Paris: Day Three

Before we left Austin, I talked to another mother from Nicole’s school who was heading to Paris over most of the same days as our trip. We tried to meet up with them twice since our arrival and since we kept failing in that task, we decided to meet up with Monica, Gus and Cecelia Cosby at their hotel (and thanks to Stacy for her advice on taking the bus there…great views!). Coincidently enough, it was the same hotel Jay and I stayed in several years ago. After a visit to their spacious-by-Paris standards room/apartment we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. The kids seemed to get a kick out of the view from the top especially of the Eiffel Tower. Afterwards, we walked down the Champs Elysee and decided to eat at a very crowded McDonald’s. The food really tasted the same as that in the US…but it was interesting trying some of there French fry sauce, aka. mayonnaise. We stopped at the Gap while walking towards the Louvre in search of some shoes for Cecelia who has such narrow feet that it is difficult to find her shoes in the US. We persuaded Monica to bring the kids along to the Louvre and we saw, in rapic succession, the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa and the Appollo Gallery that houses many beautiful royal serving pieces as well as several royal crowns and jewels. We were all amazed at the detail of each piece of service ware and the size of some of the precious jewels that adorned the royal crowns and brooches. Nicole and I left Alise to wander the halls of the Louvre alone while we went back to the hotel with the Cosby’s. After a snack of cheese, pistachios and fruit, Cecelia and Gus went down with little fanfaire for a nap while I had to coax Nicole into one. After she finally fell asleep, I visited with Monica and her husband Doug and had some yummy wine. When I realized it was 7:30 and I told Alise I would return around 7 or 8 I unfortunately had to wake Nicole from her nap and quickly dress her to return via metro to the Louvre. We were only about 15 minutes late and easily found Alise waiting for us in the pre-determined location in front of Information. For dinner we stopped at a local market and stocked up on some more goodies to have another picnic at Stacy’s apartment (see the pattern here?). We got some peas (Nic’s request), sliced turkey, sliced proscuito, sliced salmon, capers, grapes, bottle of some Haut Medoc red wine and blue cheese. It is fun to realize that Stacy and I have eaten meals like this in Austin, Barcelona, London and now Paris! No great photos for this day...hard to find one that compares to the art we saw in the Louvre.