Samedi 7 Avril

Today, Saturday, we slept in a bit, with no real plans.

We had some left over baguette and jelly (like the French do, or used to anyway) at the house, then headed out and south to Isle de la Cite. Our house is actually about 7 blocks directly north of Notre Dame. There's a famous flower and bird market on the Isle de la Cite, where Notre Dame is, we started there.

After, we walked by Notre Dame, and Sainte Chappelle, which we'll probably visit later, perhaps when there's a concert going on inside. Lisa loves ice cream from Berthillon, just across from Notre Dame on the adjacent island to the east, Isle Saint Louis, so we made a quick stop there before walking around that small little neighborhood for a while.

Tourists out in droves this day, apparently the combination of nice weather (it's beautiful and warmer now) and being the long Easter weekend is doing the trick. So as to avoid them, we headed south into the Latin Quarter.

I wanted to go to this old Roman era arena, called Arenes de Lutece, about 2000 years old. We then decided to put down the map and totally just get lost. We ended up in this really neat little square called Place de Contrescarpe. We had a lazy cafe there and Lisa spoke with her mom for a bit on her cell.

From there we continued around the Latin Quarter and stumbled into the Pantheon.

We traversed back over into the right bank, had a crepe (oeuf, jambon, gruyere) near Pompidou, then started our 2 hour trek in search of... un petit ventilateur. Yes, yes, the stupid little fan. That I can't sleep without. That I'm miserable without. Mine (yes, I brought it with me) died at the hotel where I tried to run it without a transformer.

We figured we could get *anything* at the Forum des Halles- a huge underground shopping mall where a largest open air market used to be many years ago. We tried a store called "Darty"- where obviously the American retail efficiencies haven't caught on yet- it was like Service Merchandise (anybody remember those?) all over again. First get the label for your item here. Then pay here at the caisse. Then go to the back of the store to pick it up. For crying out loud, it takes 1 hour to purchase a hair dryer. Ah, French efficiency. Gotta lov'em for it though, really.

Alors, it wasn't a fan we were buying but a European-wattage hair dryer for Lisa. No fans. :-( The employees at Darty suggested another store, BHV, which was a quick walk but near the Hotel de Ville, so we scurried there but... it was closed. And tomorrow is Sunday when everything is closed, and because of Easter everything will be closed for the bank holiday Monday.

Unsuccessful (except for the magnificent crepe), we headed back to our apartment, where we decided to chill for the night and watch Babel, which we had rented before leaving SF.

Btw, I found a temporary solution to the white noise / fan problem: put the radio on a channel with no reception: close enough.

Congratulations are in order for our friends Joan and Brad Buyce, in New Jersey, who are now the proud parents of a healthy baby boy, Sam Buyce. All are healthy and doing well at home in NJ. Congratulations with love.

I need to catch up on my posts, as I'm writing about 2 days ago. Will try to catch up tomorrow, as well as add some more photos (oui, mon frere, j'ai regarde ta commentaire- je prendrai des photos de notre apartement).

Until tomorrow....

Brad