Second set Friday finale

Wrong! This is the little Arch de triumph. Could have fooled me.
Emma Nour, chasing pigeons. I love this picture.
This statue was alarmed. Aisha calms her.
This one, well. You know who's influencing him.

First photos, Friday finale

Emma Nour wrote, see? Black and white. Shows we are different.

















This is the view from the top of Lafayette place.


















Aicha at a beautiful doorway, which I forced them to pose in front of. Changeable Paris, already the rain is gone.
At the Louvre. We'll see the inside when we return from the seaside.
More pictures to follow!

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.

more of friday

Friday in France

It started out slow, what with being all bleary eyed, trying to conquer this blog thing. Aicha woke me bright and chipper with her announcement of what I had to do how fast to be in line with THE PLAN; I was not at my sweetest. But EN knew there would be time for all, including painting

and writing the blog captions,

and Tata Khaldia wouldn't be home until after 2,

so time for a walk to the school park,

purchase some patisserie and walk it's pyramid
package to the seine:

THE PLAN is to do a little shopping.

I don't think little is in the Parisian vocabulary

This is at Lafayette Place at Opera: French for shopping mall

It's 1:30. More of this glorious day tomorrow

bon nuit

paris skies

more of yesterday's photos;

after Notre Dame, we followed the tourists down the winding restaurant alleyways, the greek, thai, italian guys trying to lure us in. I gave Aicha the assignment to write comments for the photos, and here they are:

Why is emma nour so unhappy? (en said, I'm not unhappy. I'm thirsty--d.)

My educated grandchildren exploring the life of art. (actually it was ordinary jewelry fabulously displayed on beautiful scarves-d.)

Natural and unnatural Parsians. Can you tell who's who?

Emma Nour and the cloud gods agree. It's cold!

Hang in there. This calorie free-for-all street is almost over.

Aicha trying to see what store she should burn her money on while Enb is making sure her sister toes the line.

(and doesn't spend it. This is one of EN's life purposes.--d)

Then back home to upload and to bed. More tomorrow. By the way, correction: the area is Alfortville, a kind of Parisian Chicago North End by the Seine, a South East suburb. bon nuit!

The first time I saw Paris

Here we are, in Cambridge, just before the trip. Emma Nour said she was sad to keave her mom and her cat. I m having a challenging time writing this. Im using Khaldias computer which doesnt know how to have a proper keyboard, and every time I download a picture, it shoots up ahead of the others. So heres a sort of backwards view, last things first, mostly. I wish I hadnt accidently deleted most of the gitls terse and funny writing, but Ill learn. Enjoy. Love to all. D, A, and EN

The view out Tata Khaldia s window.

The cat.

The big hug goodby

The flight was fine except I spilled water over Aicha, who could no more sleep than I could. We made it !

Greeted by Khaldia! hugs and kisses all around. Her friend , who spoke English, fitted the suitcases in the trunk, and drove us through the morning traffic jams to Khaldia*s, only once letting out that he had borrowed the car and had no license. Passed fields and suburbs, French cars, little delivery vans, big trucks, poplars standing in tall rows by the side of the highways, graffitti covered buildings, both new and old, out of French Impressionist paintings, the graffitti more seriously done than NY, as if they expected more of themselves, being Parisiens. Finally arrived home, on the corner of Rue de Seine in the Alfredville section. Neat, cheery and homey with those wonderful long shuttered windows that open wide bringing in the breeze, the sounds of he motor bikes and an occasional warble from a Parisian songbird As in Brooklyn, the back over looks gardens. We rested after croussaints from the local patisserrie, took a walk, then dear Khaldia went fro,m a full day at work to guiding us to Notre Dame Cathedral and the bustling famous streets. Emma Nour says:

Today we saw paris! also the notre dome and the famous gargogles. enb

The buildings are very gracious, and like to gather at corners to have intellectual conversations with each other, sometimes four or five blocks of them converging on one corner; dwa,

the story in pictures: See Above!