Au Revoir, Paris!

Yesterday was our last full day here. We had talked about heading to Versailles or doing more sight seeing, but what I really wanted to do was just shop around the city. First we had omelets at a cafe down the street. We had originally ordered crepes, but apparently they were out. The omelets were simple yet delicious. Mine had potatoes, Andrew's had ham and cheese. We ordered "American coffee". I don't know if it was American because it was "bigger" or because it was espresso American style. It was tasty, but nowhere near enough coffee for me to get going for the day. I forgot to mention that I had a tiny little espresso while I sat in the lobby before Andrew woke up. We decided to hit up Starbucks to get our full fix. How do Europeans function on such little caffeine? Am I just an addict who needs to go to rehab? Oh well, I enjoy being enabled by Starbucks. Andrew and I had a nice long lazy talk about life as we sat and sipped our lattes.
We started our shopping along the Seine where there are many street vendors who sell paintings of the city. We found a couple that we liked and bought them. Since we weren't far from our hotel, we decided to take the paintings back to our room so that we wouldn't be stuck carrying them all day. Next we were on the louvre. My aunt had told me that we might be able to find some prints of paintings that we liked in the museum. They didn't have what I was looking for, but I found some books with a painting style that I enjoyed. I took down the information so I could look it up and home and possibly find prints somewhere else. We snapped a few more photos outside of the louvre in the gigantic courtyard. What we didn't know until my aunt showed us, is that when you line up properly in the courtyard, you can see all the way down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph. The Eiffel tower was also nicely peeking out of the fog, which made for some lovely photographs.
We decided to grab lunch outside of the louvre. In Paris, many cafes have outdoor seating even though it's still quite cold outside. There are rows of chairs that face the street with tables in front of them. That way you can eat your meal and people watch at the same time. Our waiter was very friendly and helpful with good English. We ordered a ham and cheese baguette sandwich and a three cheese quiche. Both were quite scrumptious. People watching from the cafe front was almost as good as my glass of chardonnay.
Onward we went to the champs elysees. I was determined to find some amazingly fashionable French clothes. We went into several stores and I found a few things that I liked, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend fifty euros on a shirt. The bargain shopper in me just wouldn't do it. I know what you're thinking....it's Paris, you have to buy clothes! For me, it was satisfying enough just to look around.
We were pretty tired after walking all over the place so we decided to head back to our hotel and rest for a few hours. I took a lovely afternoon nap while Andrew read his book. When I woke up, he told me that he had found a neat little jazz club just down the street in the Latin quarter. Perfect! I had been hoping we could do something like that while we were here. A few hours later we made our way over to the club. It cost 12 euros for each of us to get in. The place reminded me a little bit of a dungeon, but in a cool way. Not in an "I'm going to lock you up and you'll never escape" way. After grabbing a couple of drinks at the bar, we walked down a flight of stairs to the literally underground jazz club. After about a half an hour the music started. I loved the style. It reminded me of the Glen Miller I grew up listening to. I couldn't help but think of my brother and sister and how much they would have liked a place like this. People started swing dancing on the dance floor. That in itself was fun to watch as well. Andrew and I were having a great time just talking and laughing and listening to music together.
At one point an older man approached a much younger girl and asked her to dance. She hadn't been dancing previously, just sitting with her friends chatting and having a nice time. Who knew if she could swing dance at all? Well she could. She was great. I couldn't help but be so intrigued by the dancing in general. I wish I could dance like that! I feel that couples dancing is such a lost art form. We don't learn it and we don't teach it to our children. Instead they learn how to gyrate their butts and grind up on each other thanks to MTV. Not exactly something to be proud of in my opinion. What has happened to learning basic dance steps? I myself would love to learn and pass it on to my kids, especially Audrey. It is such a gift to be able to dance and I would hate for her to ever miss out on that in life. I told Andrew we are taking dance classes when we get home. I don't know if it was because he was a couple beers in, but he agreed.
After a few more rounds of drinks, we decided we better turn in for the night. We had to be up early in the morning and we hadn't had dinner yet. Luckily there was a Greek gyro place open right outside the jazz club. I had been eyeing the gyro places ever since we got here. I had eaten them a few times when I was with YWAM in Madrid. They were so delicious then and I only hoped they were just as delicious now. Voila! They were! We walked with them in hand back to our hotel, finished eating and headed to bed, our ears still buzzing with jazz.