Classes? Ummm...What Classes?

It's time to play Super Hyper Skip School Day!

The Players:

Don: growing increasingly frustrated by his french class and the uses of "qui", "que", and "quoi".

Gina: has decided to stop the madness of "il y a", "pendant", and "depuis", and study Italian instead

Carlos: like his french class, but is very susceptible to peer pressure, especially when he has to study more passe compose

The Goal: Skip Class

Objective: Achieved!

Methodology: It was a beautiful day, and there I was all ready for school, apple and bescherelle in hand, when two non-adolescent truants virtually forced me to accompany them on aday filled with delinquency.

In reality, I had overslept, missed breakfast, and had just gotten out of the shower when Gina knocked on my door and said, "We're skipping. Skip too!". I said ,"Naaah". She said, "C'mon". I said, "Okay". I finished getting dressed and at 9am on the dot, we were out on the street heading towards Jardin de Luxembourg.

Gina wanted to follow Rick Steve's walking tour of the Marais, so we headed to the start of the route at Place de la Bastille. We strated off walking by the Pantheon, we're we had a small pit stop for Gina to buy souvenirs and for Don to purchase a dashing ethnic scarf that will probably get him arrested in the US.

From there, we stopped at Gaudeamus for a coffee break, since we'd been walking for 20 minutes and were tired. Then we crossed the Siene and took a leisurely up to Bastille. passing a building housing the police horse academy along the way.

It's cool, how behind the doors of a lot of buildings, there are whole new things and structures happening. You can go in the front door a totally normal looking apartment house and instead of a lobby you find stairs leading up to a bocci ball court, or a whole new set of buildings, or a garden with fountains. In the courtyard next door to the dorm there's a hospital and a little house.
From Place de la Bastille, we headed to Place des Vosges, where we hung out for a little bit and went to see Victor Hugo's house. Then we went back to the main street to find the apartment where Jim Morrison died (I tell you, Rick Steve can surprise you sometimes). The apartment now houses a podiatrist.
From there we went back to Hotel de Sully to take more pictures, and continued on the walk heading to the Rue de Rosiers to have falafels. The streets get really twisty and we took a couple of wrong turns, but after running into Courtney and Danielle, we finally made it to the resturant where we spent a relaxing time with our food (and trying to take secret pictures of the waiters).Afterwards, we looked around the shops for a bit, lost Gina at a place called La Piscine, found her sitting pretty on the steps of a church, and then decided to go to take the metro to the Pere Lachaise Cemetary.

Port de Paris Arsenal

...we exited Place des Vosges into a very loud shopping street, completely unlike what was on the other side of the door. Once on the street, we walked down Rue St. Antoine towards the Place de la Bastille. Here, Patrice told me about the Column and the Bastille Opera, where I'll be going on Monday.

At this point, he said, "You no we 'ave a port in Paree yes? You don't beelieve me? I'll show you.". And indeed, a block away was the cutest little houseboat port with access to the Seine. The Port de Paris Arsenal.

Downstairs, there was an outdoor cafe, and after charmingly asking if I was "angry or thirsty" we sat down to enjoy some Coca Lights and watch the surprisingly large number of goth and skater kids who hang out on the pier.

After we finished, we walked down to Seine and inspected some of the houseboats along the way. Some where tiny and cubist, and others large enough to have cars on board (though who the hell knows where they drive them. Around the deck?). Then we exited through a tunnel into the walkway next to the Siene (and saw only two homeless people). From there, we walked to...