It's so nice to wake up in the morning and not have to do anything. I could have gone back to sleep except my back was killing me. Darn strange beds. So after showering and the usual thing, I read a book over a cup of tea. John went out to the market and bought some croissants, little donut holes for the kids, and then on a second trip, juice, a baguette, and some mustard (my request). I get tired of sweet things for breakfast, so some bread with spicy mustard hits the spot. After reading for an hour or so, it seemed that the kids weren't about to wake up, so I decided it'd be a great opportunity to grab a nap. Forget about trying to get on Paris time (6 hours ahead of Pittsburgh). If the kids were going to sleep this long, they were going to stay up late, and thus, I needed my nap now or you'd have one cranky mama. Thus a 3 hour nap. By the time I woke up, the kids had also woken and we were ready for lunch. First we tried to get to the end of the Bastille Market. Unfortunately it was mostly being packed up when we got there. Looked like it would have been a great flea market. The kids almost got hats but after John reminded me of the fare exchange, these 8 euro hats weren't that great of a bargain after all. We walked around and found a nice restaurant that with our first taste of good French food. I ordered a duck confit which I thought would be like a carmalized duck. It wasn't that sweet but was definitely good. Came with some awesome broiled potatoes. Asia had gazpacho which she didn't like so she shared our food. Zach had chicken on a skewer with rice. John had pasta with some great breaded veal. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rue+sedaine,+paris,+france&sll=48.856667,2.350987&sspn=0.131241,0.295601&g=paris,+france&ie=UTF8&ll=48.85568,2.371502&spn=0.016405,0.03695&z=15&layer=c&cbll=48.855711,2.371656&panoid=clgMOLsSIE3rj5IqPW5ZAw&cbp=12,119.34,,1,3.35
It's the Cafe L'industrie. The place was packed. I have to get in my mind that restaurants here don't open til around 12 and close at 2 or 2:30 for lunch. Then they don't open again til around 7 for dinner. I'm used to finding a restaurant somewhere that's always open at some point. The US way I suppose. Convenience at any time.
After lunch, we went on a hunt for ice cream. The kids were hot. Most of these restaurants aren't air-conditioned. That must be why everyone eats out on the patio. I thought it was to people-watch. I think it's because it's cooler outside with the airflow. We ended stopping at a grocery store and bought some ice cream bars there along with some other food items (sorbet for me and John). Then back to the apartment to eat our dessert. After an hour or so of rest, we went to a park and to find a SIM card for my cell phone. John found a park that had basketball courts - http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/squaredelapetiteroquette.html. When we entered the park, I saw lots of people sitting in the shade on the park benches. All the benches in this area were full of people talking, some with kids, some without. It's around a fountain that probably cooled people off. Then we kept walking and found the basketball court - of course, where there was no shade. There was already a soccer game going on in the main basketball court. In the two side basketball half-courts were more kids playing soccer. Obviously basketball was not the main sport there. Ha! John stayed with Zach to help him make some friends and play basketball while Asia and I wandered on to find the playground. The playground had a bunch of kids there! Quite popular, I would say. There was huge climbing structure with 2 squiggly metal slides that looked like machine hose. Then two smaller structures, all on a sand surface. Asia had a great time even though she didn't play with anyone. Then we went back to see how Zach was doing and offer him some water from Asia's water bottle. Eventually what happened was that Zach played with two boys and a girl with their soccer ball. He had a time playing with them because of the language barrier. One of the boys was more socially aggressive and quite a joker so he kept talking to Zach in French and expecting a reply back. Some times I wasn't sure if he was being mean and making fun of Zach or not but an older girl (maybe in her early teens) was also there and she was keeping the younger boy in line. Eventually Asia joined them to play soccer and then the kids had to go. While this was happening, John had a soccer game going with about 10 other kids - all boys and 1 girl. Zach joined them eventually. It was hilarious to watch them play. Zach and John's team had the smaller kids and they were actually doing well, not just because John was their goalie but because some of them were really good - especially the girl. I think her name was Sasha. She's this little blonde girl and she's tough! The good thing was that even if the smaller team was winning, the bigger boys just treated it as a game and laughed it off. They all also had this habit that if the other team scored, the opposite team had to jump up and hit the top of their goal post. Not sure what that was all about.
We were at the park until around 7:30. Before we left, Asia and I were reading a Clifford the Big Red Dog book and the kids came over to take a look. They took turns trying to read the book, but since we had to go, we actually ended up giving the book to the kids. It was just a book we got at Half-Price Books anyway and we were planning on leaving it here in France.
Another interesting thing about the park is that they have these park officials who watch the kids areas. Earlier, one was standing at the end of one of the slides to make sure kids got down fine and none went up the slide the wrong way. Then later, they were standing near their office, I think, but they were telling kids nearby that they couldn't play with the water fountain for the sandbox, only to drink. At first the little kids there thought you weren't supposed to use the fountain at all so when we approached it, they told us not to use it. Then the park official told the kids that it was okay to use for drinking, just not for playing in.
We then went to a restaurant, still in the 11th district. We were trying to find this good restaurant (according to a book from the man who owns the apartment) on a street called Faidherbe. But it wasn't there. Another bar/restaurant called Balthazar was there. So we went in anyway and got a really nice waiter who spoke English. We got steak frites for Zach and Asia to share, but he said it's hard to split the steak so he gave them both servings and only charged us for one. I got beef tartare because that's supposed to be traditional. It's basically raw ground hamburger with some chopped up vegies and spices. It looked like a raw hamburger patty but actually tasted really good. And the broiled potatoes were awesome. John had what looked like Shepherd's pie. It had a really strange name - something like Palmaterie. I'll have to look it up later. It was all really good but amazing enough to say, the portions were too big. John said that Parisians don't do doggie bags, so we didn't bring home any of the leftovers, not that there was much anyway. All in all, a great meal day. That's what I'm for - the meals. ha! If I have good food, the vacation is a success.
