One week

Next Friday my friend Claire and I are heading to Paris.  I am salivating, dreaming and planning………Really trying not to plan so we have lots of open time to just explore and experience, but at the same time it seems that Paris has become a very regimented city.  Many of the monuments and trip reports indicate that it is wisest to have tickets and confirmed entry times.  We have a couple of tickets and I am planning to use my wiles on the rest.  I am pretty excited as we are going to see a comedian that I have heard a lot about on the travel forums and just not ever gone to see, and it will be good to sink into classical music in the lovely gothic building of St Chapelle. Built by Louis the 9th to essentially be a reliquary for the crown of thorns when Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople relinquished it to him in 1238.. It hung out there until 1806 when it was moved to Notre Dame.  Currently it resides in the Louvre after a rescue from the fire of Notre Dame in 2019. But I digress, I signed up for this knowing that Claire is a Parisian neophyte and as such feel a responsibility to be at least a minimally literate traveling companion.  I don't think she cares as much about that as I  do.  But I have many of my “”facts” in a row, continue to cruise for new and interesting dining locations (I am always on the prowl for that perfect combination of price point and fabulous food) and am furiously trying to better my ear for French.  I don’t have too much trouble spewing what vocabulary I know, and I can get the general gist reading, but it is that listening………

My hope is that we have energy enough to hit up a market and buy some essentials once we get into the apartment.  And my problem will be I will want to race around the city and TAKE IT ALL IN. I want to go to Le Flore en Ille and take her to see my girlfriend ( the Eiffel Tower) And…….. But alas we are not getting any younger so we will see how much energy we will be able to muster. Until Saturday!