Orsay What....

A picture taken from the window of our bedroom

We realized that we didn’t post anything yesterday. It wasn’t because nothing happened, it was just everything we did was mundane. Thursday will be our laundry day to avoid the crowded Laundromats on Saturday. Most Parisians have washing machines but dryers must be a luxury. They all flock to the Laundromat to dry their clothes.


We figured out how to use the French laundry and did a pretty good job of getting our washing done in 2 loads which cost us about 10 euros. We were smart this trip and brought a fold up duffel bag so that we could take and bring our laundry to and from the Laundromat in this instead of bags, backpacks, etc. See we are starting to figure out this traveling stuff.

A couple of other things we have discovered. We found Diet Coke with Lime—my favorite! BUT their recipe must be different than our recipe as it is sooo lime’y that we have to dilute it! I never thought I would see the day that I wouldn’t opt for a diet coke with lime over a regular diet coke, but it has happened. Way too much lime for our tastes.

We have noticed this trip that Paris has instituted a new way of cleaning the streets. They open up the water drains and water gushes out and into the gutters as a way of cleaning all the gutters. Water will be running full force downstream in an effort to wash away all the gunk, urine, etc that accumulates in the gutters. UNFORTUNATELY no one has told all the cars that park on the street that they should move their cars so consequently all that is getting cleaned are the tires and all the crap builds up at the back of the tires! A good idea to wash the streets but someone needs to clean the drains and sweep the garbage up first before the water comes on to make it really effective.

And one more important fact everyone needs to know. There is a TV show here where different, everyday people go to other's homes and a meal is prepared by the homeowner. They rotate homes and menus and then they rate each other. So we have been watching it and they always give the name, age and occupation of the different people. Well one lady has had us befuddled. Her occupation was "toiletieuse" which we assumed was the person who waits outside the toilets and takes your money. Well we finally googled it and she is actually a "dog walker or dog groomer". So much for our French translations.

Last night we stayed around our area and decided to eat locally for dinner. We had been eyeing this Italian restaurant that we smell in our apartment every evening. It smells delicious and figured we would give it a try. We know they eat later here and nothing opens until 7:00PM so we headed there at 7:00PM. The door was wide open but the place is deserted. I yell, “Bon Soir” and finally a man comes from next door and tells us it will open in 30 minutes. Okay so 7:30 it is. We walk around, look at all the other restaurants that are waiting to open and show up again at 7:30. Another “Bon Soir” and this time we can hear them eating and laughing in the back room. No one showed up to welcome us, no one came out to ask us if we wanted to eat. So we waited another 5 minutes outside, walked back in and yelled “Bon Soir” again and still no answer. They are still eating and laughing and at this point we decided to venture on and find another Italian restaurant nearby.

We had a delicious dinner of bruschetta, caprese salad, lasagna de maison, and Jim had his favorite Pasta Carbonara. A delicious meal and very filling. As we walked home we passed by our Italian Restaurant and lo and behold, the door was wide open and still NO ONE was in there eating! I guess they don’t need the business.

Today we ventured over to the Musee de Orsay again. It is one of the loveliest museums in all of Paris. It used to be a train station and when they stopped using it as a train station they then converted it into an art museum to house all the works from the 1800’s on. The Louvre has the art before that period.

The Orsay has all the art pieces from the masters. You’ve see them all in the books. The Orsay is relatively small (the size of a train station!) You can walk all of the halls in a couple of hours and say that you’ve seen everything. I have heard that if you walk all of the halls of the Louvre, you would have hiked 12 miles (it’s HUGE).

What makes the Orsay so nice is that it has ample seating on all levels. Any floor you are on there is a place to sit and observe. We followed Rick Steves Orsay tour and again weren’t disappointed with his tour.

We feel like we are good friends with Monet; we’ve been to his house, we’ve seen most of his art, we’ve stood on the bridge overlooking the lilypads. Same with Renroir, Van Gogh, Vermeer, etc. We would be better off re-taking our Art Appreciation class in college now, instead of when we were 20 year-olds!

Tomorrow is the Festival of the Gardens and what we understand is that we can view many public and private gardens and see how they are run. They also mentioned that if we had sick plants we could take them there and they would tell us how to get them better. Do you think we really understand what is going on? Print this post