Bonne Journée, les Mères!

I'm not sure whether Mother's Day is a French holiday, but we sure celebrated here. We had brunch at a cafe on Trocadéro, in view of la tour Eiffel, climbed to the top of l'Arc de Triomphe, and wandered la Musée d'Orsay. A pretty good time to spend with your mom, if I do say so myself.

We got a somewhat late start this morning, but once we were up, we proved that pushing through the jet lag was worth it. That is, we were all almost human all day today, with no apparent fogginess or unusual crankiness.


Besides, can you really be all that cranky when you have quick and easy access to a patisserie?


We wandered to l'Arc du Triomphe, which offered some wonderful views...



...and a glass-topped elevator. Even though the top was enclosed, so we're not too sure why it had glass. Aside from the obvious, "to allow a goofy photo op."


It rained like crazy for about five minutes while we were in l'Arc du Triomphe. There are worse places to be trapped during a rainstorm.

From there, we ventured to la Musee d'Orsay, a lovely museum in a converted train station. On the way, we learned that even French antelopes dress better than the average American.


We couldn't take many pictures inside the museum... the flash is bad for the artwork, apparently. Or maybe the paintings are all just very shy. Either way, that which we could photograph was still gorgeous.



We're back in the apartment for a little while now... went shopping, so we have food to allow us to avoid spending 60 Euros on a meal once or twice... and now Sarah's napping and the rest of us are recharging in various ways. We're thinking of going to see the Eiffel Tower lit up tonight, just because we can. Because it's there.