J'ai deux amours....

mon pays, et Paris.

Yes friends, we finally made it to Paris ! My apologies for not blogging sooner, I actually sat down to write this post last night, but it was somewhat lacking in the creative writing department ("then we saw a church, then we had lunch"), so I figured it'd be best for all concerned if I came at it fresh. Phil is off to work, I've had my morning croissant, so let's get to it!

*** Warning, this is a picture heavy post. Proceed at your own risk. ***

Our flight out of Montreal was at 8:00PM local time Saturday night, and it proceeded without too much incident. Actually, there was a bit of a scare when the flight attendant pointed out that my Aeroplan number (I redeemed some points for my ticket) and my passport weren't technically in the same name (Aeroplan only uses my initials), but I did eventually make it on the plane. Here I am, casting on for a Clapotis (come on, it was inspired by Parisian women, how could I not?) in the waiting area. More on the knitting when I get back to Montreal, though. As usual, I packed far too much knitting (Phil already commented that there is "Wool Everywhere!"). Whatever.


We arrived in Paris at 8:45AM local time, bright eyed and bushy tailed from our 3 hours of sleep sitting straight up and being kicked in the back by the kids sitting behind us, and took the navette and the metro to our hotel, which isn't far off from the Arc de Triomphe.

After dropping off our luggage at the hotel and resisting the urge to crawl into bed, we headed back out again (yesterday was Phil's only sight-seeing day) towards the Chapelle Notre-Dame, which Phil hadn't seen on his last trip here in November.

What can I say? It's Notre-Dame! The Seine and the towers and the gargoyles and the stained glass windows and everything! It was très awesome, and not tooooo crowded. We even got to enjoy an organ recital that afternoon (OK, enjoy is a fairly loose term, but we heard the organ playing).

We were first in line to climb one of the towers, but when we noticed that the summit was closed until later in the afternoon, we decided to head over to the Sainte-Chapelle instead.

Can I just say? Dudes... It was breathtaking. The stained glass in this chapel is UN-believable. I've never seen anything like it. Apparently it's quite the accoustic heaven, as well, so I'll see if there are any concerts there while we're here. Maybe they need a soloist? (Hey, a girl can dream, right?).

From the Sainte-Chapelle we visited La Conciergerie, where many of the condemned, including Marie-Antoinette, were held before being carted off to the Guillotine during the Revolution. Phil is currently re-reading Dieu et nous seuls pouvons, about a family of executioners, so he found this museum quite interesting (as did I).

From there we walked back to Notre-Dame and waited in line in the freezing cold (yes, it's 7 degrees here, but it was incredibly windy yesterday) to climb the tower.

The view was wonderful, you could see all the way to Montmartre. But, you know, it was a bit cold. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to climb the Eiffel tower today...

By this point it was about 4:00PM, so we just wandered along the Seine, through the Square Jean-XXIII and across the pont de L'Archevêque to l'Île Saint-Louis where we spent some time browsing the book vendor stalls. Then we walked down to the Seine itself, and I got a little knitting time in.We went back to Notre-Dame to hear the organ recital, and then we decided to call it a day. We headed back to our hotel to freshen up and then had dinner in a little restauraunt in the area, Madame Tomate (I had Cassoulet, it was awesome).

And that's it, folks! Phil is off to work, and I'm sitting here in my pajamas, blogging when I should be getting ready to head out the door. Paris awaits, and I've got a big day ahead of me. I want to see the Eillef Tower, the Hôtel des Invalides and the Musée d'Orsay today. Better get crackin'

Happy Knitting Everyone!