Kristen left at the crack of dawn to return to Germany, so I used the first half of the day for some housekeeping items. I went our first thing to purchase skin care products. I have some old favorites from my last trip, as well as some new ones I wanted to try. While these products are sold at just about any Pharmacy, and there are as many pharmacys as patisseries in this city, there is one that sells them at a discounted price. I tried going to the discounted pharmacy the day I arrived, and it was worse than Black Friday. It is a small building with packed shelves and people everywhere. Today I went first thing when they opened. It was still crazy; apparently they don't restock the shelves after hours, so now there was stockers and shoppers to contend with, but it was still better than the first trip. I stuck to my list and got in and out in 20 minutes.

After that I did laundry and shopped for groceries. By mid afternoon I was ready to head out again.

First stop was a museaum (actually two museums, but I didn't have time to see them both) dedicated to Jean Moulin and others who participated in the Resistance during WWII. This is a lesser-known museum that is not only way off the beaten path, but boarderline impossible to find. It set me off on a wild goose chase for awhile, and I finally arrived an hour before it closed. The visit started with a short movie related to events leading up to the French capturing back Paris in late August 1944. (for those of you now up on your history, this is 2.5 months after D-Day.) I am up on my history, but my knowledge of the Resistance is mostly limited to how they helped in the leadup to DDay....I was always under the impression that the Allied troops liberated Paris. Anyway, the video mentions...but BARELY mentions, the involvement of the Allied troops, Normandy, etc. It was all about Gen. DeGaulle taking back the city.

In the display cases there was some very interesting materials, including German propoganda attempting to pit the French against the Brits. Then the Brits would country by air dropping leaflets in France. It left me with a lot of questions about how France felt about German occupation. Maybe I'm just ignorant about the extent of the Resistance's efforts, but at times it feld like the museum was primarily trying to make the French feel good about themselves and less bad about the fact that they surrendered to the Germans so quickly in 1940. Unfortunatley (since I"m typing this three days after the fact), I had planned to return to the second museum later, but I never made it there.

next stop was a church; St. Etienne du Mond. I tried to visit this church last trip, but it was closed at that time. Plus, this is the church from whose steps Midnight in Paris was shot. (See pics for the exact view from the steps.) The church was beautiful, as you can see by the pictures. AFter that I took a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, which were beautiful. I made one last stop at the bookstore Shakespeare and Co., which reminded me of a smaller version of the Book Loft in German Village.