It's a double or triple entry today as I have begun to fall dreadfully behind. I find myself deciding between blogging and napping and well, you can guess what I usually end up doing. Sunday morning we slept in and arrived at the Marmottan Musee at about 12:00. It is located just behind a park, in a quiet residential neighborhood. It is not a touristy spot and we enjoyed watching local children ride their bikes in the closed off streets.

The museum is housed in a mansion owned by Marmottan, an art collecter. It has an entire lower level dedicated to Claude Monet and art work by Rodin, Gaugain, Pissaro, and Degas as well as visiting exhibits. We followed Rick Steve's through his tour of Monet's pieces. It really is amazing to look at his work up close and far away. Up close it looks like messy, broad brush strokes, but 10 yards away it's an entirely different picture. It truely is part of his brilliance. There was a room with more of the Water Lillies that he was working on as well as part of his Cathedral series and Sunrise. He was a master of light and was the first painter to take his easel and palette and paint "open air". He had to work quickly before the light would change and would frequently have more than one canvas going of the same landscape, with different light. He would just change it out as the light changed, brilliant.

After the Marmottan, which was a lovely place to spend a few hours, we had a sushi lunch. We returned to the place in our neighborhood and ate our fill of sashimi. The salmon was particularly good (I'm not usually a huge salmon sushi fan, but this was like butter). We napped after eating and woke to a gorgeous evening. We decided to take advantage of it and went to point D'Alma to ride the Bateau Mouches, an open air cruise down the Seine. There is minimal guidance, but at this point we were familiar with the majority of the landmarks, so we just sat back and enjoyed the tranquility. The buildings are particularly easy to see because the boat has huge lights all along the side that it projects onto them. We also had a great view of the Eiffel Tower; it twinkles for 5 minutes every hour (it was designed for the millenium celebration, but was so popular that they just left it). It was dazzling; you couldn't help but make an audible sound when you first saw it.

The next day we decided to walk less and relax at The Plages a Paris, which is a very cool month long event. They close the fast lane that runs along the Seine and set up beach areas. They bring in pristine sand and set it up with umbrellas and lawn chairs. They also do some boardwalk areas and a version of "muscle beach" (it is a workout area along the way). We set our towels across from Hotel Dieu and enjoyed beautiful weather. It was interesting laying out across from buildings that are hundreds of years old. People were promenading along the fast lane, looking at the beach; and the people on the beach were watching the people strolling by. It was 2 way people watching.

We weren't sitting there for longer than about 30 minutes when Griffin and I were interviewed for French television. It was a news story about the Plages (we were there opening day). I spoke in english, obviously, and then they interviewed Griffin in french. They were quite impressed with her french, especially her grammar (Bianca, you would be proud of her). We don't know if it aired or how to find it, but it was a fun experience.

After a long day at the "beach", we went home and packed a picnic dinner to take to the Eiffel Tower. We walked there, from our place, following the beach route along the Seine. It was a beautiful walk, but it took us about an hour to get there. We sat at the base and ate cheese paninis and cherries. Then we got in line to climb up the tower stairs. We waited until about 10:00, so that the lines would be a bit shorter (it didn't really seem to help). We started to climb the 710 steps to the second level. Although it was tiring, it wasn't as bad as some of the enclosed narrow spiral staircases that we have regularly walked up. Griffin really liked the fact that we were in the structure and able to see it, I liked that the stairs were numbered every 10 steps so you had a sense of accomplishment.

We had beautiful views of the city at night. The most pronounced site was Napoleon's Tomb, not a surprise, but sort of. The gold dome really shines and stands out. Griffin and I were going to go to the top, but we were too late. They closed the line at 11:00 and we arrived at 11:15. Todd had decided not to go, heights are difficult for him, but Griffin was pretty disappointed. We are going to try to go back, during the day, and just take the elevator. It may be a longer line, but if we arrive early it shouldn't be too bad.

I have 2 more days to summarize but we have a dinner date with my aunt and cousin, so I will try to write them afterwards.