The remains of the day

Authors' note: We lost internet connectivity during our last days in Paris. In the following posts we bid farewell to Europe.

How do you know when you're ready to wrap up a trip and come home? For us, it was the unremitting hunger for Chinese food. We had gone 4 weeks without a bowl of white rice and our bodies were aching for a little soy sauce, a piece of har gow, a stalk of gai lan dipped in oyster sauce. It was almost unbearable.

So, on Monday, we made another visit to the Louvre (this time with Daddy and the benefit of the audio tour instead of Mommy's best guess about the history of art), met Grandpa for lunch at the Ile de Cite and ran around in the Luxembourg Gardens (admiring the ducklings in the pond!). While wandering slowly back home through St.-Germain-des-Pres, we found a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. Now, the French are not really known for their Chinese cuisine. Indeed, in an informal survey, we (really, Grandpa) found that most of the Chinese restaurants were in fact not owned by Chinese, but by Thais, Laotians and Cambodians. But, whatever...can we get a bowl of rice with a little soy sauce? Yes? Sold. Table for cinq personnes, s'il vous plait. Chicken with black mushrooms, tofu with greens, sauteed vegetables, fresh spring rolls (ok, those are Vietnamese), fried scallops. We were in heaven.

On Tuesday, we said a sad good-bye to Daddy. Grandpa went to investigate the Opera district while Sophie, Anna and Mommy wandered around the Left Bank (and got lost several times). We ended up back at the Luxembourg Gardens where the girls ran around in the super-deluxe playground and amazing climbing structure. Compelled to have an authentic French meal and introduce Grandpa to confit de canard, we went to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Bistrot du 7. Not Chinese food, but the Chinese don't know how to make a good creme brulee.

Wednesday was Grandpa's 70th birthday and we spent it in Montmartre, a really beautiful district of winding, steep little streets. We found the Espace Dali gallery which our friends Bill Schneider and Lorraine Wong would love. The girls know enough about Dali to recognize the melting clocks and spindly-legged elephants and to speculate that, perhaps, Salvi was a bit odd. For Grandpa's birthday dinner, we had a lovely meal at Restaurant Lei, just around the corner from our apartment. Although Anna expressed deep concern about Grandpa eating lamb chops (she is partial to lambs, having been born in the Year of the Sheep), we got through it and enjoyed Grandpa's parade of stories (which are always entertaining but of dubious accuracy).

Tomorrow is our final full day in Paris and we are ready. Penultimate photo album is here.

Happy birthday, Grandpa!