Lorraine in Paris: Sunday, May 17

We started the day off today at the flower market which turns into the bird market on Sundays. It's a block away from the Notre Dame in Place du Parvis.

"Look at the flowers Grandma!"

"Grandma, the bird is looking at me!"

They also sell bird equipment. The bicycles on the right are cool. You rent them from areas like this, then you can return them to other places around the city like this, it's quite inexpensive.

The bird merchants that I overheard had accents from southern France. We went from there to the Hotel de Ville to meet Jean-Paul and Marie-Claude. They spent the night at a hotel at Porte d'Orleans. They left their car there and took the metro to join us. While we were waiting for them Milo had his last ride on a carrousel. This time he chose the brown horse on the second level.

The last carrousel ride.

Jean-Paul, Grandma Lorraine, Marie-Claude and Milo

We walked along the Seine to the same restaurant that we went to on Monday with Francette, Albert and Marguerite: Cafe Louis-Philippe.

Walking to the cafe, Notre Dame in the distance

Jean-Paul, Marie-Claude, Lorraine, Milo & Sarah

Chad had and the same vegetarian dish as on Monday: tian, pommes de terre dauphinois and beans and tarte au citron. Sarah had onglets aux echalotes and tarte aux pommes, Jean-Paul also had the onglets et tian and profiterolles, Marie and I had bar (a whole fried fish with it's head) aux echalotes and I had tarte a l'orange and Marie tarte aux pommes and Milo had lentilles aux echalotes (it was a big day for shallots), strawberry milk (mmm, good), and profiteroles (cream puffs). It was so wonderful again to pass time with them. We hope to join them in New York soon. They saw that there was a special show on about Kandinsky, so they want to come back here before it leaves on August 10. They plan to go to Tunisia in September for two weeks for more research for his doctorate. Then they can talk about NY. Chad, Sarah & Milo headed back to the apartment for a nap and I headed to the metro de la Cite to accompany them to say goodby. They have about a 4-5 hour drive home to Besancon. I returned on Rue Saint Martin and went in a bookstore to look for more activities to do on the plane with Milo. Nothing. When I returned, Chad and Sarah left to do the same, they came back with some things.
After Milo's nap we took the metro from Chatelet-les-Halles to Duvernet-Mouton and walked to Agathe and Benjamin's home at 15 rue des Plantes. Agathe's parents were there visiting from Strasbourg so that they could see us. We've been great friends from 1980. In this picture we're on Jules' bed. The artwork is by the talented Lucien.

Marie-Therese, Lorraine, Remy

Remy and I are the ones who started the Strasbourg-Grand Rapids exchange with our high schools back in about 1998. It's still going on today and will probably continue as long as those two high schools exist, long after we are dead.
Milo adores Agathe and Benjamin's two little boys and he wanted to stay there to sleep. Agathe said that he could live with them. Below is the bed (Lucien's) where Milo took his nap on Wednesday.