sunday. a quiet day in parisien life, when all is closed. not a single grocery store was open as we walked around throughout the day!
to be frank, in the morning i felt like crap – i don’t know what’s happening but i think i maybe catching something similar to what karmun has/had. we shall persevere despite that. (and i’m sure it doesn’t help that the night before i got like 6 hours of sleep on our lumpy and uncomfortable mattress. jetlag is messing with my heeeaaad….)
prior to leaving the right bank, we stopped by what essentially was the first coffee/food place we saw, and got a “petit dejeuner”, which translates into orange juice, toast, and a great coffee. far too expensive, but actually ends up giving you a decent kick/boost to the day.
crossing over the sienne, gazing at the supper sunny louvre, we came up to orsay to find an enormous line. saying “screw this”, we launched into the first attempt to find the luxembourg gardens. it was unsucessfuly as after about an hour of walking we ran into the sienne (you know the area where all the painters/posters/old books are sold? that area, but not as far down as to be near notre dame). as we walked through the vendors, whoops, we ended up essentially back where we started.
at that point we both were pretty tired, and my body rebelled against walking. we sat down at a nearby cafe and spent at least an hour (i think maybe more) just chatting and people watching and slowly nursing our beer and coke (guess who had what ;-) ). the people watching was especially great – we had a nice pair of seats with our backs to the building, and no one in front of us (just the sidewalk/intersection), and so (a) it was safe to lean back; and (b) lots of people passing by meant that we spied on a variety of french women, men and tourists.
after that much needed break we decided to get to the luxembourg gardens.
ooh man, that was an insanely long walk. i’m pretty sure that i’m sick because karmun held out far better than i did. on the way we found a great bakery that was surprisingly open, and they had a great deal – a sandwich and a drink for 5 eu. that’s pretty dang reasonable, especially since the sandwiches were fantastic, and very big. we picked those up and barely completed our walk to the gardens, where we fell down on the basically nearest available bench in order to eat, and relax.
we spent about an hour on that bench, just relaxing, watching people walk by and play tennis. a lot of really adorable french kids were running around and karmun was trying to take photos of them being all cute. i read my book.
after that, again much needed, break we continued to walk through the park to get to the metro – way too exhausted to walk the hour back to the hotel. at the end of the day, we hit home by about 6pm, and i was DYING. everything hurt. the stupid, stupid mattress and the pillow are driving me mad; i feel like i’m the princess and the pea because karmun snoozes throughout the night, making me jealous, where as i toss and turn.
eventually i went down for a nap, getting up at 8:15 – karmun was going to go walk around (its sunny here until 9:30pm… so 8pm is the greatest hour for photography) – and this should tell you a lot about how crappy i was feeling, i WASNT SURE IF I CAN GO TAKE PHOTOS.
i did get myself out; we did walk around; and i did give up first. she told me upon return that she got some briliant photos of the louvre; and i do not doubt that because the sunsets are magical around here. i just feel bad that im such a party pooper.
i did sleep from about 9-10pm until 7:30am; the problem is that i woke up non stop and still have a headache on morning of day 4.