I decided to go back to Paris another day. I went to the train station and bought my ticket, then realized I had twenty minutes to go find some breakfast. I walked around Chantilly until I found an open bakery and bought my favorite new pastry. It is like croissant dough folded with cream and chocolate chips inside. If anyone can tell me what it is called, I would appreciate it. I LOVE it. And the man in the pastry shop actually complimented me on my choice. Then I decided to get a baguette too, and he gave me a FRESH, HOT baguette. It was so amazing. Best morning at the bakery, EVER!
When I was walking to the Sacre Coeur, I came to a street FILLED with people selling stuff. It was the biggest yard sale ever! So I finally asked one of the people, “Do you do this very often?” and she told me that one day a year the city shuts down streets all over the city and lets people come sell stuff. So quite literally, the whole city is one big yard sale and I happened to be there the ONE day of the year when it happens. SO AWESOME! I bought the kids some really great toys and got myself a little bit of junk jewelry that I love. If I had more money with me and wasn’t already carrying tons of toys, I probably would have shopped for some clothes, I saw some nice stuff. The only bad part was I ended up with a HUGE bag full of stuff that I had to carry around with me all day. That part wasn’t so fun…
I wanted to go to the Sacre Coeur because it is beautiful and near some other sites that had been recommended to me. The sun came out just for me that morning.
I really wanted to climb to the dome, but it was a little expensive and I decided to wait and pay to climb to the top of the Notre Dame instead since I really wanted to see the gargoyles there. So I just walked around the building and took in the beauty (and stopped to eat a delicious pastry while I was there).
I headed over to the Salvador Dali museum (which my awesome friend Jessica Ward recommended). It was a really neat exhibit – except that they played this creepy new age music in the museum. I really like to take in art without a soundtrack that I didn’t pick… but there were still some awesome things to see.
I loved the Bible illustrations – this one is Jonah and the Whale.
Okay, so I have always liked Dali’s clock paintings, so here is a clock sculpture. I also read a little about why he used clocks so much, so here you go if you are interested – He was making commentaries on the passage of time and how it is supposedly concrete, but in life sometimes time passes quickly (like when we are entertained or happy) and sometimes it passes slowly. Also time seems to pass more quickly as we age. So he was indicating that time is not actually concrete, but very fluid and not consistent. Hmm… I thought it was interesting.
He created a drawing for each of the twelve tribes of Israel that I found very interesting as well.
There was a whole series on knights and Arthurian legends which I loved. It is amazing that so few lines can create a pictures so intricate.
Now for a fun story. I went to the bathroom before leaving the museum, and in my pocket was Chris’ mp3 player with all my maps of Paris on it… and as I was leaving the bathroom it flew out of my pocket and landed in the toilet. I snatched it up as fast as I could, but it stopped working. NO MAPS for me! Or a clock. Or a way to call anyone. Sigh. I had to change my plans a little. I had just missed one train back and had three hours before the next one, and no maps to get me to the places I had planned on going. So I decided to head back to the metro and just go somewhere that there was a metro stop. I had passed a metro stop earlier and felt confident that I could at least get to the metro and also back to the train station. I mostly was feeling bad that I broke Chris’ mp3 player… and felt gross about the bacteria on the player…
On my way to the metro, I found a creperie and got a crepe filled with ham and cheese. YUM.
When I went back passed the front of the Sacre Coeur there was a street performer, and he had a HUGE crowd. He was actually pretty funny, but mostly I was amazed that there were this many people in Paris today and that they all were watching this guy perform.
I took the metro to the Parc Monceau (also recommended by Jessica). I had never been here before and it is so beautiful! It reminds me of a mix of Stadt Park in Vienna and Central Park in New York (only smaller). There was tons of grass to sit on or kids were running around, a nice playground, and also beautiful sculptures, bridges, a river, a pond, a merry-go-round, it was really nice.
Luckily there was a clock in the park too, because I did not have a watch. I wandered around the park until I figured I needed to start heading back to the train station.
There were some nice places with statues and beautiful gardens planted. It was honestly one of my favorite places I went in Paris. If I lived here, I would come to this park all the time.
SO! I headed back to the train station with 45 minutes until my train was going to come. The metro went straight there, so I figured no problem! Okay. So the metro is about three floors below where the trains actually are, so I wound my way up staircases and tried to follow signs for tickets since I needed to buy one, and it felt like all the signs were pointing different ways. I found two different ticket machines; one did not appear to sell tickets to my destination and one did not take my credit card or cash. I felt like I should just go upstairs to where the trains were, but then I thought, “I need a ticket first!” I finally found a ticket station, but it appeared to be closed. The man there told me he did not speak English and told me to go to the information booth. I pulled out my ticket from that morning to show him where I wanted to go, and he just waved me away. I went to the information booth and no one was there! Finally I headed up to where the trains were, not knowing what else to do. I found another ticket station and bought a ticket and ran to my train… and missed it by two minutes. Sigh. Not another train for an hour. I felt bad because I knew Chris would be waiting for me, knew I couldn’t call him, was mad at myself for not coming upstairs sooner when I felt like I should, grrr…
Then the saying, “C’est la vie” popped into my head (“That’s life!”) – which is funny, because I don’t speak French. I couldn’t change anything, so I cheered up and headed outside to find a cafe where I could buy some hot chocolate. I hung out looking at the train station and headed back in when it was time to get on my train!
Once back I walked through the forest in Chantilly to get back to the paintball field where everyone was waiting for me. When I related my story, the first question I was asked was, “How long did you wait before grabbing the mp3 player out of the toilet?” I guess some people would have been too grossed out to grab it…
We headed out to go to the store to buy food, but the store was closed. I remembered that we had driven by a little Italian place that was open, so we headed back there.
Asparagus stuffed ravioli. SO yummy. And we all got dessert too, and all the desserts were delicious. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture.
Here is my scarf I bought at the farmer’s market in Chantilly, and I am wearing a new dress I bought at a shop in the town too. It was quite an adventurous day!
