france part one

hi y'all,
i went to france. i thought i was ready to come home but i'm kinda depressed to be back.
i went with my friend fran and her 8 year-old daughter zoe. we spent three lovely days in paris first, at a hotel called the royal-cardinal, on the rue des ecoles in the latin quarter. none of us spoke french, but we all felt bad about it so the obnoxious american factor was at least tempered with some stuttering attempts at rudimentary french. in paris we did the following things:
-ate at a few cafes
-got caught in a downpour or two
-went to notre dame
-rode on a riverboat up and down the seine
-climbed the eiffel tower (yes, there was an elevator-- we didn't actually climb it)
-drank wine that we bought at a tiny store next to the hotel
-sat on the hotel balcony smoking and waxed romantic about the beauty of paris (it's f-ing beautiful there)
-bought souvenirs
-went to montmartre and sacre coeur
-feasted our eyes on beautiful paintings at the musee d'orsay (manet's 'olympia' being one of the highlights... also, there was a picasso/van gogh/cezanne collection passing through...)
-visited gift shops (i bought a musee d'orsay catalogue which is now lost in my luggage, more on that later)
-sat in the pyramid courtyard at the louvre
-rode a ferris wheel (zoe)
-saw young lovers kissing in the street
-rode the metro
-visited the pompidou centre (it, itself, was a structure of art, and it was jam-packed with art)
-ate crepes
-watched birds
-went to the pere lachaise cemetery to see famous graves (abelard & heloise, moliere, gertrude stein and alice b. toklas are all buried there, among many other noteworthies) but it closed shortly after we arrived so we mostly just strolled there and soaked in the atmosphere
-bought a new watercolor set
-walked over bridges, gazed at the water
-used the ATM
-went to the luxembourg gardens but they were closing just as we arrived
-got lost a little
-visited sylvia beach's store shakespeare & co. but it wasn't open (its hours are 12 to 12, isn't that the coolest?)
it did rain a bit in paris, and the sky was mostly overcast, but it was still breathtaking. so many beautiful buildings, the seine, the light, the trees. everything. i will go into more detail and ruminate over the rest of the trip in subsequent entries...
as for my luggage, it's all back except one suitcase which had my whole bag of souvenirs and gifts in it... i'm hoping it will show up today... stay tuned.