POETS day

Friday I celebrated a weekly British holiday, POETS day (Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday). It was a hard week, I finally finished a looong work item, so I decided to blow out of work early. Don't tell the boss. :-)

I got home by4, and Sarah and I went out for a late lunch. It was a beautiful day out, 75 and sunny. We did a proper sidewalk cafe lunch at Bastille (Cafe des Phares for those keep score). I don't know, somehow food tastes better when you've skipped out of work early for it. Afterwards I grabbed a cassis sorbet cone, and we walked up a street that is packed with musical instrument stores and camera stores. At a guitar store, I notice that they are 50% classical guitar and the rest acoustic/electric. Nice. We must have seen a dozen camera stores, lots of used and collectors stuff. Paris does tend to cluster related stores together: all the papier stores are located together, there is a pet store district, an area with plant stores. Eventually we noticed that it was happy hour (how convenient!) so we had a drink at a Brasilian place. The search continues for a good margarita in Paris. This one was certainly better than Le Perla, but can't hold a candle to Manuel's frozen mango.

Saturday morning was chilly out, we sat out on the balcony and had coffee wearing politec jackets. We had oozing warm pain au chocolate for breakfast while walking around a quiet Place des Vosgues. It warmed up nicely in the afternoon, and we went to the Bagatelle gardens. In mid June, the famous rose gardens are in full bloom. A riot of color exploding, with sweet scent drifting by. The rose gardens I've seen before are ones that are working hard to live in Texas weather, this one was happy roses on steroids. We're also adding this spot to our list of places to picnic. There were a lot of nice open shady places that would be nice for a picnic.