Day 15

For today we set out on a quest to explore Paris' famous underground Catacombs.  After waking up to some more rain and waiting for clothes to finish to dry we stayed in for lunch to have another delicious sandwich made by Steph of a baguette from a local bakery, stuffed with brie and salami.  Very full and clothes dry we head out on the metro to the other side of the Seine to journey through the catacombs.  Or so we thought... The Catacombs, due mostly to how dark and narrow they are, have a 200 person max. capacity limit on them, so it isn't about how quickly they can sell tickets so much as it is how quickly people walk through them.  An hour before they take the last person to go into the Catacombs there is a huge line with, what do you know, 200 people waiting to get inside.  Instead of wait the hour, and run the good chance of still not making into the Catacombs we continue on with our day's plan to visit Le Bon Marche.  This is the third main/large Paris shopping center and since it wasn't too far away from the Catacombs we set off to explore it.  This store, like the other two, was very neat to see and very ritzy as well.  We have fun exploring the upper two floors before heading across the street to their own special super market, which is very nice and well kept yet the prices are very good/normal.  Stephanie orders a dozen of the French macaroons, which turn out to be just as delicious as the ones we had the day before.  We have fun taking our time and exploring the rest of both stores, and then head back to our apartment to drop our purchases off.  We set off soon after for the oldest market in Paris, Enfants rouges Market, which is held, luckily, not far from our apartment.  We're getting there towards the tail end of things so some of the locations have closed up shop, but we find a nice grocer whose vegetables are cheap and has more than enough for what Stephanie needs to cook up some good old ratatouille.  We head back home after exploring the rest of the market and enjoy another nice dinner of Lebanese pitas.  

Tomorrow, it's time for Brussels.

- Kyle