Sunday's "Skype-in" to King Hall went well. (OK, we had to re-make the call few times before we got it perfectly.) It was to see and hear folks from back home and share just a little of what we are experiencing here. (My mom thinks the whole thing was utter wizardry, and cannot imagine where I got my brains. "Not from me," she says.)
Monday morning, the California contingent arrived and we met them at Charles deGaulle airport. We have turned the small apartment over to them and moved a few doors away into our favorite hotel on our f
avorite street (Rue de la Huchette). You can see it pictured at the left, just outside the hotel-- with Poppy playing the part of a camel. This is a very old street lined with cafes and shops and teeming with life... pretty much around the clock! It was left untouched in the 19th Century when the architect/planner Haussman re-did Paris with wide boulevards and mansard roofs.What a day we had yesterday... a hike of 15 miles took us all over the left and right banks. We visited St. Sulpice Church (made famous by The DaVinci Code), then spent considerable time in the Luxemborg Garden... acres and acres of laid-back beauty with all sorts of great things to do for kids of all ages. (Pictured at the right, Paris's two newest French kids pose on a very old Catalpa tree in the garden.)
From there it was a long, beautiful walk across to the right bank, past the Louvre (more than a mile long itself!), the Tuilleries, on to Place de la Concorde (where the guillotine once stood), all the way up the Champs Elysee (where the barriers from the end of the Tour de France are still in place), and up the Arc de Triomphe. (We made the return trip by Metro.)
Having the grandchildren here adds intensity to all of the experiences, and really kicks "mindfulness" up a notch.
Onward.
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