Paris-Outside!!

Finally! After almost three full days stuck in this room, I was able to venture outside today. I cannot even describe the joy and relief I felt, breathing in fresh air and walking in the Paris streets.

We are still a bit weak, me especially, since I have basically eaten a few bits of cereal and pretzels since all this started on Friday morning. In fact, the last real meal I had was Thursday afternoon.

Anyway, today we went out and walked over to the Luxembourg Gardens, and then sat in some of the chairs they have scattered around, and read our books and just basked in the day.

I wish I had photos for you, but since we were both a little out of it when we left, we forgot the camera. I am especially disappointed to not be able to show you the wonderful sign we saw across from the gardens. It was for a very small museum called "Musee de la Poupee".

Now as far as I can tell, Poupee means puppet or marionette, but I'm sure you can appreciate Steve's and my feeling how very on-the-nose this sign was without any translation, since for us, this apartment we're in has been our own personal Musee de la Poupee.

One note on the language front: my French is pretty good, and I can get us around, ask questions, order, and pretty much understand most of what comes back to me.

As we were getting up from our chairs in the the garden today, a woman approached us to ask if we were leaving. I said we were, and we smiled at each other. Feeling quite proud of myself, I decided to make a friendly remark as we walked away about how good these particular chairs were (they were two of the few chairs in the garden that recline).

I smiled and said: "These are the best chairs". She smiled back, though with a bit of a confused look on her face. As we walked away, I realized that I had in fact said: "These are the best shoes".

Oh well, I blame the dehydration.