(oi. the last couple of weeks have been crazy busy and i haven’t had time to sit down and finish our travel posts. but now i have some time, so hopefully i can get one or two of them knocked out. these will probably be shorter than the previous ones because the events are not as fresh in my mind. oh well)

bonne année (happy new year)! after an uneventful new year’s eve, we woke up sunday morning to a new year in a foreign country. strangely enough, it’s not all that different! since most things were going to be closed this day, we decided we would go to the only place that would be open on a sunday that also happens to be a holiday: the city cathedral. the gorgeous Notre Dame. but first we had to eat.

we left the hotel around 11:30 and headed for the Ile de la Cité, the bigger of two small islands in the middle of the Seine River. when we got there we looked for a good place to eat. we found a small corner cafe that had the words “AMERICAN COFFEE” painted loudly on the side of the building. it’s funny to me that this place would think it would gain business by painting such words in the heart of espressoland, but i guess a lot of tourists just HAVE to have coffee they way they would back in the States. when we sat down, we were one of three occupied tables in the covered veranda area of the cafe. about half an hour later, the place was packed and we were literally elbow to elbow with three other tables. apparently there’s no conception of fire codes in french cafes. we each had a croque madame sandwich, but these were different than ones we had before. these had a poached egg on top and that made the sandwich even better!

after lunch we moseyed on over to the cathedral and it was……breathtaking. literally. i remember walking around the corner of a street and bam! there it was. it stopped me dead in my tracks and i just stood there in awe of the building for a bit with my mouth open. i don’t think that i have ever been so affected by a piece of architecture before in my life. Notre Dame is truly a remarkable site to behold. we walked around outside the front of the cathedral for a good while, took some pictures, and just tried to take it all in. we then found the line to go inside and secured spots in it. while we were waiting, there came a strangely familiar sound behind us. english!! there was an australian trio (a guy and two girls) a few spots behind us and we saw a chance for someone to take a picture of us in front of the cathedral. the guy was happy to, and his friends held our places while we had a kodak moment. we found out that they were from canberra and were traveling all over europe.

we soon found ourselves inside the cathedral and it was almost as breathtaking as the outside. it’s just incredible to be in something that gigantic and old! even more amazing was standing there and thinking “how the heck did they build this thing without cranes” or other modern equipment. it’s just remarkable. after we had done our tour of the inside, we found ourselves back outside and started to walk around the side to see the famous flying buttresses and to walk along the river wall.

we walked to the end of the island and happened upon something we had not even known was there or expected to see. there was a monument that was sort of underneath the island. as we came upon the steps, we tried to make out what the information plaque said. after some attempt at translation, we were able to see that this place was a “memorial to the deported.” apparently this was the place where the Nazis had gathered Jews, gypsies, musicians, etc. in Paris and the surrounding area to deport them to concentration camps. in the underground memorial there are several holding cells and other rooms, as well as a candle for each person that was deported from this place, over 200,000. on the walls above the doorways, ruggedly carved in red letters, are the names of the camps that french persons were taken to: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Drancy, Dachau, Buchenwald. the memorial is very cold and harsh, a fitting tribute to what went on in this place over 60 years ago. leaving the memorial, above the exit portal is the phrase, “Forgive, but do not forget” in the same, chilling red letters that the camp names are written in. in comparison with the noble sites of Normandy that we had seen a few days earlier, this memorial was a stark reminder of arguably the worst event in human history and was very sobering.

after we climbed the narrow steps back up to street level, we decided to walk to the other island in the Seine, the Ile de St. Louis. there was a large crowd gathered around a street performer, so we watched him do crazy stunts on a bicycle for a couple of minutes and then just strolled along the streets of the oldest part of Paris. i don’t know if i’ve said so in previous posts, but my favorite memories of Paris are the times when we just leisurely walked among the streets and backroads of the city. you get so much more of an idea of what daily Parisian life is like by doing this than just visiting the highly trafficked, overy priced tourist areas. we found a small patisserie and got some very excellent snacks (i definitely miss the Parisian pastries, and i don’t even like sweets that much!). having been on our feet all afternoon, we went to a nearby park to sit down for a while and enjoyed watching a little girl run around in her little pink coat. we then made our way back to the train station, stopping in and out of a couple of the really tacky tourist shops to see what was there. these are the places where you can by a small, copper Eiffel Tower for 6 euros (ridiculous!) or other just plain stupid trinkets that are specifically aimed at dumb tourists.

when we got back to the arrondisement where our hotel was, it was dinner time. we had passed by a chinese restaurant several times since we had been in Paris and decided to give it a try. little did we know that new year’s day is apparently a special day for chinese people. even when it’s not chinese new year’s. we were one of three non-chinese parties in the place, and we were definitely not at seats of honor. we were actually the last non-reservation table to be accepted, and we were at a table with folding chairs! it was odd. the food was excellent, though, and was probably the best chinese food i’ve ever had. sarah ordered roast duck, and i ordered pineapple chicken, but we both mooched off each other’s dish. very good stuff.

after dinner, we strolled around our district a bit and found “our” pastry stand. we wished we had found this place earlier! once we found it, though, we definitely made a tradition of making this our last stop of the night. it had the best (and cheapest!) pastries we had while we were there. i got the same thing every time, but sarah mixed it up a bit. i don’t remember what she got the first night, but i got a framboise beignet. basically that’s a french sweet bread (kind of like…..a donut…..but not really at all) cut down the middle like a hot dog bun and stuffed with raspberry or strawberry jam. so. freakin. good. i couldn’t believe it.

we ate our goodies on the way back to the hotel and settled in for the night.