versaille

today, wednesday, we went to versaille. we were both disappointed. maybe it's because of the cloudy, rainy, cold weather. maybe it's because none of the 300 fountains were on. maybe it's because there were no flowers and the hall of mirrors (where the famous treaty was signed) was under renovation. i just wasn't enchanted.

i got that the place was huge. i also got that the garden was massive. and that's about it. the 13 gift shops weren't even that interesting.

i'm not saying we shouldn't have gone. i just think we should try it again on another trip, hopefully with better weather.

i remember (with tim's help) what we did yesterday. we went to a little street called rue cler. it had the most wonderful little shops--cheese, wine, fruit, meat, fish (pee-yew), olive oil, chocolate, bakeries, flip-flops, etc. the visa card got a work-out there!

after rue cler, we headed to napolean's tomb. that place is huge. it really gives new meaning to having a "little guy" complex. sad how he ended. there was a museum of military history attached and we would have liked to have seen it, but us stupid americans couldn't figure out how to get in. the staff tried to help but they just kept waving their hands in the direction of moscow and said "that way." oh, well. just another reason to come back.

oh, we ran into patrick, the man who owns our apartment, today. what a nice guy. he introduced us to the little old granny who owns the antique shop next door. (who knew that was an antique shop?) that lady was so thrilled to meet us. i thought she was going to pinch our cheeks and offer us warm cookies and milk. we'll have to poke our heads in and say good-bye friday.

oh, good news for me. i'm pretty sure we're staying in the purse district. every shop on our street sells purses. wholesale.

tim is truly becoming european. yesterday he put on his orange and yellow striped shirt with his gold cords. so far so good. until he added his green sweater. don't worry, i took a picture. he's also getting into panhandling. there are alot of musicians here with their hands/hats/instrument cases/cans out for coin. yesterday, while i was trying to figure out where we were, tim decided to get entreprenurial. he stood on the corner, with his hand out, just whistling whatever came out. no tune in particular (at least not that i could tell). unfortunately, it didn't pay off anything, but it was fun.

speaking of panhandling, yesterday we found an orchestra playing a concerto in the subway. it was probably 8 violins and several violas. they sounded great. they've been playing that metro stop for 15 years and have 3 cds. so we bought one. too bad there's no cd player in the apartment.

now we are on the hunt for the fabulous falaffel we had a few days ago. we're in the jewish quarter right now. tim fits in nicely.

au voir.