we would have been, so we made the most of it. We got on the side of the tree that was most-sheltering from the angled rain, wrapped my fold-up rain coat over our legs, and perched Jude's stiff leather coat up over our heads like a little tent, and cuddled and ate our baguettes staying fairly dry actually. Next and more interesting though, I began to wonder why the rain drops seemed a bit harder and why they started bouncing off of the ground... it was hailing!! Nothing too big, maybe the size of a small ball earring or something (or like those silver balls that we used to use for eyes on snowman Christmas cookies but that you'd break your teeth on if you ever actually tried to bite one - why do they make those?!) . It lasted a good 15 or 20 minutes, which worked well for our picnic actually, and is now probably one of our more fun memories. The guys who sell the Eiffel tours on their big key rings apparently can magically turn their Eiffel Tours into umbrellas in the rain, and they even were shocked when they'd run over to us in the pouring rain and we declined. It was probably wettest just trying to puddle hop our way out of the gardens.
Okay, so does anyone else know about Angelina Chocolat Chaud?! MAN, that stuff is amazing... liquid chocolate! Jude and I headed over there next and split one to go. Actually, it was a very close call as it cost 4,20 and we had about 4,90 left total between the two of us... I kept waiting for a Societe Generale cash withdrawl(arie), in honor of Shannon, but we had to settle for whatever we got. Then, as walking around just a little more, it started raining again. We decided to kill time in Galleries Lafayette Department Store, which ended up being neat but depressing. Really, how can people afford to live here?! We did enjoy the good/free view from the 7th floor though, but it was FREEZING up there, and still pretty gloomy looking. I got cabin fever and we agreed it was time to leave, so we headed out and took the metro over to Trocadero to try another Depot Venti (consignment) store we had heard about. It did have a lot of Chanel and other fantastic things, and the saleswomen were actually very nice, but it was still out of our league. The best I could have done would have been to get a very plain t-shirt or cami from Chanel or Hermes for only $320 (American), and I just decided it wasn't worth it. I did find another pair of Swarovski earrings though! After that, we walked the Champs Elysees for a while and planned to walk all the way back to the Isle St. Louis to meet our new friends for dinner at 7pm, but when we reached the Louvre at 6:45 we realized we had mis-judged our time and distance and luckily were able to jump into a cab in moving traffic and got to the restaurant just on time. We enjoyed another good but over-priced (or at least with the exchange rate) meal and walked around a bit in search of the good ice cream and gelato (again) on the island. The main stores were closed, but we found a restaurant that was selling the ice cream to go and everyone (but Karen) got some. Then we walked over to take a group picture in front of Notre Dame, and ended the evening in the Latin Quarter, where Karen was glad that she had held out for here Nutella and banana crepe!! A few others got crepes as well. Then, we found the good gelato place, and Jude and a few others got that too. Who needed dinner with all this dessert! We should have prioritized better! We finished the evening off with glasses of wine at a piano bar that had a live piano player and lounge singer, and a stereo so that they would switch from songs like "Secret Lover" and "Time After Time", to disco/dance mixes. Around 11pm, we said our goodbyes and took our train back to the hotel, stopping at our local Grocery Store to finally try a can of "Panach". Mom, I figure this is the "lemonade" (as you described it) that we got on our road trip from France to Spain that is actually lemon flavored beer, something I was not fond of back then, but now find reminiscent of the Radlers I enjoyed in Germany and Prague. Yum.
Now it's our last day, and a little sad, but I think we're ready to go too. It gets more expensive the longer you stay. I think we will start today at Luxembourg Gardens finally, and then redo anything we need to, and buy any souvenirs that we need, etc. Yesterday and today were hard to plan out b/c we've seen the stuff we most wanted to see already, but can't really prioritize what we want to see again, and certainly not localize it to just one or two areas. I could do them all one more time! C'est la vie!
Adios!
Karen & Jude
Latest Comments (1)
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safe travels (reply)
Apr 15, 2008 16:05 EST by plata
Hail--what a story!!
We've thoroughly enjoyed reading about your Paris adventures and can't wait to see you next week in New Orleans.
Have a safe trip home!
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