Paris, encore

Bonjour!

(I started this three weeks ago...I'm giving up and finishing it tonight-no matter what!!)

To continue my wonderful winter of travel-to really warm and really cold places...Skip and I took advantage of a great offer and spent Valentine's weekend in Paris-yes, as in, three nights sleeping-in the Holiday Inn Montparnasse! Now, before anyone thinks I've really lost it-this was an offer from an educational tour company, and as they pointed out-there are rather limited options when you're trying to put up 45 people in the center of Paris! 

After our flight from Seattle via Chicago we arrived Friday morning to snow on the ground-again! Lucky for us, it didn't stick around, in fact, Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous days with blue sky, although with the wind I'm guessing it was below freezing. After checking in and a short rest, we explored the area around our hotel-and found (surprise, surprise) a creperie nearby, where we treated ourselves to an afternoon snack of sugar crepes...mmmmm yummy!

Saturday morning we had a bus tour of some Paris highlights, followed by a guided tour of the Opera Garnier-what a showplace! to stop and imagine all the drama that has taken place there-on and off-stage-was amazing. 

Afterwards Skip and I explored the "Passages"-small alleyways filled with intriguing shops and stalls-great fun, even in the cold. Followed it up with a warm onion soup lunch. We enjoyed seeing the Scottish fans there for the Six Nations Rugby games-and yes, even in the bitter cold they were wearing their kilts! The rest of the afternoon included wandering along the banks of the Seine and seeing the variety of boats, and finding the Musee d'Armee which Skip was interested in visiting-but too late for a Saturday visit. On the way back to our hotel we did stop in the garden of the Rodin museum-wow, is it something to actually stand and see a statue like "The Thinker" in person! The garden is filled with some of Rodin's works and was a delight, even in the cold. 

Our Valentine's dinner was at a creperie near our hotel-very cozy and very delicious-especially dessert!! mmm

Sunday found me at a meeting but Skip was able to visit the army museum and see the dioramas that he'd heard about-very enjoyable. After I finished my meeting and visited an outdoor market, we met up to explore the Canal St. Martin. 

The canal and locks date from Napoleonic times, and it is possible to take a boat from a few places in Paris and travel up the canals-unfortunately we missed the boat, as the saying goes. But the canal is lovely to walk along-we had lots of company since it was a sunny, albeit cold, Sunday. 

Sunday evening we were treated to dinner at Le Train Bleu, a very nice restaurant overlooking the Gare de Lyon. Wonderful food, wine-and fun watching the traffic in the station. 

We left Paris Monday morning for our return home, via Chicago. It was a great trip-and short enough that I didn't really feel any jet lag-yay!! A great introduction to Europe for Skip as well.

Reality Mode

I leave for my "grand adventure" in two days-hard to believe but at the same time I think I'm tired of packing and repacking and could have cheerfully left three days ago. 

Since the actual building of the school started in November, we have received weekly updates on the status of the project, including pictures. (If you're interested, I'll try to post a link to the pictures thus far). The first update and pictures had me ready to hop the next flight-it made it all real. Today another reality was brought home in the latest update that arrived this morning. A number of the students in the high school have been helping with the building of the new structure (multipurpose, more another time). Initially they helped before and after school, but now that it is summer vacation a core group of about 20 have been helping every day. One of the volunteers organized an outing to reward the boys-they were taken to a store and given money to buy new shoes. Many of these boys had never "shopped" for anything before and the process of choosing and trying on shoes had to be explained. Some had money left after buying shoes and were able to buy shirts or in some cases small gifts for their mothers. (yay, boys! ;)) Mind you-each had been given 300 Rand-approximately $30. 

But the real kicker for me was the comment that one of the boys was given money to buy shoes for another boy who had gone home to Maseru at New Year's since he was getting too weak to work, having lost weight due to "the bad flu"...AIDS. I am aware that he is likely not the only student in this situation. Reading the statistics about the country is not the same as this... One of the volunteers is a nurse and gave us a presentation about health, in it she recommended reading the book "28 Stories of AIDS in Africa". I highly recommend it for anyone who would like to have a more detailed picture of the situation there.

So I'm off on Tuesday for the marathon flights (10 hrs x 2). In the meantime, I'm hoping to wrap up all those little details that need doing when you're leaving the country for three+ weeks...