The second day of Paris dawned with more of the stifling heat we were trying to get used to.  Today we wanted to visit the D'Orsay museum, but were thwarted by some seriously long lines.  Plan B turned out to be a tour of the Latin Quarter.

Lisa and Caroline were unhappy that I hadn't taken enough pictures.  So I thought I'd try and balance some of the other pictures with interesting backdrops that appealed to the boys more.  This is in the metro station near the hotel.

The billing in the guide book sounded a hell of a lot better than the actuality.  The Latin Quarter seemed to be dedicated to Greek restaurants with smiling guys at the door yelling "I Love You!" to all the women that passed by.  The other section that had activity seemed to be devoted to students, but there weren't many students to be seen.

The Latin Quarter starts with a great fountain.  The Plaza is bustling with students and student hangers on.  The focus is really this fountain/waterfall.  It celebrates a bunch of soldiers that died for various reasons.  Somehow the world wars seem very visceral here, a major change from the way we relate to them in the US.  Every family can point to relatives or friends that were in the military, killed by the bad guys, or somehow effected by the war.  Even today, Caroline and I would be hard pressed to find someone with first hand experience with any of the wars the US has participated in.  It makes you think..

We continued on mostly looking at buildings that used to house people that did important things in Frances history.  Some of the names I actually recognized, like Bonaparte, Rousseau, and maybe a couple others.  But looking at the buildings that housed apartments they used to inhabit is a stretch for me.  I just can't get excited about that level of trivia.  So I humored the crew and enjoyed watching the Greek guys trying to get people into their restaurants.  They reminded me of the rockfish, it sits there camouflaged, until some unsuspecting fish comes by and then it pounces.  

At one point on the tour of the Latin Quarter, near the Shakespeare & Co. store, (Yes, this is the same one you find in NYC and SFO, and other places) we had a good view of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  It has been cleaned since the last time I saw it.  I have always thought of it as that old dark monument to times gone by.  Now it's pretty light colored, but still doesn't strike me as inviting.

We met up with Erin and Draha again for lunch.  It was another of those orgies of food that seem to be happening on a regular basis.  I guess someone has to do it, it may as well be us.  I think the Risotto with Fruits de Mer, or seasoned rice with shellfish and shrimp from the Atlantic, was quite good.  The waitress was from Ottawa, and the bar tender was from NY, so we got great service and they understood the jokes.  All of which made the lunch a terrific experience, or, yet another terrific experience.

After lunch Caroline and I wanted to go see the Tapestry museum.  It was in the highly unfashionable thirteenth arrondisement.  In true French style, the guide book neglected to mention that tours can ONLY be had at 2:00 and 2:45 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays of odd numbered months in even numbered years, or something to the effect.  

And, the thirteenth arrondisement is billed as the working class, run down, no point in going there, part of the city.  We figured it might be a good time to catch up on our cafe time and do some people watching.  We noticed the heels on the shoes were markedly lower.  The neck lines were higher.  The people seemed to be in less of a hurry, and there were a lot more minorities represented.  And then we noticed the pizza delivery bikes, which Caroline decided was just goofy enough that it deserved a picture.

The rest of the people watching was pretty tame, until we were buzzed by several police on inline skates.  Now, we had seen cops in cars, motorcycles, and vans, and we had seen cops on horseback and on bicycles, but this was completely new to us.  And it was very entertaining.  It felt like the start of a Monty Python skit where a bunch of cops act like a roller derby team, and do the line to take down the bad guy.  OK, maybe my imagination is getting away with me, but it was pretty fun to see the cops on the skates.

Eventually Caroline and I headed back to the hotel where we met Lisa for dinner.  I wanted to do a picnic dinner under the Eiffel tower, but since it was already about 9:30 when we headed out, I couldn't find any decent picnic fare.  

You have to understand how it got to be 9:30 so quickly.  Caroline and I had been carrying a really nice bottle of Cremant d' Alsace, which in english means a bottle of bubbly from the Alsace region.  And Lisa, being a connoisseur of fine drinks of all types would certainly appreciate some great bubbly.  We opened it and spent a while getting caught up again and resolving all the world's ills in the courtyard of the hotel.  Finally, hunger reared it's delightful head (it always great to get hungry in France because the options for dealing with it are legion) and we headed out for dinner.

We settled for a very touristy Brasserie near the tower.  In this case touristy was a benefit because the wait staff understood that waiting fifteen to twenty minutes to pay attention to us is a bad thing.  Besides we were hungry and ready to eat, no aperitif required.

To be fair, you have to understand that in France, it's all about the conversation.  Your dinner party should be consumed in conversation, and the wait staff is being courteous by letting you get settled and work out your conversation before they approach your table with a menu.  This is not what we, as Americans, are used to.  When we, as Americans, go to a restaurant it's because we are hungry, and a wait staff that doesn't show up promptly pisses us off.  That is why Americans tend to be viewed as uncouth in French restaurants, and why Americans think the service is really bad.  If you're in a touristy place, the service is significantly better, from an American point of view.

We had a delightful dinner and watched the night sky come in.  We watched the constant parade of people that went by the Brasserie, and we watched the sparkly lights do their dance on the top of the tower.  We talked about all sorts of things for a solid couple of hours, which by French standards, made our dinner a perfect one.  And it was, by any standard, a perfect dinner shared by the three of us.

We caught a cab and headed back to the hotel where we slept like the dead with delightful anticipation of Brussels the next day.