Darcy's Paris Blog

Holiday city shut-down, and a lovely new park

Hooray! Fixed the washer by opening the valve at the bottom and draining the water one saucer at a time. Hard work, too, since I had to life the front of the washer an inch to get the water to drain into the saucer and not flood the kitchen. At least my clothes are rescued, though. Man.

After that ordeal, I walked to H&M near St. Lazare just to see if they had anything fun. I was there forever -- I love that place -- it's cheaper and more fashionable than Old Navy. Basically it's kindof what Old Navy should be. Wish we had them at home. Turns out they were the only thing open at all, since it's a holiday here. Even McDonald's and Starbucks are closed. (Note, though, that my fruit guy was open.) All the closings made it really hard to find food for a late lunch, and I was kicking myself for not leaving with a cereal bar or something as planned. Oh, well. I stuck to my plan, even in the face of exhaustion, and dragged myself to the Parc Monceau, which I really wanted to see. And...I found where the really rich people live in Paris. Around this park there are lovely mantions, beautifully manicured streets, and blossoming trees. This is the type of place where you imagine a family lives in the whole building, not broken up into a bunch of flats like mine. The neighborhood was beautiful, and the park was one of the most charming I've ever seen. If you come to Paris and you have an extra day, or this is a return trip for you, make a point to go there on a nice day. It's worth it. It's got green lawns, fantastic floral landscaping, a playscape, a pond, lots of lovely sculptures, a waterfall...it's got pretty much everything, yet it's not big enough to be overwhelming. On a pretty day like today it's pretty much the best thing to do. Plus I found a crepe and Orangina for food! As luck would have it, the snack stand here is the one food option open today. Oh, well, any excuse for a crepe...

posted by Darcy @ 7:11 PM