Due to fancy pants at the VIP lounge (We were not dressed appropriately), Gillian, Jana and I had a much nicer evening of a walk around the Latin Quarter, including a cafe overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame, and an over touristy greek restaurant in one of the bustling alleys. Emily came over Friday to spend the weekend with us, and we booked tickets to Caen (Normandy) for this weekend, Sete (French Riviera) for the weekend after, and finally found reservations for Grenoble on July 31st. Emily and I had a little bit of an adventure meeting up with other MIT peeps in La Republique to go out Friday night. Transportation, put lightly, took quite a while, and we ended up getting a beautiful view of dawn on the Eiffel Tower as we rode the Noctilien (night) bus back to the apartment.
The weather was finally nice on Saturday, so we bought picnic goods (rotisserie chicken, bread, fruit) and spent a couple hours at the Luxembourg Gardens. This was the type of lazy Paris summer I had envisioned – people spread all over the grass, either in little bubbly groups, or alone, sleeping or people watching. The sky was a perfect blue with a generous dose of cumulus clouds, and the trees and grass were vividly green, thanks to the rain. This is my first summer that I haven’t spent in California, and thus, out of the sun. At this point last year, I was spending every weekend at Santa Monica beach, and was bronzed and happy as a clam. I love the sun, and it was good to prend un petit bain de soleil this weekend.
After more ambling, we decided to see watch dusk over the eiffel tower and see it light up. Same scene at the Champs de Mars above the tower – kids and families, teenage girls who had a bit too much wine and were a little too eager to share their vocal talents with the world, and young men offering roses to Jana (“romance is not dead!”). At 10PM, the tower scintillates – lights go off at random and make the structure sparkle for about ten minutes. As the sun sets, the golden glow of the back lights on the tower become brighter and brighter, until you’re struck with this awe-some pillar of light.
The majority of Sunday was taken up by a walk/hike in the bois de boulogne. The park is huge, and I’ve been wanting to see the lakes they have for a while. It was equally as gorgeous as the day before – densely wooded grounds with auto-free roads and paths to walk on. The banks of the lake had lots of sunbathers, picnickers, and women wearing silly shoes. One thing I’ve noticed about Parisians in “nature” is their ridiculous outfits – who seriously goes out for a stroll in their stilettos and silk mini dress?
We stopped in the Pre-Catelan gardens on the way home (also houses the Shakespeare gardens). Emily said it reminded her of a fairytale. There were perfectly colorful and manicured grounds with children and families all over the place.
The rain came back today, but I got in a run in the morning before it started pouring. At work, I started playing around with Aptana to start the design of my “demand response” web app interface. I’m learning more CSS, but need to get the Air plug in, and Flash, so I can start working on those aspects of the application.
Have to get to bed, as I’m getting up early to swim with Rasto again. As always, check out pics on “travels”. Bonne nuit!
