An American in France: Days 6 et 7

Oh, to be young in Paris.  On day 6 of our journey, The Tableau Your Mind family left the Loire Valley, took a detour to Versailles, and ended up back where we started. Once in Paris, we tooled around the city, stopping at cafes, admiring a few bridges, darting in and out of train cars like the experts we had so quickly become. Though our day was short on
destinations (The palace of Versailles, the Rodin Museum, this church where we're pretty sure a terrible massacre of children occurred), it was not short on action.

Which made me think of my favorite film of all time set in Paris: Charade. In it, a slightly older Audrey Hepburn  is stalked by many men who are in search of her deceased husband's stolen fortune. Chief among them are Walter Matthau and Cary Grant, the latter of whom's name changes practically every ten minutes. It's a Hitchcockian thriller, with Grant and Hepburn (as BEST NAME EVER Regina Lampert) tool through the city, trying to elude some gunmen, a hook-handed man, and maybe their own attraction to each other. The movie is also hilarious, which is good, given it's somewhat violent nature.  It's the Paris I imagined when I first thought of taking this vacation. This movie is in the public domain, so there's no reason NOT to check it out.

The Tableau Your Mind family had many adventures around the city of Paris, running back and forth, climbing tall buildings for seemingly no reason. In the case of our family, it wasn't money-hungry murderers after us, but time.  We simply had to do everything before time ran out!

Of course, this involved going to many museums and looking at many, many priceless artifacts. Of course, this made me think of the many heists the family and I could pull off, stealing French jewels and taking the police on a transcontinental chase, be-bopping around exotic places like Monaco or Bali or Detroit. But then I remembered that the French police/inspector force was comprised completely of people like The Pink Panther's Jacques Clouseau. Bumbling and bungling as he may be, Clouseau always gets his man/woman. I don't need that kind of heat!

So, we ended our Parisian/French vacation on day seven, headed to the airport with NO jewels but tons of memories. And a lot of extra purses. The Tableau ladies know how to shop!

Au Revoir, France. Until we meet again.