Day 2

Milo in front of 23 St.Croix de la Bretonnerie, our apartment

This morning Francette (she's the daughter of Marcelle, one of Mom's cousins) and Albert called, they are staying with Marguerite Naudet. I talked with Marguerite and she told me that our mothers were cousins. We will meet them tomorrow at noon in front of the Hotel de Ville. Right now we are waiting for Milo to wake up (it's 12:30) to go to lunch at Laure Arnold's home, Agathe and family will also be there.

Sarah on the computer in our apartment

Milo finally woke up at 12:40 PM! We quickly ate breakfast,

Breakfast

started laundry (this is important for you to remember) and rushed off to start our day. We walked to the metro at l'Hotel de Ville. We passed lots of restaurants serving "brunch", they were all full, even at 25 euros per person. We took metro (about $1.50 per ride) to Place de la Concorde, then line 12 to the end, Mairie d'Issy. Laure Arnold Moynacq picked us up at the station and drove us to their beautiful home in Clamart. It's across the street from the Bois de Clamart, a huge woods.


Agathe was there with her two beautiful little boys: Jules 3 and Lucien 5 (their father is a teacher and had to stay home to grade papers) and Laure's family: husband Jean-Marc (interior architect), Melville 12 and Haydee 7. Their home was built in 1950 but it has been modernized quite a bit. The dining room is a huge glassed in room in the back and off the living room is a beautiful deck where we had champagne and some type of olive bread from the south of France called Fougasse, next course was tomatoes with vinaigrette and muskmelon, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, next was risotto with shrimp, then they offered salad and cheese but we turned it down, everyone was so full, but we still had room for her 3 home made pies: blueberry, pear & Alsatian apple. Somewhere in there was white wine and red wine. Chad and Melville played badminton. We brought them two giant puzzles, one of a firetruck and the other of the United States. Milo played with the kids in the back yard, they had some riding toys and other fun stuff. Milo is still a little shy about using French, I think he'll improve daily.

Milo, Laure, Melville, Haydee and Jean-Marc

We got home at 7:00 and discovered water all over the kitchen floor. Chad called the landlord and he said that someone would come tomorrow. We used all our towels to clean the floor and decided to wash the towels and figure out the problem. When it started to drain we figured out where it was coming from and we discovered a hose that had been separated, so we resolved it ourselves, after cleaning up again. We have a wash machine but no dryer, so it might be a few days before the towels are dry! Now it's 9:40 already! I have such a hard time adjusting to jet lag, so I take a half a sleeping pill the first 3 nights. So I "took" one last night but didn't sleep all that welle, then discovered this morning that I didn't actually take it, it was still sitting on the counter. So tonight I will be sure to take it.