Squeezebox

We woke up late--switched rooms AGAIN-- we'll all three share a room tonight. We've moved to the top floor-- a great courtyard side room with 2 queen size beds. We can see the top of the Bastille monument.

Tartine and cafe and Cafe des Pharses. Then we walked down rue St. Antoine to the Hotel de Ville to see the Piaf exhibit. This exhibit was fantastic! Lots of photos and artifacts-- arranged well designed mini exhibits, a bit like the great exhibits at EMP or other popular culture museums. In particular, one room exhibited some photographs mounted on board attached to bars on the sides-- the photos faced a wall with mirrors on it, and the captions were on the back of the boards. Another room featured walls covered in large silk roses with photographs nestled among them, all behind a white fishnet 3 feet out from the photos.

Afterwards, we went into the Marais to get a falafel. We found spot with 15 people lined up and queued up. The falafel was fabulous-- R + I had Falafel special-- a pita filled with hummus, a tomato sauce, red cabbage, cucumber (salade turque), falafel, sauce sesame (tahini) and aubergine (fabulously roasted eggplant. Laura had her sandwich without eggplant. We took the sandwiches to a little playground and ate on the benches there.

Then we went to the Musee Picasso-- took us a little while to find it (I was really turned around in the Marais). This was fantastic, seeing such a comprehensive collection of his work with spanned from the turn of the century into the 70s.

To round out our day we went to a great place that Laura suggested: Le Loir dans le Theiere-- the -- in the teapot. We shared 2 amazing pastries: a lemon meringue tart with a 5" meringue and a warm, flourless chocolate cake.

As we were walking back to the hotel we stopped at a shoe shop and Laura bought a great pair of high-heeled shoes with and ankle strap and fishnet stockings. Very good looking.

We freshened up and went over to J+B's for dinner. Laura and I stopped at a place called Cafe Moderne to have an aperitif (a Pastis and Campari + soda) and use the free internet access (http://www.hotcafe.fr). While we were there, a dj came and set up and started spinning. Cafe Moderne is a tiny spot and it was very early (7:30) so we were a little puzzled by the appearance of the dj.

Dinner was another wonderful affair. Salade with a non-mustard based sauce (for Laura and Bill who commented that they only get mustard vinagrettes in Paris), Osso Buco (I tried the marrow for the first time), and a lovely tarte framboises (Most of the fruit and vegetables come from Morocco this time of year). We returned to the hotel full and happy.