Mass was very moving and I'm so blessed to have shared the experience with Marcy. I can honestly say that Notre Dame is one of my favorite places in Paris! The 11:30 mass was an international mass, so two parts were in English. I thought I'd be able to understand more of the French, but I couldn't, but it was beautiful anyways (the priest saying the mass was from the African country Benin, so maybe his accent had something to do with it).
After mass, we split a goat cheese, lettuce, and tomato sandwich (not really by choice, but in order to use the bathroom at a cafe we needed to buy something, and we all know that my bladder is not one to be argued with) and got into the line to climb Notre Dame. About 30 minutes later we were on our way up the stairs. Being the first Sunday of the month, the climb was free! It was a bit chilly and cloudy, but the views were still breath-taking. We were able to climb all the way to the top and look out over Paris!
After that, we went back inside to explore Notre Dame (since we'd rushed out after mass to find a bathroom). It was nearing 4:30 pm, a rough time that I'd set to connect with my cousin, Erin, who is studying in Florence and was spending a few days of her spring break in Paris with friends. She told me her Italian cell phone worked in France and since I'd sent text messages to Amanda's Swedish cell phone before, I mistakenly assumed I could get in touch with her.
Several hours of attempting to reach her ensued without any success. I texted her, but didn't hear back. Then, when Marcy and I were in the Pantheon (another free spot on the first Sunday of the month), I had a missed call from her. When I tried to call her back, it wouldn't go through (when I tried, an automated voice on my phone said something in French that I couldn't understand despite trying 5 times), so I texted her to call me back, assuming she got the first text.
By this time, we had finished in the Pantheon and were hungry, so we stopped in a cute cafe to enjoy some crepes sucre while waiting to hear from Erin. Marcy had banana and nutella and I had salted caramel sauce (sorry, we were too hungry to grab pictures). After our scrumptious snack, I stopped at a tabac, bought and international calling card, and tried to reach Erin on her phone, with no luck.
But, we didn't give up. Originally, Erin had said they were going to eat dinner in the Latin Quarter, so we headed that way, hoping she'd call in the meantime, but nope! We even found a Starbucks with wifi where we sent a Facebook message from Marcy's phone. But, I guess it wasn't meant to be.
Then, a downpour hit and we dashed into a cafe/bar to stay dry and get a glass of wine.
During our aperitif, Marcy and I decided to stay in Paris for dinner, so we made our way to Rue Mouffetard, which someone had suggested to me. We had a great meal and our waiter was a sweet young guy from Greece. We had chevre chaud salads, fish for dinner (I had trout and Marcy had salmon), and chocolate mousse for dessert - oh, and a bottle of red wine.
And, finally something went right on our way home when we didn't have to wait too long for the train and we didn't miss the last bus of the night!
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