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We finished last night really late after hunting for some souvenirs in the lively university district...wish we would have stayed here on our first 3 days in Paris, there's much more of a night life in this district. But we're up early this morning with some final packing in order to check out and store our bags in the luggage room downstairs, while we squeeze the rest of the juice out of the fruit on our last day in Paris. Without a doubt...our luggage is too large and too numerous, our stuff takes up at least as much space in the luggage room as the rest of the hotel's guests, but after relocating a few other bags I got it all stuffed in there and we're out the door with 30 minutes to walk to the nail salon.
Heather and MD are getting a pedicure in Paris this morning, Maclaren's first pedicure of her life! I've arranged pedicure's at Culture of Color which is a large chain nail salon in France (no luck on finding a boutique nail salon). Across the Le Jardin du Luxembourg, which is another awesome public park in the middle of Paris...they may live in nothing but concrete jungles and stuff themselves into mass transportation every day, but they sure know how to make some really fantastic park spaces to fulfill their primal need for nature.
Its a little bit longer of a walk than I anticipated (probably should have caught a taxi), so we arrived about 4 minutes late...unfortunately the workers aren't all that friendly and act like they don't understand much English, definitely not the welcoming Vietnamese ladies we're used to in the States! Plus they asked me to pay before the services were rendered (should have been a warning flag!). 64E for 2 pedicures seems like a lot, especially when one of them is only just a nail painting on a 2 year old, but I don’t argue and just paid it. Luckily, the girls enjoyed it tremendously and MD did fantastic, “wooook at my piggies!!” Heather was less than impressed by the actual pedicure that she received, half a rub, poor attention to detail, and definitely nothing to write home about, but it’s all about the experience of getting a pedicure in Paris and the fact that its Maclaren’s first time! (no wonder its 32E each, there was a lady in the store before we got there, and she's still in there after we leave...no such thing as moving fast around these parts).
Back in the direction of our hotel, we have a couple hours before we need to get back...just perfect for breakfast and some last minute shopping. So we ducked into this great bakery for an awesome piece of keesh, some croissants, and coffees. It may be expensive and mostly lacking protein, but their breakfast experience is enviable.
After wrapping up our last breakfast in France, we grudgingly bid farewell to that experience and wandered back around the perimeter of the Jardin du Luxembourg hoping to "stumble" upon some shops (little does Heather realize that I'm leading us directly to an outdoor antique bazaar). But it seems like no one works any kind or normal or predictable hours in France, we pass shop after shop, after boutique, after service location that are all closed for the day. Its Monday, which is like our Sunday for them, but its pretty ridiculous that all these places are closed, you'd expect to see at least a couple open (socialism vs capitalism!) ...just as we were about to give up and take the "short cut" back through the Jardin to the hotel we stumbled upon a cute little boutique selling women's clothing where Heather found a hat and I snapped some paparazzi-esqe photos of her shopping. Just around the corner of the Jardin we "discovered" an antiques market that is only open Sat-Mon, lucky us, its Monday! Other than being an antiques market, I don't know what to expect, but luckily it has old prints throughout and one entire shop devoted to prints, exactly what we've been searching for since we got here! Unfortunately sellers aren't very motivated to make a deal, so we're barely able to haggle the price down, but walk away with 3 perfect little prints for MD's room :)
We finish our walk around the rest of the perimeter of the Jardin, make one last quick stop for ice cream in Paris, and we're back at the hotel with plenty of time to get to the airport. This morning I had a lengthy discussion with the hotel front desk staff about what the best option for getting to the airport was...no way we're trying to take the train back to the airport...so we decided that a luxury taxi was the best option. 10 minutes waiting in the lobby and a Mercedes taxi van pulls up to take us to the airport. After loading our mountain of bags, the driver tells me its a flat rate of 55E to go to the airport, but also in the bargaining mood, I entice him to turn the meter on, but not to milk the clock because I would tip him if we got there fast, and to charge me the cheaper of the two. It ended up being 48E so I gave him the 55E and called it a day.
Not missing this flight! We're 3 hours early and sitting at the gate with more than 2 hours to go, better safe that sorry after our missed flights on the way here!
The flight is uneventful, but we have to wait for at least 45 minutes after disembarking in Milan to collect our bags...baggage handling strike in Italy today, go figure! Finally out on the street in front of the airport, I can't get my phone to work to call the hotel to send a shuttle to pick us up, so instead I ask a taxi to give us a ride to the airport. However, the taxi driver declines and tells me in broken English that the hotel has a shuttle and that he will call it for us...wow, nice dude! Collected by the shuttle, greeted warmly at the hotel, and settled into our room, its 8pm.
Thank God for Trip Advisor, I did my research before coming and found that there is an excellent restaurant in the local neighborhood within walking distance, so we changed for dinner and headed downstairs to the front desk to ask for directions. The hotel must be tired of losing their business this restaurant because the front desk lady tried to tell me it was too far to walk and through a bad neighborhood and that we should just eat in the hotel's restaurant...exactly opposite of what I read on Trip Advisor. So I said thanks anyways and hoped the map on TP was correct...down the road through the neighborhood we went. The map was accurate and we arrived at the restaurant after just 3-4 minutes of walking through a pleasant, quiet, Italian neighborhood that reminded me very much of some rural small towns I've visited in Canada. The neighborhood was as quiet as it was because everyone was at the restaurant, the place was packed! It started raining right as we walked up, so we quickly ducked under an outside tent and asked if we could sit at one of the only open tables; to which the waitress replied that she was really busy and it would be 45 minutes before she could wait on us but we were welcome to sit down if we wanted. Gah, we can't be here until midnight, we have to get up at 4am to go to the airport...inside it is then! We found an even busier waiter inside who seemed to be the only one taking care of the entire inside which had to be 25 tables! Thankfully he was a really nice dude and sat us at the only open table in the restaurant and promptly served us drinks and took our food order. THE BEST PIZZA, PERIOD! In the world, seriously...awesome! ...tat, tat, tat...is that hail? Yep, its hailing...wait a second...its an epic hail storm! No joke, like 3" of hail fell in a matter of 10 minutes along with 5" of rain! There was literally a river of water and hail flooding the small Italian street right in front of the restaurant while we finished our dinner. But just as quickly as it came, it was gone; after paying our bill and bidding farewell to some new friends at the next table over, we were left with a crunchy walk back to the hotel on hail covered streets. Despite having to give my shirt to Heather because she was freezing, we had a fun walk back to the hotel which included numerous photos, some throwing of hail, and Heather riding in the stroller because her feet were cold!
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