shopping, cathedrals, and chocolate

On Thursday, we decided to go to the Opéra area to find Jill a scarf, and then to go to Notre Dame. But first, breakfast:

{Photo by Jill}

self-portrait in front of Opéra Garnier

We walked through Galeries Lafayette, so I could show Jill the splendor of its interior. {Photo by Jill}

We looked at the vendors outside. Scarves are everywhere, but nothing was speaking to Jill. Finally, we went to C&A, which is kind of like Paris's version of JCPenney. They have quite a bit of cute stuff, and their prices are much lower than anywhere else (except maybe for H&M).

I found lots of cute scarves, and these are the four choices we narrowed it down to for Jill. Guess which one she picked? (I knew she would go for the houndstooth, it's classic and very Jill, and it looks adorable on her!)

Sometimes I forget that shopping sucks the life out of her. She took the kids outside to wait while I paid for a scarf that Max picked out, and then we went to find our bus to Notre Dame.

This sign was posted at the bus stop informing us that, due to a demonstration, the line 21 would have interruptions in its service. This kind of thing drives me nuts -- a "spontaneous" demonstration that disrupts things I can see, but they notify the transportation service ahead of time and then notices are hung to inform travelers. I guess ultimately it is helpful, but how is it okay to knowingly stop mass transit?! These demonstrations happen all the time, too.

The regular sign at the stop that tells you how many minutes you have to wait for your bus kept changing. It would say: average interval between buses 15 min. Then it would say 4 minutes. Then 9. The thing is, we ended up staying there for about half an hour and the damn bus never came. We took a different one. My love affair with Paris buses was severely challenged this week.

Notre Dame self-portrait, finally!

Max, ready to work his magic.

There are always spectacles of one kind or another in front of the cathedral. On this day, we saw some break dancers...

this man feeding the sparrows (and chasing away the pigeons)...

and someone dressed up as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. That was a first! Tons of people were taking his picture and posing with him as well. He was really quite creepy, but you have to admire his creativity.

I have always been drawn to the candles that people light to represent their prayers.

This cathedral took over 500 years to build. We were musing about how people must have made it their life's work just to complete a small, small portion of it. They must have had such vision to put so much effort into this enormous project that would not be completed for many generations!

After walking through the church, we took the kids to play in a tiny park just outside. The "rides" were approved for kids aged 2 and over, but Eva still had definite concerns.

We started walking back to the Boulevard Saint-Germain to catch our return bus.

The bouquinistes -- little bookseller stalls that line the banks of the Seine -- are always fun to look at. Their wares range from beautiful old books to garish paintings to tacky souvenirs.

Jill took this picture of me. It's definitely my favorite photo of me since I've been in Paris -- undoubtedly because it doesn't show my chins (or arms, or cheeks, or hair, etc.).

I'm sure it won't surprise you to discover that we -- again -- had bus troubles. Even though the bus map showed that we could catch our bus on the Blvd. Saint-Germain, it was a one-way street. We ended up walking in about a one-mile square, only to return to the metro stop where we started. France!

Why did we persist in taking buses, you might wonder? Well, sometimes just to spare ourselves all of the stairs, which are particularly troublesome with the stroller. Sometimes because there is no direct metro route and we don't want to take 3 different lines.


I don't know what made this day different from any other, but I started to lose it. Totally. (It might have had something to do with the boots I was wearing. Apparently they are comfortable for a few hours, but after a whole day they become torturous.) Fortunately Max took note and took the stroller from me. It was truly amazing the way in which it transformed the situation. Suddenly, when I was just walking and going up and down the stairs with no stroller, I could absolutely handle it. And now I know that he is strong enough to carry Eva up and down the stairs...

One good thing: in our wanderings, we found the Patrick Roger chocolate boutique we have been looking for. He earned the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France, which is the highest award a food artisan can achieve. Max and I were excited and of course we had to go in and buy some. I didn't even realize until we entered that those cans of spray paint are actually made of chocolate. Seriously.

We picked out pistachio ganache, lime ganache, chocolate candied orange peel, almond/hazelnut praliné, Szechuan pepper ganache, and chocolate salted caramel ganache. That night, we had a tasting with Marc, and they were amazing! My favorites were the caramel, lime, and praliné. I have a feeling we will be going there again...

And I have rarely been so happy to get home.