Bonne Fête des Mamans!

It's Mother's Day in France.

We had a spectacular day in Paris yesterday, starting off with shopping. Shopping and spectacular are never in the same sentence (we don't really like shopping),  but I typically save it for the last day and there's two things wrong with that: 1. It's sad to spend your last day in Paris shopping, and 2. It's stressful if you have a particular thing in mind. So we bought gifts for others and gifts for us, and were out and about with all the other Parisians shopping on a beautiful day (sunny and just a tad cool).

One of the shops we went to was Denise Acabo's candy store, which is right on the next block on our street. I found this great you tube video by David Lebovitz. He describes the experience of being in her shop very well - and yes, she was wearing that same outfit yesterday. She's quite a character, and very passionate about what she does.

Later in the  afternoon, we went to the Nissim de Camondo museum, a (somewhat) obscure museum that neither of us had been. If you like seeing how the other half lived, as well as some lovely furniture and other objets d'art, do go. And get the audioguide! It's included in the admission fee, yet we saw many people decline them. It not only described the various pieces, but told the story of the Camondo family. We really liked it.

As we were walking back to the apartment, we saw a beautiful view of Sacre Coeur. We have several photos of Sacre Coeur in our bedroom, that we have framed and hanging on the wall. It's our neighborhood, afterall. I did my best to edit this pic, but it doesn't do it justice. It looked blue from afar.

Here is another shot of it.

A quick stop at a cafe, a nice, home-cooked dinner, and then we went out to Chez Julien, which was packed! After that, we went to a jazz place we passed earlier in the day, thinking it'd be full of tourists (not that there's anything wrong with that). Lots of locals and lots of regulars, and some very good jazz.

Here we are after too much wine.

Today, we have a tour of the Opera House at 11:30 (we've both seen performances there, but have never done the tour) and then this evening, an event called Franglish, where native French speakers practice their English and native English speakers practice their French. Should be fun!

Bonne journée.