First Ice Cream and an Evening Stroll Along the Seine

Last night, after a somewhat arduous day of cleaning, doing laundry (1.5 hours for ONE LOAD!) and catching up on sleep, we decided to take the night easy and go for a walk in the Latin Quarter in search of some ice cream. Elodie, our French friend here in Paris, recommended a little place called Grom. So off to find Grom we went. When we got off the bus (which we've been trying to take more than the Metro lately, like any good Parisian!) and arrived in the Latin Quarter, we saw that we were in for a beautiful evening. The sun sets very late here, even since we've been here the hours of daylight have grown longer. It was a very warm evening, no need for a jacket, and beautiful colors and whispy clouds filled the sky. We walked all around until we finally found Grom, which was very delicious (though personally, we didn't think worth the 5,50 Euro we spent on it! That's quite a lot for a very small bowl of ice cream!)



We decided to keep walking through the Latin Quarter to enjoy our ice cream, and eventually made our way back to the Seine river to take in the surreal evening...

This is the view from the Pont Neuf, a very beautiful and famous bridge that crosses the Seine. You can see what I mean by "surreal," the sky and scenery could've been part of a movie set. Underneath the bridge and along the Seine is where a famous dance scene in the movie "An American in Paris" (Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron) takes place.

You can see what a lovely area it is from this photo that Andrew took. There are hundreds of people, mostly students, sitting along the sides of the river and enjoying the evening. Many people bring picnics, complete with a bottle of wine, or they skip the food altogether and just sit around drinking (in public, which is perfectly acceptable here!) We'd like to come have a picnic, but not on a Saturday night when there are lots of noisy people around.

We walked around quite a bit, and took some photos. Andrew really loves our camera, and he did a little "photo shoot" with me, which was fun!

We'd been walking around for about two hours, and when we got far enough down the Pont Neuf, which is a fairly long bridge, we finally saw the Eiffel Tower! I looked at my watch, and saw that it was almost 10pm, at which time the Tower would not just be lit, but would literally sparkle and flash for 10 minutes (as it does every hour on the hour!) It was truly beautiful!

I wish we could've taken a video of it to show you! Pictures just really don't do it any justice. These photos were taken from very far away, as you probably noticed because you can only see the top of the Tour.

This one's rather out of focus, but I love the way that the lights look!

All in all, it was a lovely evening and special way to end our week! We're so blessed to have each other to share these things with, and that we can share them with all of you!

p.s. - If you're wondering about pictures of me with my (*ahem*) best friends Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, they're coming! I actually don't have any yet, as we weren't allowed to have any taken during our training. It may be a while before I get to, um, spend time with them again, but as the French LOVE to say, "Patientez" ("have patience!")