Note: Journaling is a great way to build your stories. When you keep a journal you can record details that would be long forgotten if you let days pass. Then when you look back at your pages, you relive those moments and your stories emerge. Sometimes journals can be stories in themselves.

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On Tuesday I am to meet Ann Salsbury for lunch at her apartment in the 16^th. I wash my hair and take the morning to go and get a couple of things at the market. I am somehow thinking we are to meet at 1 p.m.

At the Poilane Bakery on Bl. de Grenelle, I get a roll and then also an apple tart that looks so good. I go back in and get two more to take to Ann. This is a very special bakery. At their website you can read the history. It is a treasure of a little shop that smells so great you don't want to leave. And the women who are there saying "bonjour" when you enter are so accommodating.  I also stop at the small grocery get some more yogurt. I think it’s yogurt, it turns out to be a cross between yogurt and cottage cheese, but very light.

Anyway I am back to my apartment and it is about 11:30. I check the email and to my surprise it says I should be there around noon. Yikes. I run over to the RER at Tour Eiffel and manage to get off at the right stop, which is 4 stops down along the Seine. I get out and turn left instead of right after looking at the map. Midway down the second block, the apartment numbers don’t look promising so I phone Ann. Turns out she is on the other side of the bridge Garigliano so I retrace my steps.

Her apartment turns out to be just lovely, all light and bright. Clean white marble stairs leading up lined with a pretty blue carpeting. A nice elevator, not all creaky like mine. She has the same view of the Seine that I have but from the opposite side. It feels so spacious and fine. The kitchen, while small like mine and Jack and Randy’s, has pretty tile with pale yellow flowers on it.

Her partner Patrice turns out to be a nice Frenchman, very kind and sweet. He is leaving on a business trip this afternoon, very soon. I give them the tarts. Turns out Poilane is Patrice’s favorite bakery, he used to live near there. I say, “oh it smells so great in there!”

Ann and I go to the corner café and it is nice out in the sun. We order and she remarks that I know some French. We talk easily. She explains how she took a coaching/leadership training and that is how she met Patrice. It was an international program.

After our pleasant lunch I take the metro back with the intent of going to the Musee d’Orsay for which I have a ticket. I stand in line in the hot sun for an hour only to get in, go through security and get to the door. This isn’t the right paper. I have to go to the FNAC store and get the actual ticket from them. I know where it is from taking my camera there. I traipse over there and sure enough I can get my ticket. By this time it is 3 p.m. and I am having dinner with Susan at 6. There is no time to go back to the d’Orsay nor do I want to. I go to the Odeon station, but something is wrong with the train. So I give up and go to a café for a café au lait. This is a good idea.

Then I change for dinner and go over to Susan’s.

Well, she is at the stop by the Place de la Concorde. It is beautiful over here. Very NOT like where I am, it is quiet. I like it over here. I walk down Rue Gabriel past the American Consulate. Many police all around. I find her address. I know she is on the ground floor. I text her that I am here. She opens her gate, “Hi Susan!” Inside the gate is her pretty little garden patio. She has the table all laid out with some cheese and crackers and strawberries and a chilled bottle of white wine.

Down the street is Maxim’s and then not far from that is the Market Restaurant. It’s very modern, and inviting and the food is beatifully prepared. The people inside are very, very well dressed, all designer clothes.  And everyone is enjoying their dinner. What did I have? I can’t remember. I had fish. And we shared sashimi and a salad too. It was all light and very delicious. After dinner I had a coffee too.

She walked me to the metro stop.

I suggested that it might be fun to have a drink at the Ritz. My co-worker Romesh who just visited Paris went there with his family and it sounds fun to me. The Ritz isn’t far from here and Susan agreed. And so I go home. Tomorrow is my last day in Paris.

You can continue to read about my Paris trip here: Day 11 http://tellourlifestoriesblog.com/2011/05/28/wednesday-april-20-2011-the-rodin-drinks-at-the-ritz-au-revoir.aspx