Pain au Chocolat - It's not just breakfast food! - July 5, 2010

 July 5

This morning we slept in again! And I thought I’d have trouble adjusting from waking up at 6:30 AM. It seems the time change nullified that silly problem right away :)

We headed down to a different bakery to try another pain au chocolat. We sat out on a bench and enjoyed our breakfast. Yesterday’s was better, but who doesn’t enjoy pastry and chocolate for breakfast?

Next we went into the grocery store. They are totally different than the stores you find at home. The food selection is WAY different. We managed to find some things we wanted, including a bottle of wine for 2,85 Euros (it had a silver medal on it!) and some picnic supplies :)

We dropped our stuff off at home and had a small break where Steve read his book. Yes! It’s true! He’s choosing to read!

Next we headed in the other direction to find the Laundromat. Our apartment does have a washer (it’s smaller than the sink--seriously)… so I tried washing some stuff in the sink and hanging it to dry last night… yeah… it’s not drying. Anyway, we found the Laundromat and will get around to doing laundry… later!

Conveniently we ended up at a boulangerie and Steve bought another chocolate pastry (it wasn’t called pain au chocolat, but it was still yummy!) for a little snack.

Next we walked down to the batobus station and bought a 5 day pass. We decided to take the round trip first to see what everything looked like from the river. 

It was quite fun to just sit and admire everything from the river. We also had our first up close experience with the Eiffel Tower.

   

                                       

View of the Louvre from the river.

I had thought that we would be able to either go inside Sainte Chappelle or Notre Dame when we returned from our river cruise, but we were too late. They close at 6! Maybe tomorrow! We wandered around more streets and looked in more shops. Steve picked up another baguette sandwich (apparently Steve can’t live on pain au chocolat alone), and picked up some caramels from the gourmet candy shop. I can’t wait to try those!

We gathered up our picnic supplies and our little mascot Carlos and headed out for another picnic on the Seine. This time we sat on the other side of the island for a different view. I have to say that Steve, Carlos and I had a fabulous time! Carlos had a bit more wine then he should have so he opted not to come out with us after dinner.

Settle down Carlos!

We caught the batobus again, and took a trip to the Eiffel Tower. Oddly, we were both underwhelmed. Not really sure why, but the tower didn’t seem nearly as impressive as the other buildings we’ve seen. Maybe we’re building people, not tower people? We went and had a seat on the grass behind the tower just in time to see the lights come on and twinkle. 

That was pretty cool. I love sparkly things! We decided not to go up the tower, and headed on the very lovely 5+ km walk home. Of course when we reached the island we needed to have an ice cream cone. I had the vanilla and it was like no other vanilla I’ve ever tasted! A great way to end the day.