Day 9
It was good to be back in Paris today! The weather was lovely and we had a very nice day. Today, was our climbing day. We slept in and decided to make our way over to Notre Dame after stopping to pick up a few picnic supplies.
Here is our favorite cheese shop and our favorite cheese shopkeeper:
(I have to admit, the smell of the cheese shop was a bit unnerving but all of the cheese tastes SO good that I can overlook that, um, "cheesy" smell) 
With picnic in hand, we went to Notre Dame to try to get a fair weather picture from the top (to match our rainy ones from our winter trip; thought they would make a nice contrast hanging on the wall). It was overcast but clearing so we had hopes that by the time we got to the top, there would be some nice blue sky for our photo. It didn't quite work out that way, but the views were nice regardless. It's kind of like that saying about pizza - even when it's bad, it's still pizza, and that ain't half bad! So, even when it's bad, it's still gothic gargoyles overlooking Paris, and that ain't half bad :D
On a side note: Oh. My. God. 400+ is A LOT o f stairs. Especially when they are winding in a tiny circle, adding dizziness to the tiredness! We got to the top and spent plenty of time taking pictures so our legs could recover.
The stairs:
Not a perfectly clear sky, but not half bad!
Cuz you can't have enough pictures of the Eiffel Tower 
Took this picture from our torsoes up so you can't see our jelly legs :D
We then walked over to Shakespeare and Company. Last time, it was closed when we finallly found it. I looked and looked for a book to buy - I couldn't remember most of the books I needed from my lists though and the last thing I wanted was another book to add to my shelves of "I'll read this someday" - you English people know the shelves I'm talking about! :D
After that, we decided to give our legs a break. Although we were going to Sacre Couer for our picnic, we would take the funiculaire up. That is such a fun word to say! Say it with me "fun-ick-you-laaaaaair!" :D It was a bit deceiving though - we still had to climb up quite a bit to get to Sacre Couer. When our legs finally got us there, hardly anyone was sitting on the stairs. Great - more room for us! We picked a good spot and settled down. By the time we had unpacked our picnic, it was much more crowded and we felt tres Parisian.
More stairs!
A feast fit for two knights!
The view from our seats:
After quite a leisurely picnic, we walked to the Dali museum nearby - what a treat! I fell in love with the bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland. Lucky for our bank account, they had no reproductions - not even on the smallest scale, in the gift shop. The only way you could get any Alice was on a ginormous man's tshirt. hmph.
There were no cameras allowed in the museum, but I found this online:
You can't really tell from this that her face is made of vines and her hair and hands are bunches of roses.
I really loved the Dali work. I had kind of forgotten about him from those undergrad art classes so it was a really pleasant re-initiation into his themes of power, time, gender, etc
For the evening, we wandered around Monmartre quite a bit. We took this picture especially for ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
venkman71. We passed a shop that had pictures of clowns formed out of women's rear ends. Yes, literally "ass clowns"
We also found a few of our favorite spots from last time. There was a fountain with a statue of St. Denis holding his head in just the tiniest park tucked away in this neighborhood. It certainly was a striking difference from last time - this day it was full of kid's playing. I had the distinct pleasure of having a soccer ball kicked into my shin - but at least the boy was polite and cried out an enthusiastic "Pardon, Madame!" when it happened. What exactly do the French do to their children and dogs that they are all so well-behaved? We saw so many dogs in restaurants that just sat quietly under the table - you would never even know they were there! But I digress...
... we found this park and then headed downhill to try to find the Moulin Rouge. It turns out we went down the wrong side of the hill and got quite lost. We finally figured out that we were "off the map". As we stood there puzzling over our book, a kind elderly gentleman asked us where we were going. With his help and a few stops on the metro,we found it eventually -just as they turned on the lights!
We had done so much climbing that day that when we were leaving the metro, my legs refused to work and I fell up the stairs! I was a bit sore for a few hours but felt better by the next day.
By the time we got back to the Isle St. Louis,, it was 8:30 or so - we decided to sit outside and have a drink and I would try to catch up on journal entries (well, I got the one about Marseille done, at least!) I was definitely the odd man out sitting outside the bar with my laptop on, but it still felt better than sitting in the hotel updating it! We then had Morroccan for dinner - Y.U.M.
We were completely uninitiated in what to order but a nice couple next to us pointed us to some things to try. We both had Tagines - mine was chicken with figs and almonds and Cris had chicken with lemon and olives - both were great! I think we might have followed it up with ice cream as well. :D
The assortment of salads that was so good, we ate it all before we remembered to take a picture:
