Ile de la Cité and 25,000 steps!

Tuesday, July 06, 2010 Day 6

We bought a phone! I think it is much more phone than we need, and it is in French, so we will have our work cut out for us until we learn how to use it. Fortunately we can download the instructions in English. We finally settled on a Windows HTC HD2. It is called a HTC Touch in the U.S., I think, but here in France the clerk did not recognize the “Touch” designation. We thought we had an opportunity to get an iPhone 3Gs this morning. The clerk who served us said there were two iPhones in stock, but we didn’t have the proper bank credentials. Orange requires that they deduct our payment directly from our bank account. We returned home, ate lunch, located the proper bank document and returned to Orange with our passports for ID. We were served by a different clerk this time, who told us the same thing we heard yesterday – that there are no iPhones, and won’t be for at least 10 days. We did not press him – that is hard to do in a different language, and the female clerk with whom we dealt earlier was not in. We finally settled on the Touch and brought it home to charge while we went on our afternoon excursion.

Between our Orange visits, we bought some lettuce and radishes at the Rue de la Convention market, and I considered a pair of 5€ harem pants, but decided against them. I would have bought a bra but the vendor didn’t have my size in her 10€ bin. On the way back home we bought a bottle of cheap wine. Since it was about 11:00, the clerk asked us if we were going to have the wine for lunch, and when we said “oui,” he got a bottle from the cooler instead of the room-temperature wine we had originally selected. Since we had chilled wine when we got home, we felt obligated to follow through, and we each had a glass of wine with our lunch. I had cantaloupe and some 6-grain bread which we bought from a local boulangerie this morning and which the vendor kindly sliced for us. It is quite good. I finished with cherries, which we also bought this morning. Roger had tried to buy grapes from a fruit and vegetable boutique yesterday, but he had none. This morning at the market there was only one vendor who had grapes, and they were rather sad-looking. But we did manage to find some at another fruit and vegetable boutique. I have observed that Roger enjoys mostly those fruits which are available year-round, such as apples, oranges and grapes. I tend more toward the seasonal fruits, and I’m eating cherries like crazy now. The melons are also wonderful, and the apricots from the fruit and vegetable boutique are fantastic – like those I remember from my childhood, picked right from the tree, and very unlike those miserable specimens available in the supermarkets in the southern U.S.

After lunch, when we had plugged in our phone, we left for an adventure. We took the subway to the Ile de la Cité and walked around Notre Dame Cathedral. We did not go in – we went in when we visited Europe some 26 years ago and decided to wait and see the cathedral at Chartres in a couple or three weeks when we go to Versailles. From there we crossed half of the Seine via the Pont de l'Archevêché and made our way to St. Sulpice Church to see the largest pipe organ in Paris. From there we went to the Luxembourg Gardens, which are really lovely. They are some 100 acres or more of gardens, including long alleys of trees with benches and chairs. It seems to be de rigueur for an individual to use two chairs – on in which to sit, the other in which to prop one’s feet. We were quite tired by this time, and enjoyed the gardens from a bench for 15 minutes or so. We saw a gentleman stroll past us who wore a shirt that read Texas Tech Football.

From the Luxembourg Gardens, we walked toward Montparnasse and home, looking along the way for some artisan ice cream. We were out of luck, but I saw a place which served something in the way of a smoothie, or so they claimed. I chose a lemon mint drink, which they blended with ice and put into a cup. It had very little or no sugar, but I found it quite refereshing. Roger didn’t care for it much at all. We also got a small square of lemon cake there. A few steps more along the street, we came to a kiosk selling soft-serve ice cream and Roger bought a chocolate cone. We shared the cake, which wasn’t bad. I didn’t tell Roger, but the icing stuck to the top of the wrapper and I got all of it! We continued to forge homeward and arrived at the apartment about 6:00. We were exhausted, as well we should have been. I don’t know about Roger, but I walked over 25,000 steps today.

Our phone was charged when we got home, so we spent another hour or more trying to get it set up and reading the manual in English on the web. Isn’t internet the greatest thing?!! We finally realized about 8:00 that we still hadn’t eaten supper yet, so we had leftover salmon and the last of the greasy potatoes from the other day. I had a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and radishes with a vinegar-and-oil dressing. Not bad. We finished with a slice of the 6-grain bread and some butter, and a Dove Promise each.

World Cup Football is on again, with its incessant and irritating Vuvuzelas – Uruguay vs. the Netherlands, which are called Pays-Bas (low countries) here. Actually, that’s what Netherlands means in English, too – Nether being below, or low, and lands being country or land. I just never think of it that way.

Roger arranged our adventure today, so I think it will be my turn tomorrow. I haven’t decided yet where to go. I’m thinking that we might visit the Rodin Museum – it is open late on Wednesdays, although I don’t think we will go late enough to take advantage of the extended hours.