Tuesday April 21st, 2009

Our last day in Paris!! It has been a wonderful trip and we are both sad and happy to be heading home tomorrow. We have talked about how nice it would be if you could just pick up your own apartment and drop it in a different city for a week - that way you'd have all the comforts of home in a wonderful new setting. But alas, that is not possible and we haven't found a way to beam ourselves up yet! Darn.

Manaen is fending off a bit of a cold and we're both exhausted from poor sleeps. I woke up in the middle of the night with an upset tummy - too much rich pate and boursin!!! So we let ourselves rest this morning until about 10:00 before getting ready. Things aren't open very early here anyways - lots of the shops don't open until 11am.

Ate breakfast at the apartment so we walked straight to our Metro station and found our way to the Montmarte area. We had 3 paris walks to do and walked about 2 1/2 before we decided to explore on our own. Loved the feel of the area, especially the parts further from Sacre Cour where tourists were less concentrated. We saw the last vineyard in Paris and an apartment Van Gough lived in. Really pretty area, you could hear the birds chirping and the wind moving through the trees. It was quite a warm day but the breeze was very refreshing. Especially after hiking up all those stairs and the hillside, when you're used to Richmond's landscape =)

Remarked yesterday that I hadn't eaten a good french onion soup or a chocolate croissant yet. Managed to do both today! Stopped for lunch in the area.

After lunch we walked over to Sacre Cour. Went inside but not up - will save that for next trip. Manaen and I both love this church. So clean and fresh while still having the intricate detail. These were probably our favourite stained glass windows - modern feeling, clean, light and bright. It was easy to make out the figures in the glass and see the story, where at other churchs we had a hard time with some windows. Spent some time people watching on the front steps and the grassy area before deciding to go back to the apartment.

Enroute to find a metro we passed through an area filled with fabric stores. Manaen bought me a few yards of a beautiful damask pattern. We'll have it made into pillows for our new apartment.

We are just tidying up the apartment and doing some cleaning before heading back to Sorza for dinner at 7pm. Manaen is very much looking forward to eating there again.

We'll wake up early, at about 8am, to be out of the apartment by 9am. We have to be at Charles de Gaulle by about 10:45. Our plan is to walk with our luggage to the main road here and catch a cab to Gare du Nord, where we'll get on the RER B line to the airport. Only unknowns are how often cabs come by at 9am (we have seen them quite frequently at every other time of day, so I am sure it will be fine) and what terminal to get off the RER at. International departures are at Terminal 1, but don't include Air France. All Air France departures are at terminal 2. We bought our tickets through NWA, and it says to check in with KLM/Air France, but it's an Air France plane.... so I dunno!! We'll try terminal 2 first and if we have to book it to Terminal 1, we'll still have enough time to do so.

Will land at YVR at 4:25pm on Wed Apr 22nd. Dad & Cindy will pick us up.

Much love! Thanks for following us on our journey. We haven't posted photos in a few days because it takes a lot of time to upload, but will add a few once we get home.

Love and see you soon!

K & M