Dinner and River Cruise

We had a chance to relax a bit and cool down.  Kris and Jeanne took power naps.  I think that we got in the habit of the afternoon siesta.  It has been working for us here as well.  Taking a break late afternoon before going out for dinner has been good.  We have cut a lot of things out of our day because of the heat.  We really appreciate this apartment and its AC.  The other thing we really like is that it has great internet service.  Grocery and metro are also close.  After everyone had a chance to rest a bit we came up with a dinner plan.  Choosing a restaurant proved to be difficult.  We finally chose by which one had AC.  About 7:30 pm we headed out to walk to the Brasserie Lipp.

art work on the side walk.  You can't see it but there is a little fountain in there.

St Germain-des-pres church in the the background

Kris and Sharon finding a good spot for a picture of the restaurant.

We each ordered the bacon, poached egg salad.  It thought it was very good.

Missed the first photo.  We had roast chicken and fries.  Jeanne and I had dark meat,  Kris and Sharon had white meat.  The meat was tender, the gravy was delicious.  But there was too much food.  

The waiter was a happy guy, he kept humming.  The AC was not handling the heat well.  We did not have a reservation so we were put in the back where the AC was not working very well at all.   I do not think that I have seen a restaurant with so many wait staff.  Most of them found a way to stand in front of a little fan, as often as possible.  :-)  

After dinner we caught a taxi to take us to the Bateaux Parisiennes for our boat cruise on the Seine.  The taxi driver did not speak English but tried to impress us with his radio Elvis music.  He wanted to know where we were from beyond from America.  But he did not know much more than NY or California.  So we said we were from California.  He asked us about Arnold Schwarzenegger.  

We got on the Bateaux Pariesiennes for the boat tour.  It went under 26 bridges and down passed the 2 islands and back.  We managed to be on top of the boat, with everyone else.  It was a little cooler there because of the breeze.  Fun to do this around sunset, though by the end I was tired.   

I did not get a picture of the boat we were on.  There were many people all along the river banks the whole way.  They were eating, drinking, listening to music and waving at the boat.  I do not know if they always do this or if tonight was special because it was June 21st.  It is a music festival day in Paris.  

Notre Dame

flying buttresses on Notre Dame.  This is where we were turning around to head back.

lights were coming on

We had to pause part way back because apparently someone fell into the water from one of the bridges and all the police water crew had to do a rescue, so none of the boats could go under that bridge for about 10 minutes .  I guess it was a quick rescue.

Once we got back we got a taxi and got back to the apartment.  Our street has at least 4 bars right close and because of the festival day they had their music blaring and people were dancing in the street.     

Our street when we were coming home.  I think we were all a bit grumpy when we got in.  Sharon stayed up awhile to blog a bit, but the rest of us went straight to bed. I don't know if anyone went straight to sleep.  The music went on until 1 pm and the talking and partying went on until 3 pm.  I am not sure about exact times.  This has been one of the negatives of this apartment.  It is noisy at night.  Last night was just more so.