Big Day (Wednesday)

We saw so much today:  the Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie prison, the Deportation Memorial for French Holocaust victims, Notre-Dame, and finally, a concert.  We had a guide through the Louvre, which helped immensely as our time there was cut in half...the union of museum workers decided to have a meeting, which means they would not open the museum until they wanted to.  Not exactly a strike, but reminded me of it.  Sainte-Chapelle was beautiful, they're redoing some of the stained glass.  Some of us had lunch at a creperie in the Latin Quarter,  then we went to see the prison where Marie-Antoinette spent her last days.  We passed by the lock bridge--where couples attach locks to the wire mesh on the bridge and throw the key into the Seine.  Hope they don't need a hacksaw in a few years...  The memorial to those deported from France is very moving...it's below ground and open to the sky, with displays of dirt and ash from each of the 15 concentration camps.  From there, Notre-Dame seemed positively cheery.  They were preparing for mass, so we could only walk partway through the cathedral.  Some free time to shop and sit at a cafe, then on to dinner at La Maison Verlaine, a restaurant that was previously the apartment where Verlaine and Hemingway both lived.  Afterwards, a group of us went to a rock-pop concert...the first group was ok, but the second will sell more than one CD to some of us if we can find a Fnac or other music store.