Paris day 3...my favorite day in the city!

When we woke up on Tuesday, we vowed not to let the previous days mishap get us down. We were starting new and fresh. It was cold and looked like rain but by God, we were going to make the most of it. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays but the Orsay was open, so we planned on going there. We also decided that we had paid for the HOHO Bus tour, so we would start there at Notre Dame. Ride it to the Orsay and then see where the day went. Tuesday ended up being my most favorite day in Paris. The skies cleared up for awhile and it was a simple, relaxing day.

 We ended up riding the HOHO bus from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, getting out and finding a place to eat lunch. I ended up ordering a ham and cheese omlet, complete with French Fries and it was ah-mazing. During lunch it started to rain, so we took the boat tour (which was covered and heated) to the Orsay museum.

The Orsay museum is neat. It used to be a train station and it's now an art muesum. Here we were able to see some works by Van Gogh, which is always a favorite. The older boys really enjoyed this as well as they have learned about Van Gogh in school.

 After the Orsay, we walked over to the Jardin de Tulieries, back up to the Concorde. The skies had cleared up a bit so we enjoyed a few crepes and waffles, people watched and took photos.

We found the US embassy, got yelled at for attempting to take a photo, apparently that's a no-no, even if you are American.  It started to drizzle again so we got a HOHO bus is a direction we hadn't yet taken and saw more of Paris. We were the only people on the entire bus so we sat on the bottom but went to the top deck to take photos.

 We rode the bus back to Notre Dame, by now it was 7pm and we were starving! While we walked past Notre Dame, we found Point Zero. It is the spot in Paris in which all distances are measured. You're suppose to do a little spin for good luck.

So Peanut does his little spin, then refuses to move. He was grinning from ear to ear, doing a little dance and didn't realize that he had quite the audience. That is until he looked up, saw everyone chuckling and smiling; then he immediately began to bawl because "everyone was laughing at him''.

 After getting him calmed down, we walked through the Latin Quarter and found a delicious smelling Chinese food place. Now, we have not had ''real'' or good Chinese food since moving to Italy. We have tried, but I have a pretty severe sensitivity to MSG and so far, everywhere we have eaten, I have gotten sick.

So this place smelled delicious, the owner spoke English and swore up and down they didn't use MSG, ''no no, MSG is no good. we no use it". I took her word for it and was not disappointed!

 I may have eaten an appetizer of fried spring rolls (4), my entire order of sweet and sour chicken, Cantonese rice and then another order of spring rolls. It was delicious and I didn't get even slightly queasy! We left the Chinese Restaurant, stuffed and happy. Notre Dame was looking gorgeous with the light hitting it just so...I had to snap a pic.

 Then we just wandered and explored.

 We ended up running right into Saint Severin. It is a Flamboyant Gothic style church complete with Gargoyles and decorative drain spouts. It's very round on one side (which we saw first)

so it was rather unexpected to me at least, to see the front:

 It was open so we went inside and was completely surprised to see and hear a choir practice. It was cery cool and a beautiful cathedral. I wish I had been able to get photos of the stained glass windows but I didn't want to be disruptive.

After St. Severin we made our way back to St. Andres Des Artes, the street that our apartment happened to be on. We stopped and had a crepe...

 And then the kids convinced Daddy to buy them each a baguette so they could have a sword fight...

 Lastly, we arrived at our apartment door...

 And the view right outside our apartment? Well, it couldn't have gotten much better for me!