Day 11: Paris

Today is our last full day in Paris so we woke up early to try to fit in a few last sites. We started at the cemetery where Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde were buried (we saw his birth place in Dublin, so why not?). The cemetery was huge, with creepy graves and winding paths. Every square inch seemed to be filled, with slight exceptions for central monuments. We found Jim's grave, but without a map, we never saw Oscar's. Ah well, we got the gist after a half hour walking around.

After the morbid part, we went to the church on the hill. After climbing the hill to enter the big white church, we climbed another 300 steps to have a view of Paris from the top of its tower. As seems to be the theme in Europe, we were exhausted, but the view was great.

After the church, we walked down to what appeared to be an Italian intersection with a restaurant on all corners. Italian food has been a great default choice for the times where we don't want to experiment, we're just hungry and want some pizza, lasagna, etc., that can't be screwed up (by them or by our ordering ability).

We chose one of the restaurants and, unfortunately, the waiter forgot about our order. We waited 45 minutes before asking because, we thought, maybe that's how it is here. I wouldn't mention delayed food except that it caused us to arrive at the Catacombs late. We could have waited in line, but there was a risk we'd wait for an hour only to have the doors shut right before entry. Instead, we walked down the street to get a cappuccino and some wine. Kevin got a giant glass of wine because he has yet to figure out how many centi-liters is appropriate for a single serving/glass of wine.

So Brooke's hopped up on caffeine and Kevin's tipsy, and we head back to the Latin Quarter for a snack. There we split the most amazing grilled cheese ever (more of a grilled baguette with mozzarella and tomatoes). We ate as we walked away and ten minutes later we headed back to get another one. Brooke says it was like the chicken salad sandwiches the Louvre used to have.

We headed back to our place early so we could begin the saga of the laundry. On the subway ride home we met an Appleton native who wanted to talk Packers, pretty random. But that's why I like to where my Milwaukee shirt.

To find a place to do laundry, we had to stop in a dry cleaner shop and ask directions (this was the approach suggested by our hotel staff). The dry cleaner did not speak English. Remember, all we know how to say in French is hi, bye, thank you, and do you speak English (and some assorted foods). But to my surprise, we were able to get the point accross somehow, and he gave directions by pointing off to the right (although he said 'left').

We got to the laundremat and, go figure, everything is in French. We took a few pictures of the signs and walked back to our hotel to get our clothes and ask the staff to interpret the signs. From there on, the laundry was smooth sailing (we even got to grab a glass of wine while it was in process at a nearby cafe). We'll have clean clothes for at least another ten days