Dre Gets Hit By A Bike (and lives)

Oh my goodness. This crazy lady totally hit me with her bike today! That's exactly how I remember it. -Dre 

So today we were headed to the Musee D'Orsay and Dre decided to walk into the road despite the red walking person warning. Of course, I (being Lucy) advised her against it. But she is strong-willed (ahem) and trodded on out into the street. Only to be run over by a bike.

So, after this loud woman ran into me so rudely, she was ashamed. She immediately was apologizing loudly and carrying on. I told her, no problem and cooly walked on.

Poor Dre turned bright red. The woman was mortified, but could hardly summon an apology. Luckily no one was hurt. Dre's sky blue pants were slightly scuffed, but she brushed it off and we moved on. (Except all day she repeated, "Remember when that rude woman hit me with her bike? Don't tell anyone, ok?")

True to form. It started pouring.

Is there a monsoon season in France?

after Dre was hit. before the monsoon.

If so, we've landed smack dab in the middle of it. We walked for miles in the pouring rain looking for the museum. We paid full price for only one travel book; the one on Paris and we seem to have lost it. So we've relied on transit maps to get us everywhere and while thats worked reasonably well, we have spent quite a bit of time feeling a little lost. Which is exactly how we felt during today's down pour.

Eventually we did find the Musee D'Orsay and the sun came out just as it was time to go in...

its illegal to take pictures here.

We made our way to the restaurant and ate fancy cheese and warmed up with tea and coffee and worked our way through the museum backwards. We started out with the impressionists and wow, what a collection. There are more Monets than you can shake a stick at. We sprung for the audio guides which proved to be a great investment. It's really wild to see the progression of Monet's work while viewing it in the context of the movement in general. But impressionism isn't what really moved me.

Dre and both totally fell for Redon and the Art Nouveau pieces, generally. I literally wanted to cry looking at the furniture in this exhibition. And who wants to cry over a headboard? But it is just really that beautiful...

Hunger won over and we left the museum in search of food. Of course, most of the nearby options were tourist traps, but we were too hungry to resist and I ended up eating a boiled egg sandwich. Luckily they serve mayo with the fries and mustard with the salt, so I spruced it up and turned it into an egg salad sandwich. Much better.

Then it was off to the Eiffel Tower.

Our feet were sore and we were tired, but beauty is beauty and the tower impressed. We were especially excited to catch the light show before catching the bus back to our neighborhood.

Dre is an excellent navigator and we've successfully used public transport to get us all over the city. All of this with only publicly available maps. But we were ready to have our own and were stoked to find the information office was still open at the Repbulique Metro station. We've become increasingly confident in our selection of four French words and Dre was feeling brazen when she approached the window.

Then she froze...

I didn't know what was happening but was ready to step in when she, finally, eeked out a request for a map. The agent happily complied and we were on our way again. Thats when Dre confessed that she'd forgotten the word for good evening and had held back on greeting the agent with, "Botswana" - hence the awkward silence.

Ha ha ha.

Um. Its Bonsoir.

Oops.

We had a laugh. And a few more lost moments. And a couple of glasses of wine and now we are home. Resting up for more adventures tomorrow.