Scavenger Hunt day... Metro to the Abbe de 'l Eppe stop (they have a street named after him) and Deaf School (I can never remember the French name, but its INJS....Institut National de Jeunes Sourds) We find it! And go into the office - they speak only French, but we try sign, and it kinda worked. We got that the person who does tours went to lunch, and we could either wait, or also go eat lunch and come back. We see the statue of Eppe, and kids signing through the gate and hope we get to see more.
We have lunch right across the street, and we find that a boiled egg with mayonnaise is a standard as an appetizer on every menu we've seen. We're tempted, but don't bite. Djon mustard is on every table... Its good, but not a staple.
We try to order something French - I guess salads and sandwiches are French because we see a lot of them too. I go for the skirt steak and whipped potatoes with cheese (I think it was an equal blend of both) - and the steak is ok, but just meat, not really seasoned. Dana gets the same, but with fries (FRENCH fries) and Patti gets something that we all think sounds interesting, ground flank steak with egg. So we're expecting some kind of egg/steak skillet scramble or something. But when it comes out, it looks like a hamburger. Ahhh... The egg is the binding agent in the burger. Its just a BURGER - and it tastes exactly like my steak - in need of some seasoning.
We head back over to the school and there is a different lady at the front desk. We figure that she wasn't telling us that the lady who does tours was on lunch - the regular receptionist was on lunch. We talk to her, and she says in very clear English that "I don't speak any English"... So we sign again. She says no tours. Dang! But there was a name of someone on the website that said to contact about tours - I had done so twice - but had no response, so I show her the email address of the woman I contacted, and she picks up the phone.
She talks in French, but signs to us, "Tomorrow morning, 10 (held up all 10 fingers)" - we got it! Awesome! So we're going to get a tour after all! We're stoked.
On with the scavenger hunt - we head a couple of stops south to the catacombs. I thought it would be cool to see the underground graveyard (and would literally be "cool" since its underground). We find it, but the line is very long, maybe a 2 hour wait at least. We're not up for it. Too hot, too long, we have other things to find.
Next stop, Moulin Rouge - we walk out of the metro stop and its just right there! We don't go in - I didn't realize that they had matinees until later. We just took some pics outside. We cooled off at Starbucks - that place knows how to keep a place cool - and then we walk a couple of blocks down to a different metro stop for the train to take us to the Musee Rodin.
The Rodin Museum is where the Thinker is, also "The Kiss", and these hands that I love (love, love, love) - but don't know the name of. If I ever have a mind to by a piece of art to display, it will be these hands. The gardens there are also beautiful. Throughout Paris they trim their trees so that they grow in squares, the tops of the trees look as square as a hedge row. We saw some of the workers trimming them yesterday - up in a cherry picker just whacking at them.
Back on the metro and we take it over to the bridge where the Statue of Liberty is. Its not the easiest place to get to by metro - we hike quite a ways to the bridge and then of course stairs down to it. Its interesting that it faces its much larger sister statue (this one is only 35 ft tall) in New York. On this trip I saw them both.
Back up the stairs, across the bridge, and back to another metro stop. Patti heads back to the apt - her heel spurs are not happy with her and we have hiked a lot between sweaty metro rides... Dana and I get off at the Concorde Place to walk through the Jardins at the Louvre. The Place Concorde is where the guillotine was placed during the French Revolution. At the time they had just torn down a statue of Louis XIV - and now an obelisk is in its place. The whole plaza is immense - I try to imagine it full of screaming people.
We walk up through the palace gardens (Jardin des Tuileries) - it looks like you like palace gardens might - the same square trees in formation, sculptures, fountains - it looks like they use it like their version of Central Park. There are green folding chairs everywhere that are actually pretty comfortable. Dana and I sit for a spell in the shade, next to a statue of an odd shaped woman. We think her head is too small.
We head up toward the Louvre, and then hit a store so Dana can get a Tour de France shirt for her baby brother (who isn't a baby). Dana laughs at me because when I ask for the shirts I say "Tour de Force" - hmmm. I know I didn't just make that up, and its not from Star Wars...
Time for dinner - Patti was going to grab something on the way back... We check out lots of cafe's on the way and we find the same thing on all of them - sandwiches, salads, steak and fries, boiled egg with mayo... We understand now what Amy meant by being tired of chewing. We're tired of eating out, making decisions, paying too much for the food lottery (never know what you're going to get). We're walking and talking about food, and the people in front of us turn to ask if we're looking for a place. They have had the same experience - they went to someplace last night where they paid 35 Euro each and got a bad plate of pasta. Yikes - lost the food lottery. BUT they found a really good place just a couple of blocks away - and its reasonable. We go - we actually find it... And they have a nice variety of salads, sandwiches, steaks... Same stuff. I'm about to give in and go in and Dana says, "what looks appetizing, what would you order?".... Nothing. Ugh. She's right.
We're almost back to the apt by now and we just decide to go to McDonalds again - and this time I'm looking forward to it. We know, we know... Eeew. But its cheap, its COOL, they have ice, and we know what we're getting. Except that I get a sandwich we don't have in the states. So see, I had French food. They have these new tech ordering stations there, like touch screen ATMs - its helps with the language barrier. You just click on what you want, pay with your card, your order gets sent to the kitchen, and you pick it up at the window. Couldn't be easier.
We eat there and cool off, no rush to get back to the apt. We stop by a grocery store on the way back hoping to find some pastries for the morning. We don't - that's another thing we expected to see and have not, little pastry shops. We saw one on nearly every block in Germany - but in Paris, the home of the tarte and the eclair... Nothing. We do find something that gets our attention - a kiddie jar full of Djon mustard. Its the kind of thing we got as kids with the jelly jars - you know, jelly, a favorite of the kids... But a kiddy glass of mustard? There is a cow on it having a picnic with his "Lait and moutarde" (who you callin a moutarde? becomes our giggling catch phrase) ... Dana and I each bought one. :)
When we get back to the apt, we learn that Patti had McDonalds too. Great minds...
Wednesday we leave for London - and its cool that we get to take the chunnel and go under the ocean (or through it?). We have the morning in Paris, and our tour of the Deaf school at 10!
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