Forget what you heart about the French being rude. When I got to the window to stamp my passport, I smiled even though I read that you shouldn't and got a toothy grin in return along with a belated birthday greeting. The janitor at our hotel got out of the 2-person/1 suitcase elevator (it felt like the size of a Smart Car) so Paul and I could ride up together. The front desk attendant (Patrick) smiled, let us check in early and apologized because we looked confused when he asked us in French "How was your trip?"

Starting on our planned schedule immediately after dumping our suitcases, we met Gigi and Larry (which was an unplanned, but pleasant surprise) in the hotel lobby and headed to the Jewish Quarter for falafel as the cold bagel on the plane just hadn't done it for us. Read here for my review of the restaurant.

After the falafel, we walked the short distance to the Pompidou museum and the Stravinsky fountain. The popular Stravinsky was drained for the cold season and appeared to need updating and painting. It was a sorry sight especially compared to the way I've seen it in movies, but I was happy to at least say I had seen it. The fountain is very near the Pompidou museum.

The museum's claim to fame is its modern art and a building built inside out so the pipes carrying water, air, electricity and people are visible to all and were painted red, yellow, green, and blue (not respectively) to make the pipes easy to distinguish. A very talented twenty-something girl played the didgeridoo outside the entrance to the museum and had quite a crowd watching, videoing, and leaving coins in appreciation. I will try to post that music video ASAP.

We purchased metro tickets by the Carnet or 10-pack and spread them around to take us to a stop just across the river from the d'Orsay. On our walk across we passed through the Tuilleries Jardin with its gravel pathways, sleeping flowers, and happy little kids doing what seems an old-fashioned, but popular activity year round of pushing model sailboats with cloth sails around a pond. It was one of the most important things on my list of things to do in Paris. The little kids in their colorful coats got such a kick out of pushing a boat as hard as they could, and then running around to the other side of the pond to meet it and push it back. The boats were clearly well made because more than one got tipped on its side, but none sank and all recovered quickly. Also, the sails were very well made because the sailboats traveled quickly due to a nice steady wind. At a rate of 2 euros an hour to rent the sticks, fathers and grandparents could sit on the park benches and be content that the kids were too entertained to stray far from the spot. However, I did not participate. I was a bit cold, tired, and in a hurry to get to the next stop to break my schedule and spend the $2.52 for even a few minutes of stick rental to fulfill my dream. I said I could do it at the Jardin Luxembourg scheduled for the weekend. But time got away from us later in the weekend, and I never made it to the Luxembourg Garden. I suppose it would have looked a bit silly as most of the other participants were half my height. So, I smile because I got to see this traditional way to have pure, simple pleasure.

The Musee d'Orsay, once a train station, makes a name in Paris by housing impressionist paintings. The museum has three beautiful, enormous clocks worth the time to photograph. Thursdays are a long day and the museum is open until 2145. This is the time tour guides recommend visiting the museum for the smallest crowds. I was proud to have found this information and that we traveled a day early to take advantage of the schedule.

We were lucky to have no line to get through the metal detector to get into the museum. We had to wait about 5 minutes in line to purchase tickets, and because most people under 30 years of age are still students, I got a 3 euro discount! And I gotta tell you, it's been a long time since I was a student that would qualify for the discount. The center of the museum with its large sculptures is really impressive. We enjoyed photographing the ceiling of the museum and imagining its previous life with noisy travelers and trains passing through. My favorite paintings were the set of large, vertical hanging Renoirs entitled "La danse a la campagne". Most of the Degas were portraits, not the infamous balerina paintings. However, there was a nice selection of canvases painted in Pointillism style, and I learned that Manet wasn't such a bad artist afterall. I was hoping to see many Monets and Van Goghs, but there were a few medium-sized areas blocked off for rearranging and there were a number of rooms with paintings removed for restoration. I only saw a few well-known Monets; none of the Notre Dame series. Apparently all of the Van Goghs were blocked off. The closest we got to the that was the enlarged self-portrait advertisement outside of the museum. You will learn as we did that that was our lot in life for traveling during the slow season--every place we visited was under repair in one way or another.

We had planned to eat dinner in the d'Orsay as there appeared to be no fast restaurants nearby. But, the restaurant was fancy (and we weren't dressed for fancy), the cafe was really a tea room for drinks, and none of the pre-made sandwiches for purchase were vegetarian. So, we skipped a real meal and just finished the evening off with gelato. Read my review of the gelato shop here. With the lack of sustenance we tuckered out at the museum earlier than I expected. My folks said they were ready, but I know they did for me because I looked tired and had gone through my packet of tissues as I was getting over some allergies.

Even with the early ending to the day, we fell into bed unconscious of the time, but I was smiling. Although I had planned a good schedule, I wasn't sure that I would be lucky enough for it to play out as I had imagined. This perfect day set the stage for an equally exciting and busy week ahead.