London: Last Day

Today was my last full day in London. Tomorrow I fly home.

We spent the day wandering around. Enjoying a few pubs & doing a little last minute souvenir shopping.

We also went to the Columbia Road Flower Market which was a madhouse!

So many people.

Flowers everywhere. Potted & cut. Even potted trees. The sellers were calling out prices "3 for 5" "that's 3 for a fiver"

They don't do that in Bonanza...

Taz enjoyed the outing. He was carried around as befits a royal personage checking on the rabble...

Pretty! Pretty!

This was the cute little pub where we had a snack. Did you know most pubs allow dogs? They even had biscuits for them & a crystal bowl for them to get a drink of water.

See you on the flip side.

Blessings.

American in Paris: Day 3

Today was our last day in Paris.

Sigh.

We visited l'arc de triomphe.

Walking along the Champs Elysee we happened to notice this fabulous plaque high up on a wall. In case your French isn't so hot it's saying that Thomas Jefferson once lived in that building. How cool is that?

Tiffany's! I've never seen an actual Tiffany's! And in point of fact I was walking along eating a croissant & feeling very Holly Golightly-ish!

Where is the Rebel Base?

Napoleon

These guys are everywhere. You can't get into any buildings or attractions (or even la toilette) without them checking your bags & being very, very visible.

It was a good feeling.

Back in London now for 1 more day...

Blessings.

American in Paris: Day 2

Our second day was jam packed with history, beauty & amazement.

Paris is so beautiful. Everywhere you look is some amazing fabulous gorgeous building or church or ancient  wall or gold statue or bridge or tower name something ancient & it's there.

We wandered through narrow little streets & found this amazing courtyard full of little shops & cafes & Parisian yard sales. 

It was awesome.

This is French hot chocolate. That whole little pot was full of it.

No wimpy cocoa here. This stuff was like a melted chocolate bar ~ thick & smooth & rich. Oh my it was lovely.

We were wandering the streets of Paris when a sudden rainstorm started. We dashed under an awning to wait out the worst of it with 2 other Parisians. The gentleman enjoyed that opportunity to practice his English on us & explained that the rain would only last a few moments & it was the season for storms like those.

Everyone warned us that the people in Paris were rude but we found the exact opposite. They were lovely!

Just after the rain storm we made our  way to Notre Dame. 

You may have heard of it...

Notre Dame is covered in hundreds & hundreds of gargoyles. If you know your history you know that gargoyles were created to be rain spouts. They are the original rain gutter & much much more fun to look at.

So getting there right after the rain storm gave us the opportunity to see the gargoyles at work & oh my. Oh my oh my oh my.

See the drops? See them???

In the crowd were Gypsy women begging. I have no idea if it was a real necessity or if it was their "job". It was very very strange.

The Louvre

So many places we went, people were playing music on the streets & on the Metro & you name it pretty much. So on our way into the Louvre, you enter in this giant courtyard. There was beautiful classical music playing as though from a CD. We were just discussing whether it really was a CD or if we were going to turn the corner & have a full orchestra playing there & we turned into the next courtyard & voila...

So the Louvre is HUGE. As in you have no freaking idea how big that place is. We were there for hours. HOURS. And we just scratched the service. Barely.

And we just wandered, mostly with our mouths open at the things we were seeing.

I actually took very few pictures. Sorry. I was busy seeing...

Louis XIV

See his sword? It shows up again later.

Here it is! The sword! How cool is that?

 Almost as cool as Charlemagnes crown?

Or how about the Mona Lisa?

Just take a moment now...

She was pretty awesome. This young woman is another by Da Vinci & I thought she was lovely. Ever wonder who chooses what becomes a "master piece"? Why the Mona Lisa is so famous but this pretty lady isn't? Fascinating.

This is Zach. He's a docent in training at the Louvre & he explained the significance of this painting to us using his broken English & frequently saying "um, how do you say?" It was awesome.

So we finally stumbled out of the Louvre & into a taxi which took us to Aux Petit Riche.

A wonderful, fabulous, cozy, intimate little french (duh) restaurant which came highly recommended to us & it was so good. SO GOOD.

I wanted to lick my plate but I didn't want to be the gauche American (especially since there were already 2 of them at another table. Oy)

The food in Paris is amazing. Even the cheap food is amazing. And the chocolate? Let's just say I've eaten my weight in chocolate in the last few days. And since that is continually increasing, let's just say I've eaten a lot.

Blessings.