10-5-08 – Paris, by Jodi

Today we make sure we are in the dining room at 8:30 to get a jump on our drive into Paris. Kristen once again provides an elegant breakfast, same as yesterday except a different selection of meats and cheeses and she treated us with a small tray with Belgium chocolate bars and nougats. All our being spoiled, piggy breakfasts, come to an end today. We know we buy breakfast on our own from patisseries in Paris.

We check out and profusely thank Kristin for the wonderful stay; she truly made it perfect. So far, we both count Bruges as our favorite town to visit. Today is a bittersweet day. After the 3-½ hour highway/toll drive into Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, we say goodbye to our little car. We enjoyed everything about it – how it drove great, got 55 miles to the gallon, roomy, held all our luggage and other stuff like food and water we stored in the back seat. Drove up to the car return, signed some papers, and got a courtesy ride into the RER train station in the airport.

We bought our 5-day metro pass for unlimited use of Paris transportation. Hopped the next train for the 35 min ride, changing metro stations twice to finally arrive at our hotel at 2pm. Oye, I’ve forgotten how many stairs are in the metro stations, it’s a killer when you’re juggling luggage. It is raining off and on, but we still decide to venture out after checking in.

We grab a baguette sandwich to share and hop back on the metro to the Pompidou Center, the modern art museum. Now, Terry and I have been to some pretty fantastic modern art museums like the MOMA in NYC, the New Pinakothek in Munich, and the Tate Modern in London. But the art in the Pompidou was so bizarre; we just didn’t get it. We walked around one whole floor and looked at each other and said, “let’s go, we’d rather see the streets of Paris.” Plus the museum was way too crowded; it was free admission Sunday. So rain or not, out we went, back to wander the Rue Cler neighborhood where we are staying.

We checked out the restaurants along the way, heading toward the Eiffel Tower. We turned a corner and there it was, just blocks from our hotel. Awwwww, nothing says Paris better than seeing the Eiffel Tower, I never get tired of just looking at it and taking tons of photos. The rain starts again and we choose a different walk back to settle in until dinner.

At 6pm we walk back down to the Rue Cler to eat at Tribeca. Terry got a large mushroom pizza, me roasted chicken, mashed potato and salad, pretty good. Back to the room to rest up for tomorrow – Disneyland Paris!