Day One
Took the 10:50pm out of Logan last night and the flight could not have been more uneventful...we even managed to doze a bit. Landed at 11:35am Paris time and it was pretty much smooth sailing. We were moved into our flat in the Marais by 2pm and already enjoying vacation! We headed over to a Turkish place for lunch where Stuart had a la Grecque and I had a chevre sandwich. Mmmm. After a trip to the grocery store for some drinks and snacks for the apartment, we were almost good to go. I only had to pop by a nearby camera shop and buy a usb cable as mine was sitting at home on my desk. Obviously the master packing list is still a work in progress even after all these years. Around 8pm we walked a few miles down to Indochinatown and ate outside at our old favorite Lao Lane Xang on avenue d'Ivry and then took the Metro home. As a side note, Indochinatown is Stuart's creative name because while others call it Chinatown, there are very few traditional Chinese restaurants there...it's mostly Vietnamese, Loatian, Thai and Cambodian. It was still fairly light out at 10:30pm...must be Paris in the summer. We watched some TV while eating chocolate and then crawled into bed, completely spent from a long two days of being mostly awake.

Day Two
We both slept very soundly after all that travel and walking, but managed to get up around 10am, in time for listening to the streets waking up outside. The Parisians are no strangers to sleeping in a bit (Stuart says this is his kind of place!)...and while if this were NYC, things would be hopping by 7am, that is not the case here. Even many of the neighborhood bakeries do not open for business until mid-morning. Can you imagine if Dunkin' Donuts didn't open until 9am?

First stop today was a local cheese place which sells one of my favorite cheeses, Thym Tamarre. From there we walked to an outdoor marché at Place Monge and stocked up on even more cheese, sampled some Lebanese goodies and then headed over to the Latin Quarter to eat outdoors at a brasserie on Boulevard Saint Germain. The weather was picture perfect. After lunch we checked out a bookshop, strolled past a pretty church (Notre Dame), stopped at a bakery we remembered from 2007 and then headed back to the apartment for a short "jet lag" nap. Two hours later, it was time to start thinking about dinner!

Oh wait...we already had provisions. Dinner and the remainder of the evening consisted of sitting around the living room reading Paris guidebooks, listening to all the activity and music on the street (we're only about thirty feet away from a square and there was live music) and eating cheese, bread, butter and bakery treats. We also worked out all the details of tomorrow's all-day driving trip to the Loire Valley. Tanked up on all sorts of wonderful treats, we tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour to be well rested for our upcoming adventure.

Day Three - Awesome "Day from Hell"
You're probably wondering how you can have an awesome day from hell. Well, we did. We are calling it the curse of the car. Thankfully, by the time I wrote this account (the following day), the curse had been lifted and our vacation was returned to normal. The first thing I should say about renting a car in Paris is...DON'T. It is not for the inexperienced or for the faint of heart. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love to drive and how much experience I have behind the wheel in all sorts of circumstances...LA, NY, Boston, Europe, Puerto Rico, D.C., etc. I thought I had done it all...I was wrong. Imagine the worst American, white-knuckle city driving you can. Well, notch up the insanity level and then add thousands of mopeds screaming in and out of traffic including in between cars on all roads...even highways. That's Paris driving for you. Did I mention the horrendous traffic? It's something we never noticed on foot, but we certainly noticed it while driving. It took us the better part of an hour to get out of the city...and we were going in the opposite direction of rush-hour. Quite the stressful start to the day, but as we got further and further from the city, the traffic eventually melted away and we were happy to be heading out to the countryside to visit a few chateaus. The nice thing was the speed limit. 130km/hr (that's 80!) on the highways. Sure wished I had my convertible with me! The day was spectacular so far. I'm sure you're wondering where the "day from hell" part comes in...don't worry, I'm getting there.

So off we went to chateau country. Our first stop was in Chambord. There we walked around the grounds (the chateau's surrounding lands had been turned into a very large park), but we didn't go inside. After Chambord, we drove by Château de Chaumont and then on to Château Royal d'Amboise. In Amboise, we ate at a cute little restaurant outside gazing up at the castle and it's walls. Very nice. We didn't go inside Amboise either. Many of the castles have been heavily restored and so we decided to admire most of them from the outside rather than going in to see them in a way that really isn't reflective of how the castles were when they were built. After lunch, we headed over to Chateau de Chenonceau and this is the one that we went inside. It was beautifully built across a river and definitely the most picturesque. Thankfully with some careful planning (after noticing the quickly-darkening sky) we saw all the gardens first and then went inside. The timing was perfect as the rain started once we were under the cover of the castle walls. We enjoyed the original-tiled floors and the recreation of the ornate rooms. It really is unfortunate that the chateaus were all so heavily damaged during the revolution, not to mention WWII. It was still raining when we finished so we put our running sneakers to the test in order to get to the car not completely soaked. The thundershower passed quickly though and the sun was out again before long.

Well, you must be wondering how this day could be bad...it was only a little traffic and some rain. But here's where the curse really kicks into gear. We hit traffic heading back into Paris (again, going opposite rush-hour ????). And I don't mean just a little slow down...I mean over an hour to go just a few miles. It took us close to two hours to drive what should have been the last fifteen minutes into the city. Truckers were parked on the side of the highway in disgust. Talk about stressful. I only wish this was the end of my story. After numerous wrong turns and Stuart commenting, "This is all very pleasant, but if you think you're in Paris, you're wrong" after I had headed into the suburbs by mistake, we managed to navigate our way into Indochinatown for dinner and even found a place to park without too much trouble. But by this time it was after 9pm and we wanted to bring the car back before the garage closed at 11pm so that I wouldn't have to get up and return the car first thing the next morning (jet lag makes it hard to get up early). It seemed like we had more than enough time. But dinner was so incredible (more on that later) that we lingered longer than we realized and didn't leave the restaurant until 10:15pm. It was then that we remembered we had to not only get across half the city, but also fill the car with gasoline all in 45 minutes. Crunch time. Off we went...made it to the gas station near our apartment with 20 minutes to spare. IT WAS CLOSED!!! Now we only had about 20 minutes left and no gas and still about two miles away (city driving) from the garage. Did I mention that Stuart hadn't had time to use the rest room in our haste to leave the restaurant and that he had indulged in two large bottles of beer? This will come into play shortly. Ok, so here we are trying desperately to find another gas station. 15 minutes. More driving. 10 minutes. WE FOUND ONE! Ok, 55€ poorer...that's about $80 to fill 3/4 of a tank of a small car...I think that officially means I won't be complaining about gas prices in the US any time soon. 5 minutes. Thankfully the parking was fairly close at this point. Ok, here's the bad part. We were on a one-way street and there was a funky turn into the parking garage(where you keep to the left instead of the right) and I MISSED IT!!!!!! Nothing to do except keep driving and there was no way to get back except to go around a 1/2 mile long city block in grid-lock traffic. Suffice it to say that by the time we got all the way back around, the garage was long closed. We were so exhausted at this point I couldn't even cry. It was just an awful feeling. You would think that at 11pm on a weeknight that they city would be quiet. Wrong. Everywhere we turned there was traffic, traffic and more traffic. We couldn't seem to get back to the apartment and now Stuart, whose bladder had been uncomfortable before, was about ready to crack. He was desperate. You wouldn't think that it would be that difficult to find a bathroom, but it proved impossible. We finally pulled onto a small side street and Stuart bolted out of the car and headed into a seemingly deserted alley (note the word seemingly). Only about fifteen seconds in, it proved not to be a deserted alleyway, but a major cut-through with people in suits and dresses passing by. After about three starts and stops and worry about being a crazy American arrested for you know what, he came back to the car, having bought himself at least a little bit of time. It was at this point that it took us another 45 minutes to wrestle our way through the car-filled, one-way city streets and back to the apartment. The only saving grace was that we managed to find a free overnight parking spot only a few minutes walk from home. It was the day that wouldn't end and it finally seemed to be over. It was almost midnight and we were thoroughly spent...almost delirious with exhaustion (note the word delirious).

But wait...there's more. The curse of the car actually continues into tomorrow.

Day Four
So much to my dismay after being so close to getting the car returned last night, I had to get up early in order to return the car before 9am. Knowing how things had gone the day before, I wisely decided to give myself some extra time. Let me preface this all by saying that about 7:15am there was a MASSIVE rain storm. It only lasted about twenty minutes, but the skies opened up. It was like buckets and buckets coming down. So when it stopped, about 7:45, I headed out to the car. Take a moment here to remember how I mentioned being delirious with exhaustion last night at midnight. Imagine my shock when I walked up to open the driver's door and noticed that the window was not there. At first I thought what you are thinking...that it had been smashed overnight. But no, there was no glass on the ground. Yes indeed, in my stupor the previous evening, I had left the window all the way down. Yup, brand new car (it only had 300 miles on it when we picked it up) and the door handle was filled with water, the seat was sopping wet, the entire driver's side of the car was dripping and there was a giant puddle on the floor. You can only imagine me frozen in my tracks with my jaw hanging open. And there I stood, not knowing what to do with the clock ticking away. There was nothing to do. I got in the car and allowed my butt to soak up the water in the seat during the drive over to Hertz. Meanwhile, I opened the windows and turned on the heat to try and encourage evaporation, but that really didn't work. Now normally, the city streets are fairly empty at 8am, but thanks to the curse of the car, everyone seemed to be out driving this morning and rue Rivoli was packed with stop and go traffic the entire two mile ride. It took me 1/2 hour to get to the parking garage where, relieved, I got my time-stamped ticket to show that I had returned on time. Whew. I parked the car, but now had to figure out how to hide the fact that it had been flooded before I went into the office to tell them that the car was back. Thankfully, Hertz is in the restaurant wing of a shopping concourse connected to the Louvre. There was a cafeteria there and I was able to commandeer a mostly-finished roll of paper towels that one of the workers had left out on a table. I went back to the car and started wiping up. I got the water dried off the steering wheel, door, dash, and shift area before trying my best to sop up the floor. I managed to get it almost passable with the rest of the paper towels and also by raiding a nearby trash bin for more water soluble material. At least the car was parked in a dark section of the garage and now that I had dried the hard surfaces, you could only sort of tell that the floor was all squishy with water. Finally, I went in to the office to officially return the car. I lied and told the lady that my large bottle of water (I actually brought an empty one with me as a prop) had spilled on the floor of the car while I was driving that morning and that it was very wet. She didn't seem concerned and said that it was just water and that it would dry. She was right of course, so I tried not to feel too guilty. The desk agent went out and checked the car to make sure all was well, and I was relieved to get my "OK" for having returned the car in one piece. My troubles were over and the curse of the car was lifted.

It took a little while to get myself back into relaxation mode after the rental car saga, but around 11am we started our day. We walked up to Marché Popincourt on Boulevard Richard Lenoir and also went to Marché de Belleville. Both markets were much better than the one at Place Monge and we got more cheese, some cooked ham and paté which we were planning to use as lunch. But on the walk back, we stumbled across a cute and busy little bistro called Pied de Fouet and decided to let serendipity take over. We ate there for lunch and decided to use our provisions from the market for dinner instead. I had a nice piece of steak in a creamy sauce with potatoes on the side and Stuart had leg of rabbit with homemade fettucini-length egg noodles.

I said earlier that I would mention last night's dinner at a later point so I'll do that now seeing that I was on the topic of rabbit anyhow. Last night we found what will probably now be our favorite Chinese (Szechwan) restaurant in the city, Chez Dong. We started with the cold chicken in a picante sauce (poulet coup la sauce piquante). Outstanding! Then my main course came...Nouilles Tan Tan. It was an amazing Szechwan-spiced noodle soup dish with ground pork. Lastly, Stuart got a hot pot of rabbit stew/soup which also had all sorts of goodies in the broth like dried chili peppers and two kinds of amazing wild mushrooms. We were in awe of the cooking and not only was all of our food spectacular, everything that everyone else was getting also looked incredibly tasty. We will definitely go back to Chez Dong one more time before we leave the city.

Now back to our day. Tonight we went out for a walk around 9pm and really explored the various streets and alleys in the Marais and then ate our snacky dinner as planned around 10pm. We finished that off with chocolate and will probably have trouble sleeping as a result.

Day Five
Aaaahhhhhhhhh. Got to sleep in today! I think we're finally feeling completely free of jet lag. Of course it is difficult to go to bed early here when you don't eat dinner until after 9pm. I guess we'll worry about getting back on a regular schedule when our holiday is over. For now, we'll be on vacation time.

We started the day with a bit of excitement when I realized that my credit card was gone. After a bit of panic, we realized that I must have left it at the grocery store last night because that was the last place I used it. We stopped there on our way out for the day and sure enough...the cashier had it. LUCKY!!!!

We hopped on to the Metro and got to Clignancourt around 12:30pm and wandered around there looking at the antiques. I FINALLY had a crêpe and stuart had a meat sandwich. Afterwards we walked the ENTIRE way back to the apartment making various stops. One stop we made was to see my crêpe-making friend Michel over on rue des Martyrs whom I had met last year when I was in Paris with my Dad. He remembered me and even had our pictures hanging on the wall (I had printed out pictures of us with Michel and sent them to him). We didn't get back to the apartment until almost 6pm so we had just enough time to wind down from the excitement of the day before our 8:30pm dinner reservations at L'Ambassade d'Auvergne (www.ambassade-auvergne.com). Dinner was incredible. We each had the lentil appetizer...lentils cooked in goose fat with onions and bacon. For the main course Stuart had sausage and potatoes and I had the duck breast and mashed potatoes. They weren't just ordinary potatoes...they had garlic, butter and cheese mashed in. Need I say more!!!! To round out our meal, I had a strawberry-rhubarb compote over a large, round and thin shortbread cookie, topped with goat cheese ice cream. Stuart ordered chocolate mousse. Who does mousse better than the French. NO ONE!! The waiter showed up with a massive mixing bowl full of the heavenly treat and served some to Stuart and then proceeded to LEAVE THE ENTIRE CONTAINER on the table. We couldn't help laughing. The people next to us who spoke a little English were wishing him good luck with finishing it. Needless to say (even with my help), he barely made a dent in it seeing that we were about ready to POP even before dessert arrived. I think I forgot to mention that we also had bread served with a choice of butter or paté. How cool is that! Thankfully the day's eating was slightly offset by the fact that we walked over 8 miles.

Day Six
Got up late today. It was Sunday so we chose to see the Musée Carnavalat right around the corner from our apartment figuring it wouldn't be as busy as some of the other places around the city. The museum is a history of Paris created through pictures and art. The museum is divided by century and was a very pleasant surprise. We loved it AND it was free!!! In the afternoon we hung around a little and then went back out to Indochinatown for dinner. After walking all over and perusing numerous menus, we couldn't resist eating at Lao Lane Xang again. We met the owner's nephew from L.A. who comes to work for three months at a time (then he has to leave the EU for at least 24 hours before being allowed back in again). He was very nice and loves being in Paris.

Stuart wants to specifically remember this meal since everything was so wonderful and the choices mixed well together so this next part is for our own personal reference. But feel free to read through it and of course order the same thing the next time you are in Paris.
1) Beef brochettes with dipping sauce and vegetable (served over noodles...probably vermicelli) (Vietnamese)
2) Duck with basil in red curry (Lao)
3) Duck curry in coconut milk with pineapples (with vermicelli added to it by me) (maybe L19)
4) Fried Chicken wings with dipping sauce (Lao)

Day Seven
Left around noon and headed over to the 7th to eat at chef Christian Constant's les Cocettes. We have no idea who Christian Constant is, but apparently the Parisians do. This place serves meals in personal-sized cast iron pots called cocettes. We found it slightly overpriced because you're paying for the experience, but the cooking was excellent so we were very glad that we tried it. I had pied au porc (pork foot) which was a ground pork mixture served atop little hollowed-out potatoes. Stuart had a large, minced lamb meatball stuffed with goodies and both of our dishes were excellent.

After lunch we did one of the walks from a big deck of cards called City Walks Deck: Paris — 50 Adventures on Foot and that was a lot of fun. Walked through les Invalides, past all sorts of divine shopping and lastly a bakery that's been in business since 1802. Yup, that's 200+ years. One of the things that I find so amazing about Paris is that it is just filled with places like this. I suppose that all of Europe is amazing to me in this way...quite different from our young country.

After our walk in the hot sun, we were ready for a break. On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store to stock up on drinks. Then, Stuart decided to try and purchase a wine similar to the one he had at l'Ambassade d'Auvergne the other night. The first wine store we stopped at must have taken us for idiots because the clerk didn't have what we were looking for and tried to sell us a 15€ bottle of white wine (the one we were looking for was RED). We left there and went to another wine store where we got what we wanted and it was less than 5€.

Speaking of rip-offs, we have now experienced the wedding band trick. Didn't fall for it...but almost. Of course, we had never heard of the wedding band scam until now, so perhaps it's a new one. The crooks have to get creative in a tourist area I suppose...but of course this doesn't explain why we keep seeing different versions of Three-Card Monty all about town. I mean...who the heck falls for Three-Card Monty? Are there really people on the planet who aren't familiar with this game/scam? Really??? But I digress. The wedding band trick consisted of us walking down the street past a large, gold wedding band-type ring on the ground. We didn't notice it, but apparently a man walking in the opposite direction did. We thought it was a coincidence at first. He picked it up and gave it to us even though we protested that we didn't need a ring. He was insistent and friendly and took Stuart's hand and put it on his finger. We sort of brushed it off as someone being overly friendly and kept walking wondering what the heck we were going to do with the thing. Anyway, we hadn't walked twenty feet when he "decided" that he should probably ask for something in return...a few euros for something to eat. It was immediately obvious that it was a scam and Stuart (with great difficulty) got the thing off of his finger and gave it back to the man who really didn't want the ring, but was insisting on €€€ instead. Yeah, right. We just walked away and ignored his continued requests for money. Very slick. And a bit of a wake-up call that we should probably be a bit more vigilant. We are so used to traveling that we forget that we are seen as "tourists" in the eyes of these local scammers. I do always hang on to the money as added protection because they never expect the woman to have the valuables, but still, we should be just a little more aware.

After getting back to the apartment so that Stuart could have his vacation siesta, we made reservations for dinner at Chez Michel in the 10th. We took the Metro there around 8pm for our 8:30pm reservation. It was a cute little place near Gare du Nord, on a side street off of boulevard Magenta. The meal was superb and very representative of cooking in the Bretagne region of France (in the north on the ocean). They brought a complimentary snail appetizer to our table and I tried snails for the first time. They were actually very similar to clams, but the texture was a bit different so I only had a few. Stuart really liked them and he finished the rest. We both got the fixed price meal...for starters I had the toasted goat cheese on crackers and Stuart had foil steamed mussels and clams. So wonderful! For our main course I had a cheek of beef stew and Stuart had a veal and pork soup/stew called Kig-ha-farz. It's described by an on-line reviewer as a pot au feu of sort, with pork jowls (the Kig bit) and curious doughy dumplings with sweet raisins (the Farz bit). Both were excellent and my beef was so tender that it could have been eaten with a spoon. Dessert was a caramel butter thing and then the cheese plate. The cheese plate was ALL YOU CAN EAT!!! They brought five cheeses over on a very large slate tray and left it on the table! We started quietly snickering because I was definitely the wrong person to set an all you can eat cheese plate in front of. Lucky for them, I was so stuffed from dinner and dessert that I couldn't do the damage that I normally would have been capable of. Between the two of us though, we had quite a number of slices and it was all very, very good.

After dinner we strolled all the way back to the apartment. Today we walked 5-1/2 miles...again...we hope it offsets some of the eating.

Day Eight
Stuart had a nice charcuterie plate in the apartment before we left for our day's activities. First stop...les Invalides for him to look at the WWI and WWII exhibits. While he did that, I headed over to le Tour Eiffel where I knew I could get a tasty gauffre (waffle) with chantilly cream. It was indeed very tasty, but they definitely skimped on the cream. I don't have a photo because Stuart was back at les Invalides with the camera. This was very unfortunate because when I was walking back to meet him, I came across the most amazing sight! Parked in the middle of a small side street blocking the road for about five minutes was the meat delivery truck. Ahhhhh...for those of us who love meat and love the way they offer meat for sale and then cook meat here, this was a beautiful thing. Inside the truck were sides of all sorts of meats hanging from hooks off of the ceiling. The truck was making its rounds through the city delivering to super markets. The meat all looked divine and so fresh. Funny that I was the only one in the middle of the street gawking into the truck though. They definitely don't deliver meat through the front door in the U.S.

After picking Stuart up at les Invalides, we strolled back to the Eiffel Tower so that we could look at it together. From there we walked across the river to get a better view and had fun watching everyone swimming in a giant fountain outside of a huge palace-like building which is now a museum. It didn't seem to matter that the sign said keep off the grass and no swimming because there were hundreds of people all over the grass and a bunch of people in bathing suits running around the fountain having a grand time. It's been getting slightly hotter with each passing day and it's pretty warm in the sun and quite humid. We have been taking two showers every day...one when we wake up and another when we get back to the apartment in the afternoon all sticky.

For dinner we made reservations at l'Entredgeu in the 17th. It's not right in the center of town and the metro ride took about 40 minutes. In retrospect we should have taken the metro only most of the way, but then walked the last mile rather than making a connection. The meal was again superb and this time we had cooking from yet another region of france. I started with a cold seafood soup while Stuart had a beef salad with divine, although unidentifiable parts of the cow. For his main course Stuart had pigeon and foie gras and I had porc over vegetables. Mine was quite good, but Stuart's was in the "heavenly" category. What brilliant cooking. For dessert there was white chocolate mousse and crême brulée. All the French food we have eaten has been so wonderful, but so different. It's like at home where we have southern cooking, Tex Mex, BBQ, New England clams & lobsters, fish from the northwest, yankee pot roast...so many regions and all with their own specialty. After dinner we walked down to the Arc du Triomphe and part of the way down the Champs Elysses before hopping on the metro and getting home around midnight. The Champs Elysses was lit up like it was daytime with people milling about everywhere. Things were very lively, but the night was gorgeous and perfect for walking so I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

Day Nine
Our days are dwindling and we're feeling sad. This morning, actually afternoon because we got up so late, we headed to the Marché du President Wilson. It's is supposed to be the best as it's located in a wealthy neighborhood near all the embassies. Well, it was a lovely market, but I didn't find it much different from the others that we've been to. What I did notice was that the clientele was more reserved and the market wasn't nearly as loud...although perhaps earlier in the morning things would be more lively.

After the market we took a long walk to visit the mecca of french cooking...E. Dehillerin. This almost 200 year old family business caters to the real chef! They have pretty much every high-quality cooking item you can imagine with no junky merchandise. All very heavy-duty and not a bit of Calphalon in the shop. It was almost entirely cast iron and copper and all the cookware goes from stovetop to oven with no worries. The saucepans were all porcelain-coated and you couldn't find either aluminum or non-stick surfaces in the place. The French don't want cookware to be light and easy, they want it to last and to work. It's a great example of effectiveness and in keeping with the French tradition of choosing quality over convenience. We certainly can't argue with their success seeing that the food here keeps us drooling all day long and coming back for more!

By the time we had visited the market and then walked the few miles to the cooking store, it was getting late in the afternoon so we hopped on to the metro back to the Marais and did our shopping: drinks from the super market, bakery goods and bread from the boulangerie, goose liver at the foie gras shop, cheese from the fromagerie and fruit at the produce shop. You can get most of that stuff at the grocery store, but the quality isn't very good and most residents here buy from their various neighborhood shops and do not do one-stop mega-market shopping. It sounds inconvenient, but it isn't. Everyone shops almost daily for what they need that night and the locations are very concentrated and the personal service is quite quick. So if you couldn't tell already, we had dinner back at the apartment...all sorts of tasty treats!

Tonight we had a visitor to the apartment, but not one that stayed. A neighbor from an attached building came and knocked on our door and wanted to know if we had water. Apparently his building didn't have any and he wanted to know whether it was the whole group (the buildings are clustered with shared central courtyards), or just his unlucky place. Thankfully, our water was working just fine!

Around 11:30pm we decided to stretch our legs and headed out for a walk. Because we're in the heart of the city, the streets were lively with people despite the late hour and the fact that it was a weeknight. We walked over to the Ile Saint Louis, Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter. Stuart got a grecque and I had a lemon sorbet. The night was lovely for walking. We stopped and listened to a group of men who had gotten together at the tip of the Ile Saint Louis to play jazz music (two guitars, a lute and a violin) and they were great. It was nice to listen to musicians who were simply out having a good time, rather than looking for money. We strolled around a bit more and got back to the apartment at 1am.

Day Ten
Our last official full day has arrived. We decided to just relax and stroll around the neighborhood, checking out some of the shops that we've only been walking by until now. Nothing too exciting. We stopped to get a little bit of wine to bring home in the luggage and of course I had to have a farewell crêpe. In the afternoon we packed so that our dinner would be relaxed and we would be able to go for a walk afterwards.

I don't know if you noticed, but we have not had a drop of rain since I left the car windows open a week ago! Murphy's Law. It's been sunny, quite warm and completely dry every single moment since that morning. Thankfully the temperature drops during sleeping hours to make the apartment a comfortable temperature and with the small fan, we are making out just fine.

As an aside, we ended up Googling the "wedding ring scam" and sure enough, it's an old Paris favorite. Go figure!

For our final dinner we saved a second visit to Chez Dong. Stuart just couldn't wait to have the rabbit terrine again! We ordered exactly the same items as last Thursday night, but with an addition of a szechwan green bean and pork dish. Fantastically spicy! Mmmmm. After dinner we walked the long way back through parts of the 13th and 12th arrondissements. The buildings are more modern in this section of the city so the views aren't quite as nice, but it was another wonderful night for strolling.

Day Eleven
We left the apartment at 9:45am in order to make it out to Charles deGaulle in time for our 1:40pm flight back home. Thankfully we decided to wait for the crowd to board the airplane before we got in line because about 3/4 the way through the boarding process, the flight crew realized that they had made an error in fueling and had to deplane EVERYONE and their carry ons, wait for the fuel situation to be fixed and then reboard. We left almost two hours late! Between that and a lengthy trip through customs, baggage claim (this took the longest) and immigration, it felt good to be back home and we were happy to see Miranda (and the cats too!)