on monday we got up around 930 am and had breakfast (which is served until 11 am -- tres civilized!). baguette, croissant, OJ, cafe creme, and three different kinds of (homemade) jam. tres bien.
presently, after the squirrel searched in vain for her extra passport photos, for like a half hour, we headed out. first to la poste where deb could get stuff to mail her postcards. then to le metro station to get our cartes oranges -- weekly metro passes. the photo machine was broken (btw, i did have my extra passport photos, taken by steve last year), so we decided to find another place to get the photos and the cartes. we walked toward the eiffel tower. it sorta looms over everything. the sky was cloudy and it was a bit damp, but warm. we sat on a bench to sort out the river boat we wanted to ride (bateau mouche) on the seine.
a young boy, maybe 10?, stooped suddenly in front of me and showed me a gold ring, as though he'd just found it on the ground there. he seemed to be asking if it was ours or something. he put it on his finger and waved his hand around -- i realized he was trying to play us somehow. i just kept saying, "non, non" until he went away. dude, seriously. i'd been staring at the dirt ground, strewn with rocks and cigarette butts and such, for a few minutes. i would totally have seen a shiny gold ring at my feet! plus, i'd spotted this kid rambling around the park a little while earlier (he had on a heathered green t-shirt the color of which for some reason caught my eye). i'd read in a guidebook to beware of "gypsy children" playing scams on tourists ... whatev, dunno what his ethnicity was, but this was def. some kinda scam.
so, anyway, we walked to the tower and tried to sort out the ticket scene for future ref (it's not worth going up in it, so they say, unless the day is clear, which today isn't -- but it might not be for our whole stay; we shall see). we stood under it and looked up. a cool perspective. all around were guys carrying big metal rings on which were hung hundreds of tiny gold, silver, and black replicas of the tower. the lines to get in, despite the weather, were pretty long, but seemed dealable.
we kept walking to the trocadero -- a good vantage point to see the tower (see blog photo at right). we went into another metro station, and deb got her pix. we bought our cartes oranges (16.30 euros) and felt quite pleased with ourselves.
it was raining when we came back up. we walked on avenue d'iena and turned onto avenue de president wilson, and then to the place d'alma. we went down to the seine and got tickets for the bateau (10 euros for the 75-minute tour). the boat was a wide, flat barge-type thing with seats inside a glass enclosure as well as seats on top of that and alongside it. as it was raining on and off, most people in the small group were inside, but many went outside sometimes to take pictures and get better views. i was glad it wasn't very crowded.
i put explosions in the sky on my ipod (trippy instro music -- perfect) and trundled around taking pictures of stuff like graffiti along the canal. like the picture at the top of this entry, which was just wow! and this:
and this:
there were also several marks by a tagger called "spleen," but i don't seem to have one of that.
homeless people make camps under the bridges. like this one:
this is a zoom-in of the original shot i took with my digital camera, but i like it b/c it looks almost like a watercolor. anyway, there was also this guy:
and a tent:
i loved these two willow trees:
and there are lots of picturesque boats along the seine, from restaurants to homes. look how pretty they are:
my favorite was this black boat with the little red convertible parked on the back:
i did get a cool shot of the eiffel tower from the boat. but it sucks that it's grey and cloudy. june gloom is in paris too. who knew?
anyway. after the boat ride we hopped on the metro and went to the marais -- the train was crowded at rush hour -- and got falafels at this storied place called l'as du fallafel on rue de rosiers. a big pita stuffed with delicious falafels, cabbage, cucumbers, spicy sauce, other sauce, maybe some cheese? can't remember it all now, but boy was it good. we walked with our food to the place des vosges and sat on a bench and watched the world go by. the sun came out for a little while, and it was all quite idyllic. young people sat in a circle on the grass, parents sat on benches watching their kids play, tourists walked by with shopping bags. a persistent pigeon seemed to develop a crush on my pointy black boots -- it kept coming around, even when i threatened to crush its l'il head (maybe it didn't understand what i was saying b/c it was a french pigeon ... hmmmm).
presently we went to a cafe on the corner of the square and had a carafe of wine. deb wrote postcards, and i wrote in my journal. we took the bus back to our hotel and debated about where to eat dinner. decided to just walk around the neighborhood (we're in the 7th arrondissement, btw) and see what looked good (ie, who had escargots). we found a place not far away called la terrasse. they had snails, so in we went. the waiter was cool -- brusque but not unfriendly. the place had dark red plush chairs and dark wood tables. we split a homemade duck pate, had those escargots, and i had artichoke hearts in a lovely mustard vinaigrette while deb had the prettiest salad nicoise you've ever seen. and wine. it was all incredibly good. plus, for a while during our meal the scenery was quite tasty, thanks to this guy sitting at a niche table by himself, looking all french and hot with his gallic good looks and nice black suit (but with BROWN SHOES -- fail!).
it was late when we got done, around midnight i think. so we went back to our room and relaxed before bed.
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