Paris in the spring - they do not exaggerate, it is absolutely beautiful! The sun was shining each day, the sky was blue, flowers everywhere, the trees blossoming and turning that most luscious shade of early-spring green... especially coming from Calgary in March; cold, windy and brown..
My friend, Nadine, has a friend who has a bachelor apartment in the Le Marais district where I could stay - walkable to everywhere a tourist would want to go.
And that's what I did for the four and a half days that I was in Paris - I walked... and walked and then walked some more. The thought of descending into the bowels of the city - the Metro - was simply inconceivable.
So I walked to all of the usual tourist sights - I saw the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Musee d'Orsay - all of the well-known places. And because I was on foot, I also saw the everyday places - the Place des Vosges, the Eglise de St. Eustache, the Place de la Madeleine and the sidewalk cafes, glimpses of courtyards, unexpected squares teeming with people enjoying the sun...
I left my camera behind until the last two days so that the lens wouldn't get between me and the city, but I hope to post some pictures on Facebook if you would like to see them...
Oh, and thanks to another friend, Reina, I had contacted a teacher before leaving Calgary. She came to meet me and we walked, talked, listened, laughed and roamed the city - she took me to the Place des Vosges, the Canal St. Martin, to a small cafe in Bercy near the Bibliotheque de Francois Mitterand and the Pere LaChaisse cemetery- all with a little grammar lesson or two as well. It was a great way to attune my ear to French again and gain a little confidence in my ability to express myself.
No internet in Paris, but I took the TGV to Tours today, found my little apartment for the next 20 days,
and can now go on-line!
Tomorrow class begins....
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