Saturday, May 16

Since all of Chad and Sarah's pictures from yesterday were lost, we went out on the same walk again this morning,

Courtyard of our apartment

going straight west from here past the Centre Georges Pompidou (20th century art museum),

Centre Culturel Georges Pompidou

Forum les Halles (to retake the picture of Chad and Sarah from when they first met),

Here it is for the 3rd time!

past the Eglise St-Eustache again and back into the courtyard of the Louvre. We decided not to pay to go back into the museum. I offered to photoshop Milo's picture in front of Venus de Milo but Chad thinks that's cheating. I don't think so, Milo was there, we were all witnesses, maybe I'll do it and write a disclaimer. I read the directions for our camera when we got it and did a good job with it then, but I forgot them. Chad and Sarah played around with it a lot but so many of the pictures were still blurry. I was bummed that they were blurry, but at least I learned that it wasn't just me! We repeated all the same pictures, then continued west instead of going to Sacre Coeur.

Looking west from the Louvre

Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel with Louvre pyramid behind, Milo and Sarah front middle

We observed many statues and discussed what the people in them were doing. Milo spied another carousel, he has quite an eye for them. So Grandma took the blame and he got another ride. While Milo and I were on the ride Sarah discovered that the camera was set on Manual Focus, well duh, no wonder it was almost always out of focus. Yay!

Milo on the carousel in the Jardin des Tuileries

So then Chad and Sarah proceeded to take 185 pictures just this morning! So hopefully all the rest will be in focus. We continued west to the end of the Jardin des Tuileries.

From the west end of the Jardin des Tuileries you can see the Place de la Concorde

and the Eiffel Tower
or this view.

At this point Chad, Sarah and Milo headed back home for lunch and nap and I decided to continue all the way down the Champs Elysees up to the Arch of Triumph, all the while waiting for a call from Jean-Paul or Chad saying to come back. Paris has so many gorgeous parks, I was so impressed. Although I've seen all this before, seeing it with older eyes changed my perspective. How wonderful to see and hear people from all over the world enjoying the same thing. As the "language lady" (French,, German, Spanish, English), it was so fun to listen in on so many of the conversations passing me by. I would say that less than 50% were French, and very few were English, maybe 5%. maybe 5% Spanish and I didn't hear any German, so all the rest were languages I didn't recognize, how cool! I saw more Chinese in masks. It seems that it would be a challenge to negociate this walk with the swine flu. There were little stands all along the route with food: crepes, sandwiches au jambon, sandwiches au fromage, bonbons, etc. I examined each carefully (walking as fast as I could) and decided on an apple, but I decided I would buy it on my return trip. We've been eating SO much that I was looking forward to feeling hungry, a sensation that I haven't felt for a while. I arrived at the Arch of Triumph at 1:00. It felt good to be free of Milo's pace and really take off and actually have to breathe a little, but I was unimpressed with the scenery. Since I'm not into haute-couture, it just wasn't my thing, but I'm still really glad that I did it. On my way to the Arch I walked on the north side, on my way back I walked on the south side. I thought I would see the Arch as I was walking to it, but the trees on the Champs-Elysees are so thick that you can't see it. That's a good problem, compared to how it was when I was a kid, this is beautiful. When I was a kid here in Paris, all the buildings were black and traffic was everywhere. Now the buildings are all scrubbed white and the traffic is underground and there is so much room for walkers. Someone was really thinking when he/she planned the changes. So the south side did not have any apples! I was so hungry. I arrived at the Louvre and then walked north to Rue St. Honore, I read that it's a really "in" street, so I followed it to the end. I finally found an apple! Crossing the Place Colette I heard the most beautiful classical music. I followed my ear and found a whole orchestra: 7 violins, 2 violas, 3 cellos and a bass. They were average age around 30, all dressed in black. The bass case was open on the ground in front of them and I saw CDs in there, so I think they were just street musicians like all the rest, but oh, so nice. They all had music stands, so it took great effort to get all those instruments and equipment there. I arrived back home at 2:40, so the whole return trip took one hour and 40 minutes.
Milo took a nap, Chad and Sarah went for a walk and while they were gone my cousin Jean-Paul (my mother's brother's son) called. We planned to meet them in front of the Hotel de Ville. While on their walk Chad and Sarah discovered that the helicopter was operating, so when Milo woke up we rushed off for the big ride. As we were walking there it started to rain really hard, we were all wet again (and my other pair of pants was in the laundry!). Fortunately they kept the carousel open.

Milo loves the camion de pompier, so I had to get this picture:


We met Jean-Paul and Marie-Claude at 5:30, it was so great to see them again. Renaud was supposed to come too, but he has had tonsillitis all week and wasn't able to make it. We walked through the Quartier Latin, then St-Germain-des-Pres:

Before leaving home I read Hemingway's Moveable Feast, this picture is in his honor:
We walked around until 7:00 (dinner time in France), then chose a Greek restaurant. For the entree Chad, Milo and I had Greek salad, Sarah had a dolma, and Jean-Paul and Marie-Claude had a salad with calamari. For the main course Marie-Claude, Chad and I had moussaka, Jean-Paul had brochette and Sarah had steak-frites. For dessert Jean-Paul had glace au chocolat, Marie had Greek yogurt with honey, Chad & Sarah had baklava and I ordered fruit for Milo. Jean-Paul and Marie-Claude took the metro back to their hotel from this station:

The metro stations here are in the art deco style, aren't they cool?
This one is La Cite, near Notre Dame

It was so wonderful to see my cousins again, it was like we never left them. We both talked about all our families, they were especially interested in the well being of Kelly, Michele and Wendell. We left them and planned to meet again the next morning.