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Last Thursday I came to the realization that I only had 10 days left in Paris but so many things left to do. I made a list of everything I still wanted to do before I left Paris. It seemed staggering based on the little time I have left and that only 3 of those days are weekend days.
This weekend turned out to be a great weekend to tackle my list. It’s finally stopped raining in Paris and the weather was absolutely perfect for sight-seeing—about 70 degrees and sunny. My friends Brittney and Joe are in town, so I had companions for most of my journey.
All told, I knocked the following off my list: 1) Go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe (although I realized when we got there my camera battery was still in the charger!); 2) Walk down Champ d’Elysees (which didn’t end up a shopping trip as much as a desperate search for food because we were starving, but we found a restaurant where Brittney got to try escargot, which was on her list); 3) Visit the Orsay Museum; 4) Go to Luxembourg Gardens; 5) Shop in and walk around Saint Germaine (I saw a ton of stuff I liked, but I didn’t end up buying anything. Shocking, I know.); 6) See the Rodin Museum; 7) Go to the Louvre (I didn’t go in, I know I need much more time than I had, so I just wanted to see it); 8) Eat dinner on Rue de Buci; and 9) Take a boat cruise. Whew, I’m exhausted just naming everything I did.
The most fun parts of the weekend weren’t so much the historical and cultural parts, but the little treasures we found along the way:
For instance, I was walking along the Seines River after shopping in Saint Germaine. I stopped at a little pedestrian bridge that was covered in locks (the Ponts des Arts bridge). A Parisian explained to me that people come to the bridge with their significant other to “lock” their love; they write their names on the lock, lock it on the bridge and throw their keys into the river. (No wonder everyone sees Paris as so romantic when there are traditions like these.)
Another fun find was Bob’s Juice Bar. Kim had heard about this, and Brittney loves juice, so we decided to find it. It is hidden on a little side street in the Marais area about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. It’s a vegan place. They have great creative juices and a “veggie stew” of the day. The one I had was a thai dish with rice and had all sorts of vegetables. You definitely don’t miss the meat, it's so hearty with just veggies. We ended up going on both Saturday and Sunday. We overheard the owner, Marc Grossman (not Bob), talking about a new cookbook he has coming out. When I get back to Chicago I definitely need to see if we have anywhere similar, and maybe try one of his recipes.
On our way to the Luxembourg Gardens, we saw a huge group of people get off at the stop before us. We decided to go check it out, and ended up finding ourselves in the middle of the Pride parade. We watched for a little while, but got to enjoy the music all afternoon because it was so loud that it reached the Luxembourg Gardens and Saint Germaine.
Like in most big cities, throughout Paris there are street performers that will pop up in the tourist spots. When we were walking down Rue de Buci we came across a singer and stopped for a moment. He started singing “Wonderwall” by Oasis, which took us back to our middle school days. I’m not sure if it was popular in France, because we and a couple of other American tourists were the only ones singing along.
Did you know that the Rodin museum is free on the first Sunday of the month? And guess when we happened to go there- Sunday, July 1! That was a pleasant surprise. The museum itself was very pleasant as well. We skipped the indoor museum and just walked around the gardens. The Thinker and some of Rodin’s other important statues are located in the garden. The garden is full of roses and would make a wonderful spot to just relax, if I didn’t have another site to run off to.
I only have a few more items left on my bucket list, so hopefully I’ll have time to get to them. Really though, my list is just the “musts” for this trip. There are plenty of things that I want to do here that I won’t have time for, but I guess that gives me a reason to make a return visit!
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John B. Glad your having fun! Nothing like bucket listing Paris! Tell B what's up when he gets there. Hope to see you guys again soon!