Day 2

What to say. We went to the heart of the city- l'Ile de la Cite to be exact - it is the island in the Seine from which Paris grew outward. Notre Dame is huge- we whisked through. There were a lot of people tooling around. Sainte-Chapelle has the most incredible stained glass windows, and was constructed to house the Crown of Thorns and other relics. That is a thing among the churches, however they moved la Couronne d'Epines to Notre Dame. la Conciergerie is a huge building that has been used for a variety of administrative purposes throughout several centuries. It was a significant prison during the Revolution- big names too- Marie Antoinette and Robespierre hung around some creepy cells avant de la guillotine. Apparently she is rumored to have attempted to make a break for it called the Carnation Affair. I think that's funny. At that point, people were getting executed for wearing the wrong length pants, and she thinks she can a) break out of a cell b) not be recognized and c) survive revolutionary paris even long enough to get out of it? Anyway, maybe she didn't even try that, but they moved her to an even creepier cell because someone maybe had suspicions.

Ok so I had a glorious sandwich for lunch. The sandwiches in France are the best EVER- I am a sandwich hunter if you didn't know, and I caught a beautiful bit o' ham n gruyere. But our waitress was teasing us and told Taweh that he looked like her daughter and was very fun and... oh jolly. She was fantastic. But as she was talking with us, a pigeon zoomed into the restaurant, and I do mean zoom- buzzed and ruffled several people, and decided to spend the lunch hour with us. I didn't get a picture, but I've never seen so brave a bird.

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Ok so we went grocery shopping and then a few of us went exploring and we ended up all along the Seine, la Tour Eiffel, et the Champs-Elysees. I ate a crepe filled with chantilly (whipped cream) and then we horsed around taking pictures. I'm solidly into Beaujolais.