Mostly for Karis

We decided to spend today in Paris. I love Paris. On our walk to Saint-Chapelle we saw the view above.

Once we walked into the church it took our breath away! The stained glass is absolutely stunning.

The restoration signs were not so stunning but then what do you do?

After enjoying the beautiful stained glass we took the long way to Notre Dame and stopped in some stores.

It seems like the Parisiens know visitors come here for the Eiffel Tower.

This shop is one my mom would have loved, full of garden decorations.

I thought the kids would like this and bringing home a picture of a puppet is much smaller than actually bringing home a puppet.

We finally got to Notre Dame and we didn't get lost even once! Our last trip 3 years ago was awful, we (read I) got lost a lot. Yesterday when we left the apartment we went out and took a left. Walked to the next street and took a left. Then at the next street I took another left. :)

We were fortunate enough in our timing to see part of a mass in Notre Dame.

Ok, so all these come from Notre Dame and I wanted to put them out there, but really Notre Dame is a church and you can't talk while you're in there and I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of history about the cathedral. What I will do is list a few random things we have learned in our few short days here.

#1. (And I don't know how long this list will be) When making the last cup of chamomile tea and putting sugar in the tea make sure it's SUGAR and not SALT. SALT does not taste good in tea and looks an awful lot like sugar.

#2. When crossing the street the people on the little motorbikes or scooters go past stopped cars. They won't run over you if you're not crossing in a crosswalk but they will stop abruptly and honk their little clown horn and glare. A lot.

#3. Use the bathroom before leaving any establishment that actually has one. There's no telling how far you'll have to walk to find one and you may have to end up taking a taxi back to the apartment when you get tired of looking.

#4. Ipods really do make the metro trip you're taking seem shorter.

#5. I don't wear anything above my knee anymore, but for future reference, those little bubble shorts worn with leggings look ridiculous. And everyone's wearing them here.


That's the end of the list for the moment but I'll keep updating it as the week goes on. This is the view from the Notre Dame bell tower.

Before we left the kids asked us to take a few pictures of specific things. Escargot was one of those specifics. So, Karis, in one post I have your picture of the Eiffel Tower that you wanted and snails. I love you sweetie!

We must have passed 50 restaurants before we finally decided to eat lunch. This one turned out to be the perfect one for us. Toward the end of our meal a French woman came and sat just in front of us on the right. Shortly after a little birdie came looking for food. She tossed a piece of bread on the table a few times and the bird kept on coming back for more.

To those of us with a simple mind this was quite entertaining. She kept trying to get the bird to eat out of her hand but it just wouldn't.

And finally it did take it right out of her hand! She was so happy!