The Last Day );

 For those of you who are living a vacation vicariously through us, and there some of you who worry me you are too invested, we have come to the all-but-the-travelling-back end. 😭😭😭

Today began, again, THE FORAGE FOR FOOD!!!!  It’s been a real issue here…

First, we found a pharmacy, for me; in and out and away we went, back to the old village, where someone (I really don’t remember who) thought a restaurant served breakfast. 

Holy effing moly!  Of course there was a Christmas market set up there and there were police and cars and…a lot.  After parking (another minor challenge), we found an elevator up two stories to street level. And made our way through all these vendors, and there was straw on the ground (atmospherics, I hope) and…the restaurant was not serving breakfast during the fair. 😡

We ended up getting food from the vendors: KG and I had sandwiches made with cheese melted off the wheel onto the sammy. Highlight. 

Then we took off to Menton, which is on the Italian border. 

More mountain views were had. 

After struggling to find parking again (it was crazy busy, too), we walked the promenade and got to the Jean Cocteau Museum (don’t ask me) but it wasn’t open till 2.  

We had a drink and the waiter talked them into trying the mille foil (sp) dessert, it had chestnut mousse in the middle (they love their chestnut here).

Knocked out the museum in no time, walked a ways, and, while I wasn’t there, the 3 of them decided “we” were going to the Basilica, which was visible up a very step hill.  I was told “it was only 7 minutes.”

Later, EH added “Google maps said ‘fairly flat.’” Lies!!

More than 7 minutes later we wheezed into the courtyard of the basilica.  Here’s the money shot from up there, toward Italy. 

Back down was easier and we headed back to Mougins. 

As is tradition, we had EH’s birthday dinner tonight (it’s as close as we can get).   We had to go back to the old village to do so, and K insisted we get a taxi.  So I asked the front desk to get us one.  He was there waiting at the right time and he took us the mile up the hillside to the front drive of the village.  We go to get out and he says “card?” and I say cash and he says something and both KG and I need a repeat.  According to KG when I heard it my response was a squeak of “Thirty!”  Yes, 30 euros for a mile.  Ouch. 

It took me awhile to recover from that.  It might have been the fifth course before I was really into it. 

The restaurant, which has had a Michelin star for awhile, is called La Place de Mougins.  I don’t know what his thing is, but tonight there were 3 set menus: beef, lamb, or “worldly pigeon.”  We wondered if that wasn’t a mistranslation, but for what?  In the end, KG had the pigeon, I had the beef, and the other two had the lamb.  Here’s their pictures.

and the desserts.  This is K and EH’s — a variation of what they had earlier, a mille foil but this time that filling is bergamon (sp)

KG. and I got a coconut and a chocolate cake thing.  The chocolate one was the bomb. 

It was like 6 courses and three amuse bouches and several variations among us, so there are too many pictures.  

We agreed it was quite good, though KG rather regretted the pigeon.  He thought it lacked taste.  

As we left, we were invited down to meet the chef, which we did.  I was disappointed he didn’t offer some coupon or something, but c’est la vie.

We ubered back.  It was half the price!!!  😁

KG has a 6 AM flight out of Nice tomorrow, so we are hitting it early tonight.  It has been another fun and memorable trip.  

Bon voyage!

NB: next trip is next month to SoCal…

I don’t know what day it is, but it was a good one

 I should begin by saying that we’ve gone two days with no one falling.  Fingers crossed. 

We are also all more healthy. Though I’m not “well,” it’s not the same thing anymore, but who knows? 

I guess I will start with breakfast, which has been a challenge (too, if you’ve been reading), but today KG found a place in downtown Nice.  It was good.  We found it easily enough, despite the traffic, and even got in a parking place (have I told about this? It’s been a thing with the bigger car and the car’s sensors going off on both sides at once). 

I will stick with a drink pic and a plate pic…

And then off, down the coast road, to a place built by a Rothschild (if you hadn’t heard, they had some coin).  To get ideas for if we wanted to move here. 

In ‘15, Michael and I went here and remember how amazing it was.  Everyone was amazed.  About 1905, someone found this piece of land for Mrs. Rothschild and she build this villa and gardens there.  I will settle for a couple pics.

EH wasn’t happy with her design choices — a roccoco design with some odd touches — but every rich person gets to be eccentric, right?  As you can see, you can see a lot of sea from three quarters of the rooms and the others face the garden (which has a huge fountain that was running). 

The gardens have 9 different areas, including roses, exotics, and French.  Bamboo. Cacti.  There were lots of bird of paradises.  

By the time we were done (after a late start), it was 2 o’clock.  Time to head further east (we went west yesterday) towards Italy.

Michael probably remembers the drive, windy, up and down, with the sea coming into view from higher or lower — I’ll give you one scenic stop’s shot.

Then into Monaco.  FYI you don’t even know you are entiring the place, which Wikipedia says is half the size of Central Park.  After doing through tunnels and traffic, we ended up parking in the famed Casino’s parking garage. 

It was a long walk to the bottom of this hill

Where we ended up in yet another, yes!  Christmas market!!!!  A couple photos will have to stand in. 

And then back to the casino.  Here’s your shot of where we were going before finding an elevator to take us up near the building. 

IF you missed why we were there, it was for the light show, which was supposed to be a big deal.  K got lengthy video, but it really wasn’t that great…

And then we decided to go into the Casino. 

You have to pay to get into the Casino to lose your money. :). But they give you a voucher for down payment on a drink :)

There are no pictures inside the actually casino.  I got one of their lobby Christmas tree, which was impressive.  

Inside, Ian and I got some chips and played roulette.  I walked away 20 ahead minus tip.  Felt okay.

K wondered why we didn’t play blackjack instead “because it takes some skill.”  KG told her that it wasn’t that way, really, that roulette it was 50-50 ish.  Then we watched a guy in front of us as we had drinks lose 5 straight hands in blackjack (though he made some shaky decisions).  But it goes to show how quickly it can go.

OTOH, the guy standing next to us at the roulette table put several 5E chips on the number and hit on the first spin!!!  36 to 1.  It was quite a stack of 5s back at him.  He then took part of that stack and covered a bunch of numbers and hit again!!!

We had drinks, KG and I talked about Casino Royale and they were talking about the decorating (old school, heavy)…and we took off for “home.”

Quick hit: there were a lot of expensive cars rolling around.  This is K’s favorite (not the Lambo, or the Ferraris 😀 )

We ended up back in Mougins eating at the same place for the fourth time (we are “those” people”) and KG had the sea bass, which was worth the photo.  I will add EH’s steak tartare.  

And now I am caught up.  It is literally “tomorrow” already…

Adieu. 

Aix marks the spot

[Ed’s note: there has been input about the lack of blog yesterday.  It was started at 11 PM but interrupted and today…we were away before it got worked on.  So, here it is, followed by another “shortly”}

Today we spent the day in Aix-en-Provence (because there must be another “X” in France, right?), which was a 90+ ride from our resort. 

Since yesterday might have been the world’s worst food day (😢) I will reverse our course and start with dinner, which was in Old Town Mougins (EH pronounces it like you mow and are gone), which we were told is straight uphill from us about a mile.  It was.

It’s a lovely village on the top of the hill, all on a couple circles around the edge. It was cute — as have other villages been — with some pretty lights.  This pic will have to stand.

The first place we stopped didn’t serve dinner (!!!) although they had all kinds of “plats” on the menu “until 1600”.  But not anything now (1900).  Makes sense, right?

We got the cheese board, which turned out to be the best cheese board we have ever seen. !!!!

Then we walked around the village to a place that actually served dinner.  

Here’s the food porn:

K had the duck…

KG had the quail (I’m tortured by people eating the poor little things!)

I had the canneloni.   EH had traditional French beef stew.  

Made up for the night before. 
 

The day started with a trip to Aix, pronounced we-don’t-know, with point 1 being the cathedral.  Here’s a quick shot:

There’s a baptismal font from the 5th c. that they built the church around.  

There was a beggar sitting at the door.  KG said that was pretty good marketing — in front of the church, hitting people up for charity. 

Then we walked down the their museum.  But the Cezanne floor was closed (there seems to be an international exhibition somewhere with a lot of his paintings), so it wasn’t the deal it could have been.

But we tried to lose K!

It’s a classic story:  we all went into the first gallery and the kids and I went around the two rooms and waited in the hall.  K didn’t come.  And doesn’t come.  (she’s typically the one who reads everything and is last).  And doesn’t come.  We discussed that there were only 4 paintings in the room where we left her; “how long can you look at those 4?” We waited.  I finally went to see what she was doing and she wasn’t there!!!!

Turned out there was a back exit into another room and then down some back steps into the lower gallery.

I went through the WHOLE building and nothing…(I thought the other two were way too relaxed about this)!!! 

I came back and found EH standing at the bottom of the stairs and said “I haven’t seen her” and KG comes around the corner and says “I could hear you two clear down that gallery.”  😂  

K appears at the top of the stairs and says “You guys left me!” I laughed and said “you left us”…seems she went down one floor, then thought she’d lost us and went back up to where we were.  I had seen the whole place; they had to go fill in the missing spots. 

Then off on adventure 109.  K’s bucket list for the trip was to go to a real French (as opposed to a fake French) winery.  KG found a place on the way home.

OMG.  I missed the turn into the place (not my first missed turn of the week).  Came back, wound around on a300 degree right hand turn and up the hillside on a “gravel” road with a steep fall off to the right.  Through ruts and everything.  At the top there was a house and a sign that said parking.  Two dogs greeted us friendily but there was no sign of anyone.  No other signs.  We wondered around the house, looking for a likely door, and, after we had done things we might have been arrested for, a guy about my age came out and shook my hand and said some stuff in French.  Then a younger guy showed up and spoke English.  He took us down some stone steps, past some geese that hooted outrageously, and down into a small building with a small door to a bar, where Matthieu (sp?) gave us a little talk and some good wine. 

But the best part is the goats.  

The place was called Trois Skippies, or something like that.  We bought a bottle.  Then a chunk of “fresh cheese” (from a goat, if you didn’t get that) - none of which can come home. 

And that was the day (with dinner). 

Oh, yeah, we came back and finally dug out a deck of cards and played euchre.  KG and EH vs their parents.  Parents won both games, 10-9, despite renegging twice 😂. The cards KG had were from Lisbon last year but it turned out the score cards (6’s and 4’s) had no spots on them.  So K tore up four pieces of paper and attempted to recreate the score cards — though we couldn’t tell what they were! KG said she “did a Picasso on the symbols.” 😂. I was told I couldn’t take a picture of them and share. 😂

That was today…

Day 5: this one’s a humdinger! Hahahaha

 Ok.  

Here goes my opener: I have good news and bad news.  

The good news is I got a new outfit in Cannes. :)

The bad news is that I had to do this to get it (you’ll want the sound up, at least on the third, multiple watching):

I have no words.  Or not enough.  It is all very meta, there on video, but it was maybe even funnier in person — I could hear them laughing at me!!! 😂😂😂 

We will push on, because I clearly could get caught in this rabbit hole for a long time, but KG said it was NOT as good as the dunking in the river in Nova Scotia in June as I didn’t flail as much today and I went all in there. I will say this: the Meditteranean in December is warmer than Prince Edward Bay in June. 😁

Other than that, it was a good day.

Pretty much. 

There was an interesting discussion at breakfast about deciding what to do — KG, aka IAFTR, seemed unhappy with the change of plan today — we didn’t go to Monaco.  I made an exec decision based on the light display in Monaco Friday. So I might deserve what I got. 

Also, we violated, again, the “rule” from the Business Insider writer that said “plan meals ahead, because you waste a lot of time if you don’t.”  Time wasting today included going for dinner on tbe beach in Cannes only to told the kitchen was closed. 😃  (I will not mention that I took a barrel roll walking out to the table [there was small step I didn’t see], which was AFTER the sea dip 😡😢 there are no pictures of video)

Then we tried to go back to Mougins (10 miles but half an hour plus), only to find out THEIR kitchen wasn’t serving yet — a real betwixt and between. 😡

But back to what we did. 

We started by running into Antibes (half an hour southeast).

On the way we were amazed to see…snow capped mountains.  To the east.  And we were within sight of the sea!!!  Wow.  Here’s a pic:

parking in a marina with lots of yachts (yes, really) and walking a ways uphill to the Musee Picass.  Pablo lived here for a year in 1946 and they made the place into a museum and he donated, then his significant other gave a bunch of stuff to them, so they have quite a collection.  Here’s my favorite (or it was till later today 😢), called Joie de Vivre

Let me say this about Pablo’s Antibes period: he sure bought into the environment.  Not only was he wearing French navy striped shirts, but his art is full of urchins, fish, seafood, and a lot of classical stuff inspired the signs said by the fact Antibes was a Roman fortress.  [the pretensiousness of the write-ups is beyond mockable]

(I think this one was the one called Tres Oursins [urchins[)

After walking around the narrow, cobbly streets of Antibe (not without incident, but I’m not to tell 🤷),

we headed to Cannes.  

BTW, driving around here is hard work.  Not quite Cornwall in May hard work, but still…tight streets, traffic (we asked a lot what would be like in high season) and lots of roundabouts with little spurs that confuse you on the directions.

We parked right below the film “palace” and found a charging station (the Lexus is an EV/HV that came full of gas but uncharged!  explain that, please?) and actually charged the car (when we did the math on the euros per km, we decided to not bother and stick with gas).  

There was ANOTHER Christmas market, and purchases were made (a bottle of vanilla rhum [rum], which everyone but me tasted, but *I* bought it — you explain that!), several rather clever ones.  the discussion about the rum will be good for days: how do we get it home? Aren’t we drinking it? Can we drink that much vanilla rum before Sunday? Can we ship it with the other stuff (remember the overweight suitcases)?  LOL.  #firstworldproblems. 

At the end of the promenade, we came to this quay, and they were taking pictures 

and I got ambitious and…you have the video.  😂😂😂

And to dinner, a quick stop at the local grocery store, and back to recuperate. 

If you are wondering: yes, I got pretty wet.  I did buy a new t-shirt and pullover around the corner from where I fell in. :). The staff person knew little English, so the whole thing was hard to convey. :). But she let me change in their “dressing room” (a curtain in the middle of the room) and so my wet, sandy top (3 layers) were carried home.  I wore the pants, despite K’s attempt at getting me others.  My phone survived —- I didn’t get soaked.  

And, yes, K and EH still laugh when they watch the video. Still.  Twelve times later.  EH, who took the video, turned it off quickly, saying “I didn’t think it was a good look for us to be laughing uproariously at my father’s predicament.”  Uh huh. 

I’m not committing to anything tomorrow.  Given my record on falling in water is good this year, I can’t guarantee more (though I can’t really afford a new outfit per day; retiree on a fixed income)…but I hope there’ll be no such thing for awhile.  Fingers crossed.

Au revoir.  Adieu. 

And today’s money shot —

Getaway (from some stuff) Day — to the Riviera!

 Today’s blog begins, Gentle REader, with praise for Air France.  

after the rugged experience on French Bee flying over, Air France treated its customers well.  First, free checked bags! Hooray! Bigger seats! Hooray! Free snacks and drinks (on a 90 minute flight!!!) Hooray!  Win,  win, win, win. 

But to go back to the start of the day: it started with a series of jolting episodes that reminded us we weren’t back on the farm anymore.  Yes, better than the woman in the men’s room yesterday. 

First among these was KG and EH witnessing a woman dropping trow on the street corner and taking a pee into the wastebasket there.  It was a crowded street.  By the time K and. I got there there was only the runoff…and two eyerolling kids. 

Next was a guy begging on the Metro.  Maybe he was legit, but even K, the least skeptical of us all, said he was overplaying it.  KG said “well, he was misssing toes on his right foot…I could seem them bc they weren’t well bandaged.”  He wasn’t pulling in much coin, despite his best efforts. 

Then there was just the plain old “please, please monsieur” pan-handler.  

You just don’t get much of that back home in Bloomsburg.  

Breakfast was good (picture of EH’s salmon toast later) and, after a quick episode of “the olds can’t remember”, we pushed off to the Arc d’ Triumphe.  We even went up top, where we got these pictures.

Starting with the Tomb of the Unknown soldier in the Arc.  You can see that the flowers from 11-11 are still there. 

(you know what this is…)

EH’s salmon toast and Swiss latte from breakfast, the most porny of our choices. 

Down the Champs d’Elysee toward the Louvre (which you can see way down theere)

This is the “Notre Dame shot” as you can see it in the distance just under the crane’s basket and above the red and white railing. 

We “strolled” down the Champs d’Elysee (notice the “down” as it was an important part of the logistics, as you can see the slope in the pictures from the Arc) and there was an exchange about what “stroll” was meant to mean. :) 

We ended up in the Place de la Concord, with its famous obelisk (pictured) and then to the end of the Christmas market we hadn’t gotten to Saturday night.  

Drinks (“boissons”) and macarons (“Macarons”) were purchased and we headed to the luggage storage place and to Uber.  [note: there was a brief exchange with the storage guy about the Blackberry, but my low-ball offer was met with a sad tale of having to make money and no counter, so there was no deal.  I can get one on Ebay cheaper :))

The Uber ride, in their XL model so we had plenty of room, not the complained-about taxi we were sardine-canned into on Saturday, though without real choice, but it took about ten extra minutes, too. 

Then into the hospitable arms of Air France.  Voila.  

We are all still malade — it’s a walking cacophony of hacks and snorts, with drugs being handed out every 4 hours like clockwork in multiples of 4, but not sure they really work.  Hack, cough, snort, hack, cough. It was not a pretty thing in the environs of the airplane. ):

Got into Nice Airport, our check bags were out before we could finish bathroom runs, and then a long, windy walk to Enterprise, but no one in line and two helpful people put us quickly into a Lexus SUV. It’s bigger than our car back home and the roads to the resort are smaller.  And windier.  And the parking spaces made for a mini. ):

For this portion of the trip we went to two apartments, one with one bedroom, and KG took that — in recompense for having to sleep on the sofa bed last year.  He’s lucky: there’s so much noise with others (if not yourself), it’s not terribly peaceful.  The place looks good — not overly fancy, but spacious and accommodating, and the little town of Mougins (where we are, literally) is cute.  Antibes is down the hill on the Meditteranean below.

The current plan for tomorrow is a late-ish breakfast (we were told “ten is too late to get the day started” — an annual convo 😂) and then to Monaco and maybe some places near there, about an hour aware.  Further plans will be revealed.  

Oh, dinner tonight was to the nearest restaurant — here’s unlabeled food porn (Nic)

But now we’re in Nice, and, though tonight we didn’t really see it (it’s December, it’s after dark when we arrived), we hope it lives up to its name.  So nice they named it once. :). I might sell that slogan to them. :)

Au revoir.

(Day 3) Nous sommes malades!!!

😡

Today we went to the Louvre and Notre Dame (not the ones NOT going to a bowl game :)) and we are to be congratulated for our fortitude as we all have some crud, in various degrees, and I had to go to the pharmacy and try to get cold medicine in French.  Or rather the staff person knew “a little English” and was able to guide me to TWo boxes (why act like we’ll not need it — malades x 4!!!)

The Louvre.  Afterwards EH shared what she learned from Google as we stood in the never-moving line: “a trip to the Louvre is a physically demanding experience.”  Right, now you tell us.  

This picture as we walked up doesn’t give you enough of an idea of the crowd — and there were really no instructions. We found a line and went to get in it and said out loud “wonder if this is the right line” and an American ahead of us said “do you have a timed ticket” “yes” “yes.”  We trusted him.  He turned out to be right.

This is going to be a not-humble-brag but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Paris (8?).  I do not know that I’ve ever NOT gone to the Louvre when I’m there.  My favorite part is probably that pyramid in the picture — not only because of its increased fame from The Da Vinci Code, but how clever it is (the nearby district is called Pyramides…for one), and also my first time there it wasn’t there.  I stood in line in that courtyard and went into a door into the Denon Wing.  You can look up the year and do the math, if you want :)

After waiting 40 minutes in wind and some spit, we got inside.  Story #1 of the day: I go to the men’s room and it has two stalls and 3 working urinals.  There is a line, of course, for the stalls.  As I’m standing there, the one door opens and a woman pops out and bolts past us all and out.  IDK! 🤷 The line into the women’s room was loooooong, but…KG asked if I was sure about “she.”  😃😂

[Editor’s note: KG wants to now be known as “I’m along for the ride.”  I suggested (stumbling over the acronym several times) “AFTR” from now on in the blog and was told to put that one back in the workshop for never 😀]

There was a temporary exhibit of Jacques-Louis David on the “first” floor, so I suggested we go there first.  We did.  It was quite something.  They had A LOT of David’s, including multiples of several, including the (famous?) Death of Marat.  

As we discussed what we had seen, I said “I had never heard of him.”  “why did we go in there then?” I gave no reply, sheepishly, but KG chimed in “he thought it was something else.” 😂. “But you know the paintings?”  I admitted I recognized about half a dozen (Napolean crossing the Alps, for one),

but I couldn’t have told you who painted them. Or that it was the same person.  🐑

After much indecision (see yesterday’s blog on “I thought we were going for you…I’m only along for the ride”), KG and I headed for the Mona Lisa room, which is famously crowded; RR & EH refused to go.

I could bore you with how far away she was from the central gathering place.  AT LEAST a 1000 stairs.  A millon steps, dodging through what seemed like a million people.  

The surprise was that there weren’t more people in the room — here’s my meta-photo:

Again, I won’t bore you with a picture of all the famous art pieces there — the sculpture of winged victory (which only has detail on one side, trivia), another of Da Vinci’s Lady of the Rocks, a thousand paintings of various Biblical scenes, including Christ in various shapes and colors. 

We had a paper map in hand, and some of the rooms you could actually find their numbers, but we were “lost.”  There’s a famous Hawkeye Pierce line, K will remember it, about not knowing for sure, but I know what lost looks like.  Since we reversed course multiple times, we were. 

My hallucinating dreams of an elevator where just that — there were none, despite icons on the map that showed that, somewhere around this staircase, there was an elevator.  Never saw one.

The funny thing is the other two went into the opposite wing, went upstairs,  and had the same experience.  Turned around in rooms, staircases that didn’t go up when they should, went down to a room that was…well, the wrong number or unnumbered.  

The quote about it being a taxing physical and mental experience was true. 😡

The funnier part with them, behind us by half hour or an hour, is they came to the same spot following signs for “Sortie” (Exit) with the pyramid diagram on them into the -0 floor and the medieval part of the buiilding (the foundation is bare, picture to help) 

that we went through and staff people stopped them! and made them turn around!!!  They eventually came back that way having meandered (a synonym for lost) around until another staff person told them there had been a package left unattended, so there was an evacuation of the area for awhile.  Huh. 

About 3 o’clock we were all back in the central hall — the pyramid points down from the ceiling there, voila!

From there, with some clever guidance from our faithful old guide, we got onto the Metro and bounced several stops east to “9 minutes” from Notre Dame Cathedral.  There was another market-thing in front of city hall on the way, with some stops and pics (here’s one to give you the feel):

We didn’t have tickets for the Cathedral, but the line was quick — there was a discussion about them working with the Louvre in terms of peope management :) —and it was way worth it.

You all know it burned badly a few years ago and the restoration project is complete only recently (this fall?).  

EH said “I don’t remember it being this clean.” 😃 I thought there was still a whiff of smoke. in the air.  

But the results are fabulous.  I’ll stick with this one knave shot to stand for it all:

It was very crowded, of course. But it was amazing to see and to think about the damage and how beautifully they’ve redone it.  As you can see, the stained glass is spectacular; as I told K (we were slower getting around), I wish I had a diagram of exactly what was gone and they had to rebuild.  

K spent awhile in front of the amazing “Provencal Creche” — I am not sure whether it is the French provine or the rural bit that gives it its name, but maybe both? —  so here’s a shot so you get an idea (we saw a similar one in a church last year in Portugal).

And then we made a quick beat-feet back to the apartment for a rest before dinner (with a quick pass through a “garden shop” next to the station that had Christmas stuff and all kinds of other plant life, including several “tomatoe trees,” and a lime tree with a half dozen limes on it!!!)

KG picked the dinner spot.  There was discussion about how many restaurants there are here (you get the impression they don’t eat in a lot here) — he said a million, which I’m sure is a slight exaggeration.  😃😂

The place was called Chez LouLou and they had a jazz combo playing — yeah rah. 

KG, of course, had the Elmer Fudd special (what is it you say, M? joke’s not funny till it’s told thrice…😂)

(that’s duck)

(out of order). EH & K had the creme brulee for dessert (“we’re in France…” was the logic)

I had the lasagna boulognese (“we’re in France…” no!)

EH had the lamb tajine (I was too slow to get a pic of the smoke stack that comes on top of it)

It was all good.  The kid did great.  The waiter was rather funny and I only botched some of the French I attempted with him. :). He also seemed to misunderstand how much I wanted to tip him and I was told that  it was too much (always wrong!)…

We gave the band a tip and came home.  

Tomorrow we’re going to the Champs d’Elysee to see what the decorations and stands look like and we fly to Nice at 5.  

Despite being sick, we had a great day.  

To finish, before the supposedly humorously post script, here is the daily group selfie:

Followed immediately by one (not a selfie it turns out) from in front of Notre Dame.

You will notice something missing from it. 😂 we were told “one is all you get a day” and she stuck by it and took this shot of the three of us. 😃😂😂  Kids!!!

PS: today was another life-lesson learned (who says you can’t learn new tricks?) — the experts say you are supposed to mix it up and not wear the same shoes multiple days in row.  So, today, I wore my other pair of shoes.   And my other knee sleeve.  Neither worked out well.  My “dress sneakers” weren’t really made for 7 miles of steps with a thousand stairs on hard stone.  I felt it early and often. 😢 the knee sleeve (damned copperfit) felt like it was sliding down my leg most of the day.  #firstworldproblems but live and learn.  Until demain, au revoir.