roadtripping.

The Honeymoon: Beerman, Blinky, and Me.

We wandered around the Left Bank some more, and of course once again we missed the last Metro. After some intense studying of transit maps, we made our way to a bus stop where we hoped to catch the Parisian vomit comet. But we were supposed to be having a drink! So we stopped at a 24/24 for a bottle of wine... but we had no corkscrew. No matter, we got a quart of 1664, and headed to the bus stop. There we drank from the bottle with a skinhead (the good kind! TG knew he'd be okay because he had white laces in his docs instead of red - or is it the other way? I can never remember, it's for this kind of thing that I keep TG around) named Suen (which I am no doubt misspelling), and discussed the Paris ska scene and how everyone is so terribly pretentious and horrible.

Eventually the bus came, which took us across the river and closer to home, but we still had a walk ahead of us. We saw a couple of bars, but none of them looked great - they were too close to the Louvre and the tourist zone. But wandering homeward through the Marais, we found exactly what we were looking for - a bar called le Connetable.

A plaque outside said it had been established sometime in the 1300s, and various historical events had happened there. But more importantly, it was packed, and wine was only 3 euros a glass! I got myself wedged in by the bar, and eventually someone moved and we found ourselves sharing a sofa with a couple of locals. Funny, the cliche is that Parisians are rude, but everyone we met seemed perfectly charmed that we were even trying to speak the language, no matter how badly we did. The crowd at le Connetable was certainly friendly - I guess you have to be when you're packed in that tight! We didn't even realise until after we'd been there an hour that there was another room (equally packed) downstairs with live music. Eventually we stumbled out sometime around four o'clock in the morning, but the crowd was still going strong.

Sunday morning we headed to check out the flower markets, and in our typical haphazard fashion stumbled upon some beautiful sights on the way - there was a circus around the corner from our hotel, some gorgeous old buildings on the Ile de la Cite, and this really awesome church - it was huge! Magnificent!

"Wait a minute," said TG, "isn't Notre Dame supposed to be around here?" Of course!

Oddly enough, the day after our late night drinking and walking extravaganza, we didn't have a lot of energy, so we didn't do a lot. We checked out a couple of opticians, but nothing was right. We did spot this gallery we thought Ian & Heather would like, though. After an early dinner in the Marais, and a later cocktail in the republique, we headed home. Tomorrow would be a big day.

continue to page 4

see other road trip stories

www.smartygirl.net is hosted by 1&1

links:
roadtrip stories mapquest
roadside attractions
bed'n'breakfasts in canada
time and weather for cities around the world