Day of the (mostly) dead

As the title implies today we went places that were full of mostly dead stuff, other than the tourists. And the weather took a turn for the colder with highs in the mid 50’s. Brr!

We started the day at Pere Lachaise Cemetery (and yes, there’s an app for it – in fact there are two. I got the free one). We saw the graves of Heloise and Abelard, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, the guy who invented rigid airship (he beat Zeppelin by a year but failed to get published) and we met a bad ass cat that warmed up to Katie and tried to take a piece off my hand.

Next up we metro’d off to Les Invalides to visit Napoleon’s tomb and tour the Musée de l’Armée. For extra death credit we went down into the crypt and saw yet more dead historical French guys. Actually, it was all quite impressive (I’d never been before) and makes me realize once again how lacking in excessive celebration of pomp and ego, at lead in so far as ginormous structures go, we Americans are. I mean the Jefferson Memorial is cool and all but put it up against Napoleon’s Tomb and what do you have? Yep, epic fail.

After that we stopped at a neighborhood cafe for quick refueling and enjoyed more amazingly tasty food. Then it was back on the metro to the Arc de Triomphe where we once again gave praise for our Paris Museum passes (yes, they cover the Arc de Triomphe, thus allowing you to avoid that long line at the ticket counter). We made it to the top in pretty sprightly fashion due to all of the practice we’ve had at our apartment and after being wowed by the view Katie had a new adventure: using the boy’s bathroom as the women’s bathroom line was crazy long and there was one toilet in there and there was NO LINE for the men’s room. So there, men! Yes, we women can in fact go potty in your bathrooms just as well as in our own! It was, needless to say, a very empowering moment for Katie.

After relieving our bladders, we headed off to see Notre Dame but took a wrong metro turn and ended up at some OTHER Notre Dame at which point we officially called it a day and headed back to our home away from home. this evening we are snacking on cheese, wine and baguettes and doing laundry. Ah, the simple pleasures. And the simple exhaustion.

Tomorrow we are off to Giverny and hopefully we will take a second whack at the (correct) Notre Dame. Pics of the trip are here.

Oh, but here’s our big news of the day: we have finally decided what we are going to do with our bonus days. We are going to Amsterdam, courtesy of our new BFF Stephane, our personal concierge (he came with the apartment – not literally, we were put in touch with him after we rented the apartment). I’m pretty jazzed as i’ve never been and there’s lots to see AND we are staying in fancy schmancy hotel in the center of Amsterdam. It’s fun staying in an apartment but I do like to be pampered.