With some minor twinges about waste, we enjoyed our Nespresso coffee this morning. It was a very noisy night outside, lots of people, being Saturday night, walking by our building talking in loud voices. I woke to groups at 2:30am and 3:30am and then there was the garbage and bottle pick up, especially the bottle pick up!!! around 7am – yes – on a Sunday. The garbage gets picked up every day in this area.
We all tried out the showers, worked fine and then walked to the Boulevard Raspail to the Organic Food market. It’s near the flat we stayed at in 2011 so we had hoped it was open while we were here. It looks like it operates on Sundays and Tuesdays. We checked out the vendors before we bought anything and at the end of stalls we came to a fellow who was making potato, cheese and onion galettes. So of course we had to have some to help in the decision making process on what brunch food to buy. They were wonderful.
We picked up cheese, carrots & radishes to munch on raw, baguettes, croissants, a small quiche, a small tart citron and Caroline got a small bunch of daffodils to brighten our table. On the way back to the flat we ogled the windows of the many beautiful men’s and women’s clothing shops and shoe shops in this area – not for the light of purse.
After lunch and digesting for a while, Caroline and I walked over to St. Sulpice church while Bob stayed home to nurse a headache. Construction began in 1646 and wasn’t finished until the mid 1800s. It is only slightly smaller than Notre Dame. We then walked over the Luxembourg Gardens and went by the street Bob and I stayed at in 2011. Despite the overcast weather, the park was full of people. The tennis courts were full, there were pony rides for kids, and you could play in little sailboats in the large man made pond. It was lovely to see the park so well used.
We had been doing battle with the washing machine over the day, which allegedly also works as a dryer, but we finally gave up. On the first try, after the wash cycle, we put it, according to English instructions, into a drying cycle which turned out to be a 2hr45min wash cycle. I found a drying rack in one of closets, we we hope by tomorrow morning most things will be dry.
Dinner was at Fish la Boisonnerie – owed by Aussies. This is another recommendation from Caroline’s friend Ron. We ate here the last time we were in Paris, the food is still delicious. Interestingly one of the French staff is flying to Montreal on Tuesday to visit his 14 year old son for a couple of weeks and is planning to move there in two years.
And then there is another water saga. Seems to be a bit of a theme with the leak on the third floor of the Malta house and water coming into Caroline’s bathroom during the wind & rain storm on Malta. We were getting ready for dinner and Bob called out from our bedroom, “why is there water on the floor”, then we could see it dripping from the ceiling. We had heard people going up the stairs earlier, speaking English, and heard footsteps above us so Caroline and I knocked on their door. It was opened by a young woman, turned to be an American studying at the American University. She said the leak might have come from the dishwasher as they were just running it. She also said there had been water problems before. She suggested we knock on their door when we got back from dinner if it was still leaking as that would definitely not be be dishwasher.
Sure enough it was still dripping when we got home and as put a bucket I found in closet under the major drip area I could feel it was hot water. So back I go and Gabby invited me into the flat – it was gorgeous! We figured it was the hot water tank leaking. She called the landlord, who of course spoke English with a gorgeous French accent. The last time this happened Gabby turned off the water and stayed at her friend Ian’s place – Ian was in the flat with her, nice young man. So the decision was she would turn off the water and they would go back to Ian’s flat and meanwhile the landlord would make arrangement to have a someone look at it Monday morning.
It took a little while for dripping to stop but it did and we didn’t have to sleep in Chinese water torture room. Actually, Caroline volunteered to sleep on the sofa and would have let us her bed (queen) if the dripping didn’t stop.