Paris Diary part 24

Day 29
16°, partly cloudy day, mostly cloudy night.

After my morning run in a light rain, Lily & I spent a relaxing morning at the apartment. We opened the tall balcony windows in the living room and watched the Seine wake up.

After our last day at work, we went back to the Eiffel Tower. We had seen it before, as everyone who ever goes to Paris is required by law to do, but we went up and watched the sunset this time. The Eiffel Tower has three levels, of course, but everyone disagrees on which is the best. In my expert opinion, as someone who has been there fewer times than I have been to foreign hospitals, I say the second level has the better views. You can see a wider angle than the first level and more detail than the third. The first level is better for architecture and the neighborhoods around the tower. The third level is too high to really see anything, but you do get better views of the distant landscape.

For our last real dinner in Paris, we went to Pur' at the Park Hyatt on Rue de la Paix, across from Place Vendôme. Pure it was not. It was an overpriced Michelin star restaurant with tiny portions on large plates. I generally have a low opinion about this type of restaurant. More often than not, I'm disappointed that the emphasis is on presentation and whoever their celebrity chef is than on the taste of the food itself. But this place was pretty good. Not the greatest meal in the world, or even the greatest meal in Paris, or the greatest meal of the week, but good.

We had a six course meal, which is entirely too much, but the portions were tiny despite how large the plates were. We also had a nice bottle of some kind of French wine. Everyone said it was great, so we accepted their advice. It tasted like wine to me, but I'm not an expert on the subject. I can tell the difference between a $100 bottle and a gallon box for $6.95, but when it comes to vintages, wineries, French, Californian or Israeli, they are all Greek to me.

After dinner, we took our last nighttime walk along the Seine. It would have been an incredibly romantic moment if I was there with a boyfriend instead of my best friend. It was still nicer than a walk along the Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter.