Walking the Louvre to Champ-Élysées

(Katherine) Back in Rio, Robert received an unexpected offer from his former employer, TiVo, to do some contract work while we were traveling, which seems it might be the perfect excuse to purchase the MacBookPro he has been eying. Google indicated that there was an Apple Store near the Louvre, but it turns out it is actually inside a section of the Louvre called The Carousel, kind of like an attached shopping mall. Once Robert had a chance to chat with their employees, I got a chance to check out the outside of this famous museum for the first time.

The building is overwhelming - standing in the courtyard by the landmark glass pyramid, you get a sense for how much ground it really covers. Our plan is to visit on Wednesday, so I need to get my feet prepared for a LOT of walking! After doing a little more recon for our Louvre visit, we took off towards the Arc de Tromph du Carrousel and on to the Jardin du Carrousel, presumably where the mall took it’s name. This connected right on to the Jardins des Tulieries, which is a series of meticulously manicured trees, paths and fountains. It was terribly hot today, so we made several stops including one at a water fountain which has provided free water to the people of Paris for centuries. Unlike the other counties we have been to so far, the tap water is very safe to drink, so we no longer need to constantly buy bottled water.

We continued on through the Place de la Concorde, which is a circular road which travels around an oblique. It then connects on to the Champ-Élysées, probably the most famous and exclusive street in all of Paris. All of the major fashion labels have their flagship stores on this street or on one of the side streets. I would assume that this area is literally considered the capital of Parisian fashion, but given our constrained budgets we only shopped the sale rack at The Gap and sale section of Adidas for some workout clothes. Not exactly a five-star shopping trip, but it was very practical!

Although it was tempting to have dinner on this glamorous street, we opted to head back to our neighborhood and stock up on frozen meals at a wonderful chain called, Picard - kind of like a Parisian Trader Joes. While it’s certainly not fancy, the meals are quite tasty and allow us to stretch our dollars a little further. We rewarded ourselves after our thrifty dinner by having drinks at an adorable café called Le Village just by our house. If we can just maintain these kinds of compromises we might just be able to keep our budget in balance!