La guitare

(All photos by Ella)

The second day in Paris started out very much like the first. We had a game plan of where we wanted to go that day, but Paris always seems to have little welcome detours. On our walk to Notre Dame, we stopped to get free massages (right outside a bakery so the smell of baking bread was heavy in the air), buy some old photographs from a street vendor, pop our heads into a church and puruse through postcards of Paris at what seemed like every kiosk. We also took a detour through an outdoor market that had been set up overnight with vendors selling meats, cheeses, fresh fish, flowers and goods. We did finally make it to Notre Dame and it was as beautiful as ever. I studied the cathedral this past semester in my medieval architecture class, so it was a revalation to see it again after learning more about it. 

After we poked our heads into the famous Shakespeare & co, which was closed last time I was in Paris. It started out as a boarding house for famous writers and turned into a small scale lending library. It was a place that was immediately inspiring. There were little notes everywhere left by visitors and it was filled with small nooks and comfortable chairs. A desk overlooked the Seine with a beautiful view of the Notre Dame. Ella and I have the same taste in literature and we're constantly trading books and comparing thoughts on the books we've read. It seemed a very fitting place for us to explore together.

We continued along the Seine to the Musée d'Orsay, which exhibits impressionist and post-impressionist works in an old railway station. The huge windows allowed for a lot of natural light. The museum housed so many beautiful artworks, it was such a pleasure to walk around. The highlights were Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, Degas' bronze dancer, self-portraits of Van Gough and all of the watery Monet paintings. 

After we headed to the Eiffel Tower for what we assumed would be a couple hours, armed with a baguette, brie, wine and speculoos. Speculoos is a cookie paste made from biscoff cookies (sort of like gingerbread) that is all over Europe. I was introduced to the magical food by Chloe back in Italy. It's unreal how good it is. Well we ate all the brie and bread, put a sizable dent in the speculoos jar and drank all the wine. Needless to say, it was a disgusting sight. We set up our picnic near the concert stage that had been erected for the Bastille day celebrations that would take place the next day. The opera singers and orchestra practicing for the big day served as the background music. 

There were men walking around the crowd peddling beer, wine, champagne (the last word being pronounced so it rhymed with wine). After saying no to countless, we finally broke down and bought a bottle of champagne. We ended up getting called over by a man and a woman playing the guitar because of our purchase. We moved our camp over to the couple and spent the rest of the evening listening to the guitar, drinking champagne and speaking in French and Italian. With the exception of the occasional exchange between Ella and I there was no English to be said. At one point Ella reluctantly took the guitar after our chants to play. We kept telling her to just do it, witht the expectation that enough prompting would allow her to release a Jimi Hendrix-type solo out of a girl who has played a guitar exactly 2.5 times.