Friday.  Can't avoid it any longer . . . we have to move out of our beloved La Boulangerie!  We can't even put into words how much fun we've had "Pretending To Be French!"  We got up early because we had to take Yves' car to the train station and hide the key so when Nathalie and Yves get home from Senegal tomorrow, they can just jump in their car and drive home.  It really worked out conveniently for our departure and their arrival! 

We arrived at the train station around 7:30 a.m. and hopefully we successfully hid the key and no one stole Yves' car.  Guess maybe I should email Nathalie to make sure!

The station manager who we had become very friendly with was working so we told him we were on our way back to the United States.  David gave him our card with our email information, etc., on it and he gave us his address and email.  We told him to stay in touch and let us know if he ever comes to the United States.  He thanked us for being good customers and told us it is his dream to come to the States.  So maybe we'll have even more visitors from Saint Aignan.  

Our train left Saint Aignan at 8:16 for Saint Pierre des Corps.  I packed breakfast for us so once again we ate our little baguette sandwiches on the train.  We had about an hour layover in Saint Pierre des Corps before we boarded the fast TGV train for Paris.  That part of the trip only took about an hour and we arrived at the Montparnasse station in Paris around 11:15 a.m .  We followed Claire's directions and used her Metro tickets and easily got ourselves to our hotel, the Relais-Monceau in the 8th Arrondissement.  We have never stayed in this area before but it is lovely and we really like our hotel too!

Although we arrived before check-in time our room was ready so we were able to get into it right away.  We were both tired and sleepy so we decided to take a little nap.  We didn't sleep very long, tho, because the Paris weather was gorgeous and we wanted to get outside and soak up Paris!

Just down the street on the corner is a wonderful bar/cafe called La Bastide Blanche and there were many tables set up outside so we decided to park ourselves there to people watch.  We sat on a busy corner and there was a lot of activity: business people, joggers, dog walkers, mothers pushing babies, and so on.  It was Halloween and we hoped to see a lot of costumes but we did not.  Maybe only 15 or so.  The bartender is a very nice guy who speaks English and he made us delicious gin and tonics!  It was such a nice evening that we sat outside there for about two hours.

Finally we got hungry for dinner so we left our perfect location to find a restaurant.  Our hotel had recommended two restaurants but they were too fancy and French for us.  We found one on our own called L'Auberge Rouge and it was wonderful!  We were seated at a very private table near the window which we enjoyed; a large, wide column separated us from the rest of restaurant, so we felt like we had a private dining room.  We decided to split a salad that was made with radicchio, blue cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers and pine nuts in a dressing made with walnut oil.  Then we each had baby ravioli stuffed with parmesan cheese in a cream sauce.  For dessert David had an apple tartine with vanilla ice cream and I had creme brulee.  All very delicious!

We had a leisurely walk back to our hotel and fell into bed.  I. Love. Paris.