Yay, we’re in Paris! OK, so the weather is not what I would call great, but who cares? (Steven does, but he’s been quite whiny about the cold lately…It is cold. I don’t like it.) We have to tough job of watching Seuss the cat and a beautiful apartment from which we can stroll around Paris availing ourselves of delicious patisserie treats. It’s a chore, but the cat must be fed.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and promptly hit the Casino, which is a supermarket, not a gambling den. We now understand the system (weigh your produce yourself; don’t take anything off the scale to bag it until you have paid; scan your receipt so the gate will open and let you out of the store) so we got out relatively unscathed except for spending enough so we needed the self-check monitor to help us. We’re mostly sticking to our 5 euro rule for the price of wine. To our uneducated palates, the wine is fine.

Sunday was death march day, of course. We decided to go back to Montmartre Cemetery and just wander instead of playing dead person bingo, since we had already done that (somewhat surprisingly everyone we had seen last time was still there). But first, we stopped and had galettes (Mom, these are gluten free) and dessert crepes at Lucette fait des crêpes. AND, we watched slim, young women wolf down what were essentially dessert crepe sundaes (after eating huge galettes!). Did I ever have metabolism like that? At the cemetery, we found ourselves looking for Jews, since not all of them (us) are in one section, and placing rocks on their graves. Then we stumbled upon a Jewish section, which quickly became very depressing as there were many Holocaust victims.

We cheered ourselves up by walking through Park Monceau on the way home. (Our friend Ellen loves the toilets there – OK -she likes the design of the building that houses the toilets.)

Monday, we took the sage advice of a woman we met in Santiago who is French and went to La Patisserie Cyril Lignac she said had the best croissants. Yes, they were. We also got buchettes de noel (what we would call yule logs) for dessert. When I do the math, I realize I will have to go on a double death march a day if I keep this up. Good thing we are only here for two weeks.

Today, we took a stroll along the Seine just because we can.

Then, I spent the afternoon and early evening dealing with an airline snafu. Steven laughs that whatever airline I am dealing with I name the worst airline ever. Today, it was American. Apparently, part of our return flight to the States was cancelled, but they didn’t notify us. Suffice it to say that it took several hours and insistence on chats and calls to get a flight in premium economy, which we had originally booked. However, it’s done now!

As an aside: French does not seem like a real language. It seems like people faking a French accent. Maybe I’m too immersed in Spanish.