Woke up this morning feeling like my tonsils climbed up into my sinuses and wedged themselves there.  NOT good.  So I let myself sleep in really really late.  Made some hot tea and oatmeal once I got up. Showered, and when I was feeling nearly human, I wrapped myself in my new scarf and ventured forth to find something photo-worthy… and boy did I find something photo-worthy…

When I walked into la Sainte-Chapelle, I was pretty impressed.  The stained glass was beautiful, the walls were painted and gilded.  It was pretty cool, and I’m glad someone (I forget who) recommended that I go there, because it was REALLY pretty.

Then I realized there was an upstairs.

And so I went upstairs.

Holy. Shit.

It was like walking into a forest where it was raining colored light. I don’t know how they hold the roof up with the thin fingers of stone in between all of that amazing glass.  But I spent quite a long time there taking pictures before I could tear myself away.

But I could have just taken all day to photograph the play of colored light on the floor every time the sun broke through the clouds.

The rest of the afternoon was spent re-tracing my steps to St. Etienne du mont, which I had come across on my walk through the Latin Quarter.  Had I actually made my way a little farther around the right side of the building I would have realized that was the place where Owen Wilson was sitting at midnight, in Paris.

On the way I hit St. Germaine des pres, and wandered through the Luxembourg Gardens again.

Grabbed a panini for late lunch at Aux desirs de Manon at the St. Paul metro stop, and was home by 5:30.  In for a nap, and now… pondering dinner.

Below are more photos of stained glass than any human being should ever be forced to look at:

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(196 Photos)

Woke Friday morning with a little burr in my throat.  Started work early because there were some things I wanted to get done for the boss before the West Coast woke up.

By the time I broke for lunch, I was getting a little phlegmy.  But Michi and I ran downstairs to Schwartz’s Deli and had a ridiculous lunch.

Thank you, Schwartz's Deli!

Back upstairs to the grind stone, and by the time 5:00 rolled around, I was feeling pretty crappy.  Michelle took off for her train back to Nantes, and I slept for a while before making soup just in time for my 8:30 conference call.  Then it was back to bed where I comforted myself by watching the last two weeks’ episodes of Community from bed before crashing hard.

The clouds were totally having a lightswitch rave in the morning. Bright to dark, bright to dark over and over again for a while.  But once feet hit pavement it was pretty consistently bright.

This was “The Day of Super Tourist Spots” with a visit to l’arc de triomphe and le tour Eiffel back to back.

Yeah... just yeah...

Between the two, there was a stop at a Maison Bonon, where I had the most amazing macaroon of my life. citrus and raspberry filling with balsamic in the mix… if I could only have one desert for the rest of my life, that would be it for sure.

Home by 3, work meetings, felafel for dinner!  Pretty straight up day if you don’t count the redonkulous number of stairs we climbed to get to the top of l’arc de triomphe. 🙂  Supposedly it’s only 284.  Seemed like a billion.

OH!  And I totally found a scarf!  Which means it will get warm now.

Stanley's Warrior Face.

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I was down to my last €50 note, so I *HAD* to get to the money place today to exchange traveler’s checks.  A hop on the metro, one transfer, and I was there in less than 20 minutes.  Less than 20 minutes after that, I had traded $1000 for €713.  With no exchange fee, unlike the last two times.  Remember, people, check with AmEx about places that don’t charge fees!!

I walked out of the Change place, and as Michelle and I were going down the steps, this woman stopped in front of us, bent down and came up with a ring. She held it out with a “Is this yours?” look on her face and we said no, to which she replied in broken English, “Then this is my lucky day! And it’s my birthday!”  We wished her a happy birthday and were about to move on when she tried on the ring, saw it didn’t fit, and offered it to me with the “Here, you can give it to her.”

I was just going to take it into the Change place and say that someone lost it out front, because it still hadn’t hit me that I was being scammed.  But before I could turn around she said, “Buy me a coffee for my birthday?”  That was fair enough, I guess, so I dropped €2 in her hand and went to move on. “And a sandwich?”  I didn’t have all that much change, and I wasn’t about to pull out the wad of €50 notes I just got, so as I was picking through what was left in my hand, she just started indicating she wanted it all.  That’s when I got a clue, closed my hand, pocketed the ring, and walked away.

Yes, I had forgotten my brain.  But that wasn’t all.

The Change place was right near the Opera.  And the Opera building is BEAUTIFUL.  So I went to take a photo of it and my camera blinked at me “NO CF CARD.”  I’d forgotten to pull the card out of the reader attached to this very computer.  And since I only brought the camera, and not the full gear backpack, I had a Canon shaped albatross around my neck for the afternoon.

Instead of metroing back to le Marais, we decided to wander back in that direction and explore the neighborhood.  That’s when I realized I’d also forgotten my pedometer.  So none of the walk we made got counted on my “Walking a bajillion miles in France” chart. 🙂

But during the walk we found café thrice, once solo, once with lunch, and once with cheesecake.

Made it back to the apartment just in time to start work, and hammered out a bunch of workey goodness.

I did take a few photos with my iPhone… and here they are:

One ring to fool them all...

Sacré-Cœur, as seen from the area of the Opera house.

You can't hide the big bills inside the little bills, because the damn big bills are actually BIGGER.

Covered market.

Stamps (I used to collect stamps).

Statue of I child harpooning a bigass fish!

Cheesecake!

The thermometer on my computer said that it was 45 out, and the rain was pretty insistent, so I declared a “Stay Inside All Day” day.

Spent the morning doing the rest of my laundry, going through some donation stuff for Un-Scripted, harassing people via email and WhatsApp, and generally farting around the apartment.

Started working around 12:30, and got some good progress made on things I didn’t realize I needed to do.  Had some conference calls, and then, around 9:15, I shut down the laptop and ran out to la trinquette to meet up with Naomi for some wine.

A couple of her friends also happened to be there, which was cool.  Although I discovered it’s much harder to understand French in a crowded wine bar.

The wine of the evening turned out to be Ni Ange, Ne Démon. Thick and fruity and cinnamony… brilliant!  And the “bar snacks?”  Even more brilliant.  Perfect end to a cozy, sit at home day.

THIS is what I call Bar Snacks.

Or something like that.  As predicted, my legs rebelled against any sort of intensive travel happening.

Oooooooh, groceries!

LAZY Monday (sort of). Did a grocery run in the morning and got a real baguette, which I proceeded to devour half of slathered in Nutella later in the day.  Slowly testing out all the different flavors of Orangina that exist in Europe. Total numminess. I still think there are way too many tempting sweet things in the grocery store, though.

Also tried to get to the Post Office Bank in order to cash some more travelers cheques… buttttt… the post office doesn’t do that anymore.  Figured out where to go so that I don’t get hit with the 6.5% surcharge.  That will happen on Tuesday.

Spent the rest of the day doing laundry and then settling in to work after some quality time in bed.  My legs are thankful.

Michelle swung by with dinner and desert… holy crap good desert… good dinner, too, but desert… oh, desert….

One of those chocolate things has a pear baked into the center...

No, not because my apartment is in le Marais.  Today’s walk was delayed due to cold, and Michelle and I hit the Louvre.  And let me tell you, there is a lot of nudity in art.  I am totally not complaining.

I have to say, the whole place is amazing.  And yes, one needs multiple days to see everything.

I’m just going to point out some quick highlights here, then get to the photos:

Mona Lisa: WTF, people? Everyone, everywhere is all “It’s so SMAAAAAAAALL!”  It’s portrait sized. How much bigger does it need to be.  I was freakin expecting this postage stamp (okay, maybe 8.5″ x 11″) painting, but it was good sized.  And it was really well lit.  And EVERYONE wanted to see it.  But all in all, tres cool!

Architecture vs Art: There were some rooms that I was so overwhelmed by the room itself, that I couldn’t pay attention to the art/exhibits in the room.  The building itself is phenomenal, and in rooms like the Apollo Gallery, I spent more time taking photos of the walls than the displays.

Inverted Pyramid: So that inverted glass pyramid at the end of The DaVinci Code? The one they hinted had some secret beneath it?  It’s in the freakin mall, not in the museum. WEAKSAUCE!

We walked a butttonne (metric spelling) today.  And between that and yesterdays epic tromp through Giverney, my legs may rise up and strangle me in my sleep.

I've hit 50 miles walked since getting here...

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So Michelle came back from Nantes to spend another weekend in Paris (addict much, Michi??).  As part of the deal, we decided to hop the train to Giverny to see Monet’s Water Gardens.  For those keeping score, that’s the train we slept through LAST weekend.

Long story short: HO. LY. CRAP. A. MAZE. ING.

I’m’a just skip right to the photos.

WARNING: Lots of Flowers ahead…

Giverney...

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(238 Photos)