Day 4 (continued)

On the bus ride back from Versailles we began to scheme about what activities we would attempt on our last afternoon in Paris. Would we shop, visit museums, perhaps sample more food? Our wonderful bus driver allowed for us to be dropped off in one of two locations and also arranged to have two pick-up points in a few hours. This meant that we were going to scatter across the city and would need to find our way back to the bus by a set time. We had a train to catch to Rome, Italy so punctuality was a must.

Kristin and I chose to seek out art and food while most of our group started off with shopping. Those of you who know me at all would not surprised that I chose the art/food option.

Our goal was to reach the Monet Waterlily exhibit at l'Orangerie and to our luck it happened to be very close to where the bus dropped us of. Beyond the impressive large-format waterlilies, the basement of this museum (just down from the Louvre) had a great collection from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

After sitting and enjoying Monet's work, we strolled across the Tuileries gardens in search of two things. First, treats! Second, dinner for the train tonight. Within a few blocks we found a beautiful little shop that fit both of our needs. We took our tasty treat back to the park to enjoy them! Yumm!

While we were on our dessert treat hunt, the Boldt's headed up the right bank to an Andy Warhol exhibit.

Now the drama begins. As time passed, all the members of our group and the group from Hawaii with which we were sharing a bus had to make it to one of two predetermined pick-up locations. Kristin and I found the Boldt's back in front of the hotel where we were dropped off, but as for the rest of our group we had no idea where they were. To make things more interesting the others don't know where along this massive Plaza to get picked up. We were quite sure this wasn't going to work out... were we ever wrong. Just as the rain started to fall, we hopped on the bus. Turns out we were the last ones to get picked up and everyone else was already there!

They'd just finished up at l"Orangerie diagonal from us across the plaza. Perfect! Now all we needed to do was catch our night train to Rome.

Let's just say: the train was late, we were all pretty sweaty, and after working as a team to get all of our luggage on the night train were were a sight (and a smell in my case) to behold.