Sunday April 19, 2009

Hello all!

The rain eased up and although the morning was still cloudy with showers, we had a wonderful day.

I woke up at 6am with some sort of allergy attack (yikes!!!) but we were up again at 9:15 and out by 11 after eating breakfast in of cereal and last night's pizza.

Off to do some of our "Paris Walks" around Champs Elysee. We took it at a leisurely pace and were still surprised how quickly we made it through 3 of the cards, all by 2pm! The parks and squares in the area were gorgeous, and we passed the Marionette "theatre" in a park where "Charade" was filmed with Audrey Hepurn and Carey Grant. The sun even peaked out from behind the clouds for a few minutes. Walked up and down "fashion avenue", but being a Sunday, all the shops were closed. Fine by us - we admired the windows as we wouldn't have been able to afford anything anyways!! In one window we came across a skirt for $28,000 Euros! Can you imagine??

On the main area up to the Arc du Triomphe it was very busy and after such a peaceful morning we were taken by surprise at the amount of people on the sidewalks. Sorry to say that we stopped at McDonalds for a quick, and needed, rest of our feet and bite to eat. Manaen has been highlighting all the streets we have walked on and the ground we covered today is impressive.

Reached Arc du Triomphe - took the underground tunnel across. There was no way we would risk running across those lanes of traffic. Manaen wanted to climb to the top, but my feet weren't feeling it and since I have been up before, up he went! I was hoping to wave to him but couldn't get far away enough from the centre to see the people on top, unless I had gone back through the underground walkway.

Susan is hoping for a specific candy, so Manaen mapped out the candy stores that carry the brand and type so we can stop in if we're in the neighbourhood. We walked past Arc du Triomphe towards one of the stores, but alas, it was closed because it's Sunday! =( We'll try again tomorrow Susan!

Back to the apartment for our afternoon siesta and to figure out where to go for dinner. We recharged our batteries a bit and decided on a restaurant that I had liked from the street a few nights ago, on Il Saint Louise called "Le Fin Gourmet". We arrived there at about 7:15pm, early we thought, but he was fully booked upstairs with reservations until 9:30pm. We looked downstairs but with no other guests there wasn't much of an atmosphere so we decided to check up and down the street. Nothing was as appealing so we went back to Le Fin Gourmet and sat downstairs - this time an older couple was down there, and others started joining soon afterwards. Except Manaen told me that when I was in the washroom, and the elderly man was upstairs for some reason, the old lady across the room lifted one side of her butt of the chair and farted!!! Haha I couldn't believe it. Anyways, it was a cute room downstairs, and the meal was delicious. For the 30 Euro per person menu we both had the Mushroom ravioli in garlic cream sauce to start and the Beef Bourguignon in phyllo pastry for our main. For his dessert, Manaen had the crème brulee, which had interesting, original flavours, and I had the warm chocolate cake. The menu also included a glass of wine and café for each of us (Manaen skipped the café). A meal on the expensive side for our trip, but very memorable.

What a wonderful evening!

One oddity in our day - on the way home we took the metro and one stop away from our station the trains all shut down and the lights went out on the train (not in the station! Sothere was still plenty of light). Manaen had to do a rough translation of what was said on the overhead speaker, but it appears that there was some sort of accident on the trains ahead and they wouldn't be running between X and X station, and that we would be moving in a few minutes. Well after more than a few minutes people started getting off the train and finding alternate routes. We decided to do the same and walk the extra station to our apartment. Hard to do in heels with very sore feet a the end of a long day, but it wasn't very far. We are hoping and praying that everything is okay and the accident wasn't a serious one… will check the news to see if anything is mentioned.

Much love!!

Kate

Manaen's update:

Aston Martin DBS !!!!!!!!!!! (Saw it in a store window, but it was still a hot car)

Aston Martin DB5? Same era

Agusta motorcycle $39000 euro! (all carbon fiber exhaust, quad exhaust)

On one of the walks today Kate and I walked through a stamp market. I thought of you Dad, but I don't know what stamps you would need. Due to the overcast weather I think only half the vendors came out, because there were several empty huts.