more of Friday

Ah, dear ones. Here I am at close to midnight at a cyber cafe in Royan, a little tourist city around a vast beach in the west of France. I stayed up until the wee hours trying to post the photos and sweet/sour comments from the girls, and the internet vacated the premises of Khaldia's apartment both nights. I thought I could do some work on the train ride over today, but, no internet connection there, either. But it will not deter us! No! Sound the French anthem! Storm the Bastille! Stay up until 3 if you must, it will be done!

Because I just love these images. They say so much about where we are and the spirit of being here. These are magical days, sometimes challenging, but filled with rich humor and discoveries.

ok, here goes. I'm going to try to download as many as I can, and see what happens. I am on my OWN computer now, with all the letters in the right place, and oh, that helps.

Where were we? Ah, shopping. Where nothing is small. A palace of palaces, and a rooftop walkway to rival any. We walked along with our choices, then down to have some salads and pastries by windows overlooking the same scenes. Il pleu! Rain fell down. We were grateful we'd chosen the raincoat! We purchased Aicha's pretty dress, a sweater, a long purple coat, all on sale. EN was a little more difficult to please. How about this? No. How about this? No. How about . . .No. And. .? No. We managed to find something she liked at the fouth emporium, they're favorite store, Spanish. So you can imagine my fatigue.

Khaldia said, Yes? Where?
Jardin. I said. Give me a Jardin, please. So we went to the gardens of the Louvre, all grass, no garden, but glorious, running in grass, grass and EN took off after one poor pigeon after another, watched by the various greek statues there, looking more or less amused. She was a joy to watch. Aicha loved just being there. Remembering the last time. Spotting the ferris wheel. Could we? I couldn't imagine not doing that, lifting us up and up. The sky cleared, the sun was out, and as we walked closer, not just the ferris wheel, but a whole slew of children's rides, and the girls' fatigue turned into pure glee.

We let them choose a few, flying chairs, a caterpillar roller coaster, then we all went up on the ferris wheel at sunset. Open cars, on the wind, rising high over the Louvre, the gardens, the city. That city. All those grand buildings. You have to ask yourself, didn't they have anything else to do but build buildings? The sheer industry of it all, the persistence and perserverance, such an act of unified will, all art, all grand, all equally magnificent. Awe-inspiring.

Aicha hid her head at first, then gained courage, then joy. Especially when she noticed the trampolines below. which was their last ride. The men who strapped them in encouraged them to leap high and flip, which they nobly tried. Aicha? Arab? Algerian, yes? The men smiled at each other knowinly, clearly arabs themselves. They let the girls jump and jump and jump I think far longer than usually allowed.

So here's the photos, as many as I can get on here. Enjoy! Tomorrow I'll send you the weekend's adventures. Then we'll be caught up. Actually, folks, I'm going to send along the photos a few at a time, since I'm trying something different. bare with me.
love you!
d.