The First Day, part 2

Sat eve: I’ll add to this blog as Number 10, my numerical place in the family. Katie is the lucky 7 and Susie the luckiest of all at 13. We did not visit the chapel of Ste Chapelle today, altho by the time we got to the boulevard St. Michel, and took pictures of St. Michael driving Lucifer out of heaven, the sun was still bright and we could see the spire of that lovely chapel about two blocks away. Instead we chose to walk a long block along the river and peek in at the booksellers and map sellers in their wooden stands along the way until we got to the bridge that crossed over to Notre Dame. There was quite a throng in front of the cathedral and several tents set up celebrating the festival of bread. We spent about an hour in Notre Dame, gawking at the rose windows, listening to a woman sing at a baptism, soaking up the sense of time stretching back to the middle ages. Afterward, we made our way back across the bridge to the venerable bookstore, Shakespeare & Co, where I bought The Poisonwood Bible, a book I’d been wanting to read for 10 years. Then we retired to a cafe for a coffee and a trip to the toilette and to map out a plan for dinner. I had cut and pasted a series of restaurant reviews from reader’s comments in the NYTimes and there was a little restaurant near the Sorbonne that had glowing reviews. So we figured out how to walk there (up the Blvd St. Mich, down the Rue des Ecoles, up the hill to the Polytechnic university, past a dizzy array of ethnic restaurants: Indian, Tai, Provencal, Russian, Swiss, Greek, Japanese, to a small narrow street where we found it: Les Fetes Galantes. What a find. What a jewel of a dinner. A tiny room about 12 x 15 at the most, with 8-10 tables and a harried waitress. For starters we ordered 6 escargots and a tart of 3 cheeses with Roquefort sauce. And a small pitcher of red wine. It was heavenly, especially the tart. Then came the main dish: Katie had 2 lamb chops and I had a veal cutlet with Roquefort sauce. Also a vegetable medley of 4 beans, mostly mashed, each with a different herbed flavor, and homemade potato chips that were soft, not crispy, and light. Dessert was chocolate mousse with strawberry sauce and mint, and a profiterole with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. It took 2 hours to eat and we were well satisfied when finished, but not stuffed. It was 9:30 and still light outside so we thought we could walk home in half an hour. That was a slight underestimation as we did not get home until 10. A pot of chamomile tea and a little troubleshooting on Skype with Jerry and his grandson Travis and we feel like we’ve got our problems with the blog page solved. Hopefully our long day of walking and my new novel will put me into a sounder sleep than last night. Until tomorrow, I remain as faithful as number 10 can be. a toute a l’heure!