Friday, May 15

This morning we walked west along our street which turned into the Rue Berger. It was mostly pedestrian only and really beautiful (not the weather of course, but the Paris scenery). The gardens in front of the Forum des Halles were so gorgeous. One of the first trips that Sarah and Chad took together they took a picture of themselves in this garden, so they wanted another one (this is significant later). I forgot my camera, so no pictures from me. We walked to the Louvre, our main reason for going there was to see Venus de Milo to take a picture of Milo in front of his namesake (also significant). Venus has been moved for renovations so it took a while to find her. There were huge crowds around her so it wasn't the best picture, but we got it. I think Milo was unimpressed, especially since she doesn't have arms and not a lot of clothes. We looked at a few more statues from Greece and talked about them, then left to have lunch. Milo and I had Chinese and Chad and Sarah Italian (it was a food court). The DC people returned to the apartment for Milo's nap and I stayed at the Louvre. I've spent the last few months studying Parisian history so to spend time in the Louvre was such a huge treat for me. I was mostly interested in the history of the building. I started with the history of the Louvre, I loved it! They had models of it after all its' different stages through the ages. I ran back and forth between them to compare them. Next I went down into the basement to see the archaeological digs of the original Louvre, again, so cool. Not many people there either since they're all trying to see Venus and Mona Lisa. Then I went up to the top floor (3rd to Americans) and rapidly walked the whole length, sometimes sucked into looking at pictures but trying to just look out the windows, the views were great. The rooms themselves weren't impressive. Then I went down to the 2nd floor and those rooms were magnificent. There weren't all that many people until I ran into a huge mob, I knew that it couldn't be Mona Lisa because there were statues all around, oh yes, I know, it was Winged Victory. I saw a Chinese woman wearing a mask, we also saw some Chinese in the airport wearing masks, they're afraid of getting the swine flu from the rest of us, Sarah said that it's not unusual behavior for them. Then I thought I should hurry back in case Milo's nap was over. I was satisfied for now what I had seen, I'd like to go back and see ground floor, but, another time. I stopped at a patisserie called Le Gay Choc (remember we're staying in the gay district) and bought a beautiful little raspberry tart. Milo was still sleeping so the 3 of us shared the little tart. I haven't mentioned before that Chad has been supplying us every night with tarts, mmmm, good. After Milo's nap we took the metro north to Montmartre, this time I remembered my camera. At the bottom of Sacre Coeur there was another carousel, Chad and Sarah are anti-carousels, they're such a rip-off, so I said that it can be a "grandma" thing, I'm the guilty one. Milo LOVES them, he feels so cool on them, Chad took lots of pictures of us with the Sacre Coeur above us. We road the funiculaire to the top of Montmartre (more pictures)

Milo and I in front of Sacre Coeur

and walked around Place du Tertre, then sat in a restaurant to eat crepes. Milo and I had chocolate and bananas, Sarah had nutella and Chad had apple. Milo was covered in chocolate, so more pictures. Chad took lots more pictures descending, then Milo played in the playground at the base of Sacre Coeur


then took the metro home. It's a seedy area and it was a different crowd on the metro than we have encountered so far. When we got off the metro at l'Hotel de Ville, Chad discovered that someone stole his camera (very expensive, does still pictures and video) out of his pocket. Fortunately they have been downloading all the still pictures each night, but unfortunately none of the videos nor any of today's pictures. This happened to me 25 years ago near the end of a camping for a month in Austria, Greece, Italy and Switzerland with Kelly 7 and Chad 10. I was devastated that all my pcitures were lost, the other stuff, I didn't care. A lesson to all of you, guard your cameras. I'm not doing a very good job with pictures, many of them are blurry, so now I'll have to improve. We walked to the carousel at St. Paul because I've been owing Milo a ride on the helicopter for pooping in the potty since about 3 days ago, it was closed again! All done, bonne nuit!