After awakening lazily to my alarm at 8 am, having slept 12 hours and feeling much improved, I put on the bathrobe the landlady left and began to dig around in the basket of breakfast left outside our door. It was magnificent: fruit, cheese, eggs, meat, bread with jams and spreads, milk, juice, cereal, and a coffeemaker already in the room. I spread everything out on the rug and we ate on the floor, like a picnic. In the end, we couldn't finish it all, and so we each took a fruit for later and left the cereal alone.
We left our packed suitcases in the landlady's garage and popped downtown via bus. The funniest little old lady boarded not long after we did. She was like a French version of my great-grandma Elaine: spunky, independent, and stubborn, but with the best sense of humor. She was always laughing; you could see it in the twinkle of her eyes. Her coat was incredibly perfect for her personality, too: a bright, mustard yellow, with a texture almost like fur, that button all the way up and fell past her knees. When she got off, white headed contrasting marvelously with the coat, I was rather sad to see her go.
Mom and I wandered downtown to the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre. We meant to only stay for an hour or so, but, after climbing to the tip of both towers, I decided to sketch and paint the inside. Mom left to wander around the outside, but I settled down on a church pew.
As I sketched, I noticed a group of boys who looked just a little older than me, gathering nearby and talking. I thought, every once in a while, they glanced over at me. (They were cute, though, so I didn't mind.) I tried to make out what they were saying, but they were speaking too quickly for me to really understand. (I later learned that they were Italian, which explains why it was difficult.) A girl joined then, and then several more, and after a few minutes, one came over to me. She asked me, in French, if I drew that, pointing at the image I was now painting. I said yes, once I understood what she meant, as I had forgotten the verb "to draw", and a couple more girls came over, and they learned that I was American and they were Italian, and we had a nice little chat.
After they departed, I found Mom and checked out the Chapel of the Macabees, which was incredibly, ornately gorgeous, and then we left and went to see a little house-turned-museum called Maison Tavel. It had an entire floor of old doors.
By that time, we were hungry, so we bought baguette and cheese and apricot jam and sat outside a Starbucks to eat. There were a few birds around (pigeons, and some smaller songbirds), but we thought nothing of them. Well. As soon as we produced baguette, they multiplied, and, slowly but surely, came closer and closer. These birds had no fear! Mom, however, did, and when one hopped too close, she jumped up with a little scream and informed me that I could finish eating outside and that she was going inside for a cup of coffee. I stayed with the food for a little while longer, but once she left, the birds realized that I was all alone - an easy target - and just about swarmed me. Constantly shooing them got old, so I packed up and joined her in the Starbucks with my own cup of coffee.
We regained our suitcases not long after that and took the bus down to CERN, where we met Ethel's father (Ethel was a French exchange student who stayed with us for three weeks last year), Stan, and headed home with him. After a delicious dinner of duck (!!) and mushrooms and potatoes, and cheese after, we went to bed, exhausted once more.
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