Oh I'm Very Behind in Posting!

I'm writing this on Thursday, sitting on the grass in a park (Bercy). Every park in the city has free wifi! It's fabulous, as long as your battery holds out! (I succumbed to a Starbucks on the corner and am drinking and ICED cafe au lait.) April arrived and with it, gorgeous weather. Parisians are out everywhere, taking it in. Lots of mothers and babies, students, older folks holding hands, lovers embraced on the grass. Yup. It's April in Paris.

Waiting for the RER (pronouced air-uh-air, very fast) train at Cité Universitaire

Let's see, where to begin again . . . Sunday. Yes.
Sunday morning Jed and I took the RER to meet his old elementary school buddy, Sam Todd for breakfast at Jed's favorite restaurant in all of Paris: Breakfast in America! The waiters speak English there and you can get a real bona fide American Breakfast. Hence the name . . . So it was scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes and American kitsch all over the place. Great to see Sam, all grown up, studying for this semester in Paris with his SMU program. On our way, we walked past the place where I think I stayed when I was 20 and in Paris -- the Hotel St. Jacques on the rue des Ecoles. I'll have to check this out with Lois to see if I'm remembering right.

Sam Todd and Jed at Breakfast in America on the Rue des Ecoles

Maybe where I lived back in 1969?

After breakfast, Jed and I walked up to Notre Dame. It's still huge and impressive as ever. There were tons of people there in line to get in, so we walked on by. The thing in Paris is there are all these little streets, closed in by fabulous buildings and suddenly you open up into a huge broad plaza, like the one in front of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame

It's almost dizzying, the way space plays with you here. We wandered over a bridge where we watched some divers getting ready to go into the Seine, searching for something.

Divers in the Seine

Across the bridge (now on la Rive Gauche) we saw the famous Shakespeare & Co., the English bookstore. I had to go in. It's so charming. Bought a book, "Almost French" about an Australian woman who falls in love with Paris and a man and lives here now. Fun reading while I'm here, although when I landed at my friend Veronique's place,it was FILLED with wonderful books about Paris. It's hard to know what to read next. And anyway, I want to be outside exploring, or writing here, or talking with Veronique or Jed. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was captivated by this sign outside of Shakespeare & Co. which ends with "Now it is my daughter's turn." For obvious reasons.

So, after Shakespeare & Co. we sat in a little park for awhile, where we discoverd the wonders of free wifi in Parisian parks.

Harbingers of spring in the park


Toy soldiers in a window. Jed wanted pics for Gabe.

Later at La Contrescarpe (more free wifi which means both of us can get some work done) we had a small lunch: soup a l'oignon and salade.

Flowers and florists are everywhere.
A mural and poem in the 5th Arrondisment