July 3rd 2019 Missed it by that much!

That night, between July 2nd and July 3rd, in my little Studio Flore on rue Ordoner, I had one of the best sleeps in my life. I think I might have slept between 12 to 14 hours.

My plan today was to head back to Montmartre and check out La Gallerie Lafayette. With the help of google maps I was able to make my way there to be greeted with throngs of people entering all entrances of this amazing department store.

Perfumes were on the first floor, couture designers such as McQueen, Chanel, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana etc were on the first balcony and clothes for the regular human were on the next floor up. You can't really tell by looking at me but I love couture! Although I indeed looked like the poor pilgrim (although I'm hoping my new Tilly hat gave me a few runway points) I roamed around admiring each room wishing I was 30 yrs old and a size 6. There was even a Gallery hall that you could enter through a type of tunnel with an interior design exhibit called Savoir Faire Savoir, Le magazine de la Maitrise which I really enjoyed. I had wished that local Flin Flon artists Mike Spencer and Noelle Drimmie had been with me. They would have been inspired by the colour and creative composition of the exhibit.

https://www.sortiraparis.com/arts-culture/exposition/articles/192377-exposition-savoir-faire-savoir-a-la-galerie-des-galeries

I spent quite a few hours in La Gallerie Lafayette, I even purchased a dress to have with me over the next two months since I'd accidentally forgotten mine in Katryn's dryer in Toronto. I love perfumes. For quite a while I hung around the Prada counter trying to get the nerve up to ask for a squirt of one of the newest perfumes that was selling for about 250 Euros. A gorgeous, and obviously very wealthy couple were being courted by the sales clerk. I tried to nonchalantly but with a flair of, well, 'savoir faire' examine the perfumes hoping that she would take pity on me and offer me a sample but no such luck. My City of Flin Flon daypack and Tilly Hat didn't fool her one bit.

Soon afterwards I thought I should start heading back to my Studio. It would take me about an hour to walk back to Studio Flore and I needed to gussy up and get a Taxi to a wonderful evening dinner Cruise along the Seine that I had purchased online a few months back as a treat.

As I was planning this trip, Paris worried me. I had had such a wonderful time with my family here ten years earlier. My husband Mark is a remarkable historian. He can make anything sound interesting and has this freakish photographic memory and knowledge that he can seemingly pull out of the air. That is not my talent, no matter how much I want it to be. Throughout this whole journey I can't tell you how many times I would look at a name of a town, or statue, or church, or sign and think 'this looks important. I wish Mark was here to tell me about it'. Later on in my Camino I'd take a photo, send it to Mark at night on Whatsapp and he would report back to me it's significance the next day. But at this point I hadn't quite figured that out and I had worried for a few months about what does a woman my age do in 'the city of love' by herself. I decided that a dinner on a river cruise boat in the evening would be just fine. It would keep me busy, I would take my Rocket Book note pad and pen to notate my thoughts and impressions of Paris, I would get back to my Studio Flore at 11pm to sleep for eight hours then figure out how to get to the train station to then travel to the true beginning of my Camino. Yes, a dinner cruise along the Seine would be perfect.

My cruise would leave the dock at 8:30pm and I needed to be there at 8:00. No problem. However, it did take me quite some time to get back to Studio Flore. I needed a shower, brush my hair, put on my new dress and then get a taxi to the pier. At 7pm I was on Rue Ordonner looking for a cab. Nothing. I went up and down a few streets, still nothing. For some reason I thought I would be able to hail a cab like in Manhattan. I should have tried to find the Metro but hindsight is 20/20, instead I went back into my studio where I had wifi to call for an Uber. It was 7:20 by now. I had only learned how to order an Uber two days earlier in Toronto so I was a novice. Once it seemed that the correct arrangments had been made on the app I went outside and... Nothing. uhoh! I ran back into my studio and tried again...ran onto rue Ordonner a third time and sure enough I found my car! At this point it was about 7:45 or 7:50. I thought it should be OK, but, well, apparently Paris is very VERY busy at 8:00pm. I explained (in fairly good french I am proud to say) my predicament and that my cruise was leaving at 8:30pm. He gave a whistle and said that it was going to be tight but that he would do his best. And he did. Unfortunately I saw my cruise river boat leave the pier and sail under the bridge just when I arrived. It had been such a long drawn out experience, and the driver had tried so hard to get me there that honestly all I felt was 'que sera sera'.

Notes from my diary

Darn! Thought I had enough time to get to my dinner cruise along the Seine but the traffic was beyond crazy and quite literally I missed the boat. I am assuming that I will get another chance when I come back in September so in the meantime I have walked along the Seine, enjoyed the crowds of people around the Eiffel Tower and am having a lovely dinner at a Cafe on the Ave. de la Bourdonnais. Today was quite lovely actually. First of all I had a wonderful sleep. Pretty much 12 hours! I feel as if it has been decades since I've had such a restful sleep. I decided to go to the Gallerie Lafayette to buy a dress for the cruise (ouch). While I was having dinner after my cruise-no-go I enjoyed a conversation with two kids from New York at the next table which was only a few inches away. They weren't from Ivy League schools but nevertheless their schools were paying for them to take courses abroad. The young woman was studying Marketing in Florence and the young man who was studying politics and education in New York was taking a summer course in Budapest. They had decided to meet up in Paris for a few days. How do kids do it! So amazing.

After my visit with those kids at the cafe I decided to wander around the area as the sun was setting. It was a hot evening. I walked past the Eiffel tower, over the bridge where troubadours were playing their guitars, couples cuddled, families escaping the heat enjoyed the evening air while eating icecream. I continued to the Fontaine de Trocadéro where hundreds of people were relaxing on the greens enjoying the atmosphere. After a while I thought that I should try to find my way back to rue Ordonner... wherever that was. I really should have studied a map of Paris in advance. I only had the vaguest idea of where I was in relation to Montmartre. I did find a cab quite quickly in the park. Before getting into the car I asked the driver what he would charge to drive me to rue Ordonner. He said 50 euros. HAH! No way mister! I knew that it had cost me about 25 euros with my Uber driver a few hours earlier and after my experience from the airport I wouldn't be fooled again so I just said 'no thank you'. He put up a good argument but I simply walked away. Now THAT was the first time I had ever been so bold. Bravo Crystal! Soon thereafter I found my way back to the Cafe on Ave de la Bourdonner where I could borrow some wifi to order another Uber car and made it back to my studio in short order. I was glad to have taken an Uber or Cab back home because in all honesty Rue Ordonner at night seemed a little shady and it would have spooked me to have tried to find my way back on the Metro for the first time. Anyways, although not the evening that I had expected it certainly did occupy my time and I went to bed satisfied...and worried because I now had to make sure that I arrived super early at the train station. That was one reservation that I could not miss! The train station really scared me too! I was sure that there was at least a 40% possibility that I would get on a wrong train heading to Belgium or somewhere. I definitely had to do a better job of transportation tomorrow!

Rue de la Bourdonnais