Windchimes

our Friday in Paris

One thing I knew I wanted to get done early as possible Friday morning. Had to buy train fares to Rennes. We headed for Montparnasse station right after breakfast. I'd heard on the news that some group who works with the trains would be on strike, and noticed the big glassed-off room where I'd gone to buy tickets before was closed. Everyone was waiting at the guichets out in the larger area. I'm always a little nervous about making such transactions, and Cliff wasn't helping, although helping is exactly what he was trying so hard to do. I finally stomped my foot and told him to please give me a minute to try to get my bearings here. He said he'd go sit down somewhere so he wouldn't bother me. I went to the information/accueil booth first, to find out which lines best suited my purposes. Knew I'd be waiting in whichever line too long to find out at the end of it that I'd been waiting in the wrong one. But it all went well, except that I was thinking our flight back to Atlanta was on Sunday, so that's when I scheduled our return to Paris. Oh well. We decided we'd get the tickets changed later, we had all week to get around to it, and our last day in Paris was flying by.

Just outside of Montparnasse-Bienvenue, I could have hung around and inspected offerings at the outdoor marché a little while, but Cliff wasn't interested in such an activity. We marched back in as soon as I finished a well-deserved and much needed cigarette, found the metro line back to St. Michel. I thought Cliff might enjoy seeing the Marché aux Fleurs not far from Notre Dame. I was wrong about that, but I made him take some pictures anyway, since I knew his mom would enjoy them. It's a pleasant way to walk toward La Ste. Chappelle anyway, and we'd thought about going to see those stained-glass windows. Changed our mind upon seeing the long line outside the door. Funny thing about that, a sign outside advised that the ticket office would be closed until 2:30 (14h30) and it was only 1:45. Those might not be the exact times, my point is that so many people just stood there, waiting, when nothing could possibly happen for another 45 minutes. We also saw a poster advertising Vivaldi performances at Ste Chappelle, something else I've been wanting to see (or more importantly, hear) for a long time. There was one that evening, at just about the time we'd agreed to meet my daughter's friend at the metro station near our hotel. Since Cliff has now been bitten by the same bug that makes me want to get to France as often as possible, I didn't worry about it too much. Something for next time.

We found a vennoiserie (sandwich shop) across the street and enjoyed the view and passers-by while we ate and discussed what to do next. I thought maybe we could go see L'Opera Garnet, so we got out our trusty little carte d'oranges and headed for the Opera station. Things looked pretty crazy there as well. The steps were covered with people, couldn't tell where any lines were or weren't, so we settled for getting some photos of the exterior, and got back on the Metro. Headed back to...yep, St. Michel again. Object at this point: Musée Cluny with its "La dame à la licorne" (The Lady and the Unicorn) tapestries, which would incidentally afford me the opportunity to walk through the Jardin Celeste as well. Most of the places we'd been all week were places I'd been before. This one was new to me, although loving the gardens so much, I've been close to it many times. Besides the unicorn tapestries, and before you get to them, the museum offers more close up views of certain stain-glass panels and some of the statues that ornament Notre Dame. I'm not sure if these are statues that have been replaced, or what. Many of them were missing noses, so I suppose they would have needed replacing. Also picked up a new (to me) and interesting French word: acéphale=headless. Slightly curious about the etymology of that word. There were also shelves full of objects from various eras found in the Seine. I found another jardin publique when we exited, on the other side of the museum. We rested there a little while. It was after five, and we'd agreed to meet our daughter's friend at 7:00, so we went back to the hotel for a short nap.

At 7:00, we were back near the brasserie we'd been frequenting each evening, in front of the metro station. Stood there for around an hour, but he never came. I called my friends in Rennes to let them know what time our train would supposedly arrive, and we crossed the street, sat down outside the brasserie and ordered a beer. The waiter asked large or small, and we said large, having no idea how large large could be. It took us two hours to finish those things, and afterwards we went in and ordered a light dinner. A young lady sitting a couple of tables away had a fancy cigarette case I admired, so I told her I liked it and asked if she'd bought it around here somewhere. That started a whole evening's worth of conversation. Turned out she spoke some English as well, had spent some years in England, and a bit of time in the States. By the time the evening was over, we'd switched email addresses. Turned out to be a nice evening after all, and we hated to leave...had meant to leave earlier, but the employees were stacking chairs onto the tables by the time we got around to it.

Went to sleep after packing and asking the Monsieur at the hotel reception desk how to arrange for an alarm...I was nervous about waking up on time. Turns out, the TV was so equipped. Even after that, I woke up well before the alarm went off. Paris had been wonderful, but I was so excited about seeing my friends in Bretagne.



J.H. Larrew
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