Night time in Montmartre

A short nap does wonderous things.

 

We had our nap and we had our snack and now it was time to explore again.

This time we decided to explore some of the neighborhood we were in.

Montmartre.

 

Paul found out that the deepest subway in Paris was the station in Montmartre, so of course we had to check it out.  It's not like we hadn't already climbed a million stairs during our visit there.

 

200 stairs to the top.  But it was a little exhausting......but we made it!

Our destination in Montmarte was the Sacre-Coeur -- the Roman Catholic Church on the top of the highest hill in Paris. 

 

We had the choice to climb all those stairs to the top......OR

.....take the Funicular up.  Well since we had never been on a Funicular before......that's what we chose.  Anyways, we had just walked up 200 steps and a hill to get to this hill.....I needed a little break on all that climbing.

 

 The Funicular was that little car that rode up the side of the staircase.  

Quickest and easiest way to get up that hill. 

 

The beautiful church on the hill.

What was even more amazing was the view when you turned around from looking at the church.

The most magnificent view of Paris from the top of that hill

 

People were sitting on the steps of the church and there was an American with a guitar singing songs that we knew.  There was little vendors running around selling bottles of Heineken to all the people sitting there. 

I have to say that this is one of the most fantastic experiences I have ever had.  The view, the weather, the music, the beer......everything was so perfect and relaxing.  We sat there for about an hour singing along and sharing the experience with the other 500 people there.

Of course, we had to capture this awesome and amazing adventure with a selfie.....or two!!

We finished up and needed to head back down the hill to find us some dinner.  We opted for the stairs on the journey down.  It was such a beautiful walk down.

Of course, it took us a long time to find a restaurant where we wanted to eat at....so we walked and we walked and we walked.  There was lots of good choices....we just couldn't make up our mind

So we eventually ended up back near our flat and decided we needed to take a picture of the Moulin Rouge both without the lights on and with them on.

I so wish that we had been able to see the show there......but next time maybe!

 

Dinner was at a small Italian restaurant down the street from our flat.  We split a pizza and an Italian Pasta Salad (which was the best pasta salad I've ever had).  We should have taken pictures, but somehow we didn't get that done.

 

We made it back to the flat around 10pm and I took another picture off the balcony.

Love that we had such a great little place to stay during our visit.

It's Day 4 in Paris!

It's Saturday in Paris and Day 4 of our adventure!

 

Today's plan was to check out the flea markets.  We heard that there was some really good ones and we wanted to see what kind of stuff they sell at a Paris flea market.

 

We hopped on the subway and after a couple of transfers, we walked to the first one.

Talk about scary.  There were lots of shady people hanging around trying to sell off market purses, sunglasses, one cell phone (probably stolen).  We walked quickly through the first market, which was just a bunch of brand new cheap merchandise and just not what we were looking for.

 

As we walked to the 2nd market.....we really had to use the restroom.

The nice thing about Paris is they have bathrooms set up on the street and most of them were free.

 

 

The bad thing is we had a hard time figuring them out.  Paul decided he could not wait and we couldn't figure out how to make it work and were afraid of getting locked in there, so I stood and blocked the door so he could do his thing.

I chose NOT to use a bathroom next to a freeway with the door open.

 

The 2nd market was the same as the first and that was rather disappointing.  However, we looked across the street and found the most wonderful market we have ever seen!

 

However, my first priority was finding a restroom.

Imagine my shock when I went into the bathroom and found this: 

 

I was not in an adventurous mood that day so I waited until the woman in the stall next to me was done and wanted to see what she had over there.  She had a toilet.  So that is what I used.

Here are some pictures of the market.  We didn't find anything we had to have, but we did enjoy our time walking around and exploring.

All that walking around made us hungry and we had a specific destination in mind.  Paul wanted to eat at the famous chess cafe.....Café de la Regence.  We found a seat outside and snapped pictures of all the hustle and bustle of the city.

Paul hopped across the street and snapped a picture of me at the table

 

Apparently in France they don't know what a well done burger meant, because mine was very raw....language was a barrier at this particular restaurant. 

 

One thing noted in Paris......a bottle of Coke is expensive.  Costs just as much as food in most places.  The other interesting thing is you rarely get ice and always served a lemon with your Coke.  Paul decided on Orangina for his beverage this day.

 

While we were eating, the rain started coming in.  We had expected that and made a plan to visit the Louvre that day while it rained.  We walked the short walk to the Louvre but the line was quite long.  We decided to not wait because the day was getting late and we didn't want to feel rushed and see a lot of the museum.

 

So we made the decision to check out some palace that was across the street.

 

While we were walking around trying to find the entrance (which we never found), the storm hit with major fury.  We walked around anywhere we could there and tried to keep out of the rain.

We did happen to find a great picture spot

 

The rain was not going to quit anytime soon so we thought we'd hop on the sightseeing bus, but unfortunately due to the rain we couldn't sit on top of the double decker.....boo. 

So we hopped on the subway and headed back to the apartment. 

A nap is what we needed so that we could go out and explore some more that evening.

And we'll just have to wait and see what we did.

 

 

Some of the other fun things we've done

This summer has been really awesome.  We seem to have had a little bit more free time than normal and had lots of fun things going on.

Here's a glimpse into the weird and secret life of Paul and Debbie:

 Our employees sent us pictures of the community fighting back and hanging blue ribbons to support local law enforcement.  It happened right across the street from our store.

 Got all 4 news stations and a radio station coverage from this event

 Trying out all griddle on my new stove.  We also feasted on amazingly delicious fajitas

 My husband and I enjoying a rare lunch out at Old Town Spring. 

 Lunch was in the old train station at Old Town Spring.  Good country food restaurant

 Husband trying out some new fangled exercise machine that is supposed to shake the fat off you.  I really should have taken a video of him shaking his cute butt right in the middle of Sam's Club.

 Our first time to get Suite tickets to an Astro's game.  It included a parking pass right across the street from the game, free food in our private suite for 15 people, free alcohol from our private bartender, and the most awesome amazing view of the game!

 Love this picture......this really is a beautiful ball park!

 The train that goes down the track with horn and smoke when the Astros hit a home run

 

 The ice cream on the cake (literally) is the ice cream cart that pulls up to your suite door around the 7th inning and you get to make your own ice cream sundaes in an Astros hat.  We sure did feel special that evening.

 My husband has been playing lumberjack again and been doing lots of yard work recently, as in chopping off tree branches and cutting up bamboo vegetation.

 Then of course, I have to take goofy dog pictures because this dog is so goofy

 Paul took this picture of a feral cat hanging out in front of the groomer's at the new center we are looking at moving into.  If you look closely, you'll see the cat that lives in the groomer's shop,.

 We got to go play at IKEA for a couple of hours the other day.  We found this awesome kitchen island that we really wanted, but after coming home and measuring our kitchen realized that we would never be able to get this......(sad face)

One of my favorite things to do.....checking out one of the souvenirs we got in St. Louis.
Notice the "two finger" foam in the glass?  We learned that in brew master class when we toured the Budweiser Brewery.

 And last, but certainly not least, we got to taste a competitors pizza the other night.  Paul thought it was good.....and I really didn't care for the sauce.  The pizza sure did look pretty though.

We also ordered a salad.  Not bad.....not bad.

 

So.....this is what we've been up to in some of our spare time. 

Move or Stay. Move or Stay. Move or Stay.

Hot topic in the Gainor household right now.

Move or Stay.  Stay or Move.

We started talking about moving out of our house again.  I thought that the decision had been made a couple of months ago when we decided to stay.

Well, it came up again last week.  Not by me. 

So we started once again checking out houses.  We want a pool, but just not sure that this is the house to do it.  After several days house hunting, I woke up one morning to the husband telling me that we should just stay and talk to someone about putting a pool here.

Good.  Now I don't have to stress about how I'm going to clean up almost 18 years of junk we've accumulated here.  And I know that I would be the one responsible for doing all the moving, packing, and cleaning work. 

As you may or may not know, my husband flip flops a lot in his thinking.  So for this month I'm safe on the house moving.......we'll see what happens in the next couple of months.....ALTHOUGH, we might have another huge thing on our plate to deal with.............

We've also begun the discussions on whether we should move or not move the big PZ.

There are so many reasons why we should move, but there are a few reasons why I don't want to.  Mostly because it's a big headache and will add lots of work for us......boooooo!

But anyways, we found a space that we really like that used to be a restaurant and we would go from 1200 sq. ft. to 2700 sq. ft.  All that extra space would also mean all those extra costs and all that extra work.

We've met with the leasing agent a couple of times now and have a meeting this week with the owners and a contractor to see what they would be willing to help us with in our build-out. 

Here's some pictures of the space:

 This is the dining room, although we would be building a wall across most of it and making it kitchen space.  We don't want such a large dining room.

 This is in the front door, which has a great waiting space for carry-out customers and a nice cashier station.  The door to the dining room is on the left.

 The kitchen area.  We need this area to be much bigger for us to be able to work in it.

 Dishwashing area.  We would need a bigger sink.....this one is a little too small.

 This is the area behind the front counter into the dining room. 

That wall on the left would have to be eliminated and moved.

 This is looking into the dining room from the bathrooms. 

That's a great build-out cost reducer....it already has two bathrooms!

 The other side of the dishwashing area

 Some cute guy writing down a bunch of measurements.

This is the area directly behind the front customer window

There was also one other space available in this strip center that we looked at.

This one was really a shell and would need LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of renovation, electrical work, and plumbing work to make it work.

This space is only 1800 sq. ft. and I think is just really

 too small and TOO much work for it to work for us.

 

Lots of decisions need to be made before we make the final one.....

so we'll have to wait and see what happens. 

 

Which will it be.......Move or Stay????