Yarn shop, knitting meetup, Montmartre

This is from the Concorde station on the Metro. Further down, it was in English: Thank you to all the children for the castles of their imagination. Drawings of castles on the walls all over the station--magical!

On May 9, I left Charlie at home and went on an outing to a yarn store, Le Comptoir. I was walking to a bus stop to head out and looked left, and--hello, National Assembly! Ahoy, Eiffel Tower! Pretty cool.

Le Comptoir--I wish I'd taken a photo--was tiny, compact, and beautiful to look at. The yarns were organized by color in a way that was just entrancing. The woman behind the counter was a little frosty at first, but warmed up and let me climb up onto the kickstool to feel and really look at the yarns. I brought some up to the counter that I wanted to buy and she carefully put them *back* onto the shelf and pulled my balls from the back--all those in front were just display balls.

I took 2 buses there, and 2 back--and honestly, it was a very quick trip. The buses come very promptly, and there are digital displays in the bus stops that tell you how long until the next bus of each number. -And they're accurate! I adore the Paris transit system. I *covet* it.

The next day, I got up quickly and set out for a knitting meetup that I'd read about on Ravelry.com. It was at a Starbucks across the Seine. I wished I'd brought my Starbucks card, just to see if it would work. they had some ingeniously decorated cups:

I was able to find the group easily enough. There were maybe 4 there when I arrived, but the group grew to about 12 by the time I left. I wore my purple knit sweater and brought my Every Which Way white stole that I'd just finished. They were very kind in their gushing. :)

The woman in the middle was especially welcoming. I heard her tell a friend that all of her sock yarn was stolen by a crummy roommate, so I'm going to gather some of mine and mail it to France.

The woman on the left seemed to be the group leader. She was quirky but super welcoming.

These guys didn't knit at all, but I gathered they were knitters (or maybe sons of the knitters?) at other times.

Charlie and I later set out for lunch at a restaurant I'd seen recommended online, but on the way there, I spotted an Indian restaurant (I love Indian food) with a 'formule' (prix fixe menu) for just €12.50 each--cheese naan, a special rice pilaf, and chicken koorma. We also ordered some samosas. It was all so delicious, but I couldn't finish mine. Fortunately, Charlie was up to the task. 

After lunch, we went to Montmartre. I'd never been all that fond of the area, and I find the basilica of Sacré-Coeur uninteresting, but our Segway tour guide had encouraged me to take Charlie there to see all the artists at work outside. Sadly, it started pouring down rain as we arrived in the funicular. (I thought the funicular was especially cool, but Charlie was adamant that it was not worth taking--"We didn't skip that many steps, Mom.") So, no artists to see; we stepped inside the basilica. Wow! It is really, really beautiful from the inside. There are signs that insist on silence all over, though, which put Charlie right off. He decided not to go in, so I went in, looked around, lit a candle, and went out the exit. I had to work my way through a big crowd of people trying to stay out of the rain in order to fight my way back to Charlie at the entrance. We huddled under my umbrella and made our way to a nearby crêperie that I'd seen a good review for on Yelp. It was very good--but the decoration was especially fascinating. The walls and most of the ceiling were covered in bills from just about every nation you could think of. Interesting, and beautiful!

Afterward, we walked down to the bus stop to head home, and spotted this really cool art on the pedestrian-only street/walkway:

We found a small store and bought some groceries to take home. The PIN pad for my credit card didn't like my PIN and I almost didn't buy the groceries. Figured out that you had to press the '1' really hard. The charming cashier asked me how to say it in English ("press hard on the button") so that he could tell other customers how to use it.