Jour 84, 31 March: Musée Rodin to the steps in 'Midnight in Paris'

Hôtel Apollon Montparnasse, Jour de 84. Musée Rodin to the steps in Midnight in Paris

As part of our non-morning ritual, we got up late and enjoyed our brunch of assorted pastries from a nearby patisserie. Despite our list of four things for today, things did not go as planned like yesterday.

      Our first destination was the Musée Rodin, where the famous ‘The Thinker’ statue resides. Both of us took pensive poses in front of it, trying to remain accurate to the actually awkward pose. His right elbow rests on his left knee. We sat down in the back of the house (which is the museum, closed for the day; on the garden was opened) and enjoyed the garden with our fantastically amazing paines (or bread): pain de chocolat, croissant beurre (with butter), croissant du jambon (ham), et le pain de framboises (raspberries).

      As we departed through the gift store, we realized from a small miniature model that we had not seen the famous ‘The Lovers’ statue, the two figures wrapping their arms around each other. We rushed back to the garden and scanned it all, but had to come to the conclusion that it was probably inside the house museum. Though I disappointed, Katya reassured me, ‘You know, we don’t need to find them. We’ll just be them.’ She made me smile at that.

       Our second destination was a shop, a well-known macaron shop known as Ladurée and there were supposedly several in Paris, one on a street near the Musée Rodin, but after winding up near Luxembourg gardens, we had to give up for the sake of saving time for other things. Katya really wanted to go.

Opera House

      Our third stop, from the metro this time, was the Opera house, but tickets had only been sold between the hours of 10am-12:30pm, so we missed out on going inside. We still enjoyed watching the crowds of people on the steps, taking pictures of the names of famous composers on the front side of it, and imitating pigeons, which we did frequently. Head-bobbling cuteness.

      After our early afternoon frustrations and disappointments, the day brightened up once we arrived at Sacre-couer in Montmatre where we shopped for Katya’s friends and treated ourselves to another street-side baguette lunch. We sat on the high, steep grass leading up the cathedral and ate three macarons we had bought as well. Our silent walk through the Sacre-coeur was nice, bringing back spatial memories for me. I think I went here with my school group back in 2007.

Dans les Landes

      After a horrendous wait for the public bathroom, we got an English tourist to tell us the way to Moulin Rouge and we made it outside it, taking pictures and then making our unhurried way to a proper dinner to celebrate our anniversary a little early.

      Dans les Landes was just opening when we arrived with our 7 o’clock reservations. I felt awkward at first since we were the first customers there and the French apparently eat later in the evening. I quickly got over it and we settled down in our table near the back and shared tapas, clinked wine glasses, split a dessert of small vanilla balls dipped in caramel cream and we talked and made the dinner last two hours. Since the celebration was for our anniversary, we got to discuss our initial thoughts and impressions of each other before anything serious or committal was on the horizon. It was both amusing and fun.

Me, Katya, Jake

      After dinner, we just made it to the Pantheon to meet up with Katya’s high school friend (orchestra friend) Jake, who is an American studying at a Parisian university for his college experience. He studies musicology and plays violin, like Katya. We went to a bar his friend works at and enjoyed ourselves to a few enchantments. I had French beer and Katya raspberry vodka. Then we had this amazing vodka caramel that melted in our mouths, no chaser needed.

      We had to go after a little under two hours, parting from Jake and his three American friends who also study at his university. There is something about knowing someone in a foreign place that allows one to shed off the tourist skin and feel more a part of the atmosphere. We quickly stopped where Jake pointed out were the steps in Midnight in Paris and took pictures of each other.

  

      Then the metro ride home was short and we were back at the hotel. Even if it wasn’t on this metro, I want to mention that we were constantly part of the subway’s audience for metro musicians, as they played an exotic instrument like an accordion or simply sang stridently to a stereo box they carried around on wheels. After a stop, they tended to hop on the next car over. It was another good day.