Day 14 - 6-8-09

Today we began early with grand schemes for the day to try and head out to Brussels and enjoy a new city/country just for a day.  We left it up to some small chance though, if there wasn't a seat on the train, we wouldn't really do it since our time in Brussels would thus be less than we had hoped.  Upon arriving at Gare du Nord (what seems to be Paris' largest train hub), we found out that for today it would be a little more trouble than we had expected, and instead rescheduled to go to Brussels on Wednesday.  Up earlier than most of the bakeries, we walked back to our apartment and stopped at one of the nearby (and few that were open yet) bakeries.  This one seemed to be less family run and more part of a chain, but their croissants were still very good so we returned to our apartment with breakfast in hand and happy.   For a quick excursion we also head to clock just near our apartment but slightly off the main roads we've been using as we heard that it showed a knight, who on the hour, would fight back a dragon, crab, or bird that attacked the clock.  This clock, dubbed "the defender of time," was easy to find, and quite a sight compared to the other more public clock towers in Paris, however it was sadly not working. The weather for the day turned out, to not be so happy, and it rained on and off throughout the entire day.  One of our goals though was to go and see the Galleries Lafayette, and Au Printemps, some of the oldest and definitely the largest department stores in Paris.  We had fun exploring each floor and seeing what each one had to offer, Lafayette was much more geared towards tourists and more moderately priced in most of what they had, including a floor that seemed to be only gourmet food of different styles.  We got two types of breads from this area, looked at the souvenir section on the eighth floor of 9.  One thing we saw, was a huge Lego box that came with directions to build the Eiffel tower and was pretty good size.  Sadly, the box and the price tag was more than we could handle, but it was fun to see.  Also fun to see was a whole set of tables laid out around the escalators on the gourmet floor that sold spices in minor increments.  They really had a lot of stuff we hadn't heard of before (i.e. smoked, blue (iron), and Hawaiian salts).  It was an awesome idea for a store/gourmet area to have, but even cooler to see that quite a few people were utilizing it and that each spice came with recommendations for what it should be used with, or preset mixtures for fish, meat, etc.  

We left Lafayette and headed farther down the street to go to Au Printemps, which was much more ritzy and a lot less our style.  We had fun though as we head up to the top floor where the cafe was out, and took many pictures of us on the outside, open air rooftop of the building, which allowed for awesome views of the whole city.  Not to mention, there was some sort of an artistic thing going on throughout Printemps that involved bunnies in different colors just sort of among the rest of the displays in the store (or right outside the entrance, or on the rooftop).  Naturally, we had fun with the twenty or so bunnies on the rooftop, and just as it began to rain harder once more, we head back to the street and metro-ed back to the apartment.  

Towards the end of the day we head out to Belleville, partially to see that part of town and also because we felt for some cheap Asian cuisine and our books suggested any of the restaurants by the Belleville metro.  Sure enough we found a family owned restaurant (Dong Hoang's) that was pretty busy for 945 at night and had great food and fast service.  We have the feeling we'll be back around Belleville (probably earlier in the day) for more great food at least once.  

We returned to our apartment, like many times before, full and happy, and ready to report on the day's journeys.  

-Kyle

Steph's comment:

Also, when we were in search of "The Defender of Time" (how grandiose does that sound?!) we found another nearby bakery with some fancy pastries, including the famous French "macarons" so I got two, there's a picture in album 3. http://picasaweb.google.com/scarlson09

Delicious! They had lots of these cookies, and their mini versions, at the department stores, but far more expensive.