Day 36–Our Sixth Sunday Here

We arrived here 5 weeks ago today. Hard to believe. What have we been doing with ourselves?

The F-A-T factor was at work again in the gym this morning as it took me 35 minutes to do my 30 minute run. (5 km.) Maybe it was just the late night last night? Right, except that gym didn’t open until 9, actually the first time I’ve appreciated that fact.

Still, this didn’t stop us from our new Sunday morning, after workout tradition of having a pain chocolat each. Needed the workout just to balance out one of these delicious treats. Too bad Patachou in Toronto isn’t open on Sundays. Will have to check Bonjour Brioche.

Zig-zagged through the northern part of the Marais, the old Jewish quarter, today, a very quiet Sunday in Paris although the Marais itself was fairly busy. From place du Marché Ste. Catherine (although there isn’t a market here anymore), by the spectacular place des Vosges, the most beautiful square in Paris, along rue des Francs Bourgeois by the Musée Carnavalet, through rue des Rosiers where we were going to get a fallafel but the line-up was ridiculously long. At Hôtel Amelot de Bisseuil, Beaumarchais wrote the Marriage of Figaro which Mozart set to music. Mont de Pieté is essentially a state-run pawnbrokerage. Past the National Archives (Soubise), skipped Musée Picasso and onto square du Temple, pretty much the only thing remaining of the medieval castle of the Order of the Knights Templar, whose members were arrested and a number burnt at the stake in 1307.

Had dinner at L’ami Louis, 32 rue du Vertbois, where the food is only slightly better than average but comes huge in portion and expense. Still, it’s a very lively place to be in Paris on a Sunday night although it seemed to me tonight that the Anglos outnumbered the French which isn’t usually the case, at least on Sundays.