Leaving Paris

Yesterday, we spent the day taking in a less visited museum, Carnavalet (great history and artifacts from maninly the 1st revolution in France), the Victor Hugo house and museum and then along the great sites near the Seine. What a small world, as we walked along a voice called out "Wayne". It was my niece Janet, her husband and daughter who had come to Paris unbeknownst to us after a river cruise. After some exchange of travel stories, Miriam and I proceeded to visit Notre Dame,the underside of the Louvre, the Tuileries Garden, Rue Cler for dinner and the Eiffel Tower at nite. The lights of the Tower are now blinking like a christmas tree. Dozens of vendors now surround the area attempting to sell small replicas of the tower and small windup birds. Difficult to tell how they can make a living as there are well over a hundred of them selling the same things. Now its time to pack and get ready to fly home. Great trip but nice to think of sleeping in our own bed again.

A Day at Roland Garros

Today we attended a day of French Open Tennis. The weather is beautiful and the tennis was great. Although we only purchased a grounda pass which entitiled us to view matches at the outer courts we got the full flavor of the Open. Watching the senior mens doubles was a blast as they have fun with each others play. Many of the player's pass by the outer court area and we had the chance to meet and take a photo of Mary Carillo, a very nice lady. Earlier we watched several of the Juniors matches. One 18 year old French player, Mina, was particularly impressive as he looks and plays like Monfiels (literally translatted (my son)). There was also a wheel chair tennis semifinals which we watched. The crowds here are very large and enjoy viewing the major matches on a very huge outdoor tv screen. They like to clap loadly for their French players and sometimes boo the opposing player if he or she contest a linesman's call or slams his racket onto the court. We watched much of Serena Williams match and all of the Federer-Monfiels match while drinking beer and eating european style sandwiches on a huge plaza by the tv screen. Federer really looks good and seems to have built his confidence after his previous win over Nadal two weeks ago in Barcelona. All in all the day was lots of fun. It takes a while on the metro to get there but worth it. As a little treat a local official and former player gave us a lift to the metro stop afterwards. He had the misfortune today of having been hit by one of Federes serves and had a back eye. Who says tennis is not a contact sport.
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Trials of using the Internet abroad

This has been a test of adaptation. Signing on in each part of Europe leads to many challenges. Here in Paris the keyboard has a mishmash of letters and shifts. I learned today how to change the layout to that for other nations. Some times I am unable to switch to english on the verbage and must guess at which words to click on.
Today we are off to Roland Garros and getting ready now to take the metro. This was a challenge yesterday upon our arrival when navigating many flights of steps with our bags with rollers. No escalators or lifts for the handicapped. In Spain that was a commonly found resource. The metro trains move at least twice as fast here as in Spain so hold on tight.
We are located two blocks from the Seine so we took a long walk to Notre Dame and the French Quater. The area is picture postcard beautiful in this city of monuments and lights. Should have taken our camera but will likely do that tonite.

Parlez vous

Yesterday we had our late tour thru the Gaudi house. These photos are from the roof top with Sagrada Familia in the background. Arrived in Paris today passed the Arc du Triumph to first discover that their computer keyboards are much different than ours, many letters are randomly scattered all over the spaces, makes typing quite difficult. Weather is still good, hoping for a nice day for Roland Garros tomorrow.

Monestary at Montserat and Gaudi House

Spent the day visiting the Monestary high in the mountain 1 hour from Barcelona then back to the city to tour one of Gaudi´s masterpiece home. Sorry for flipping the monestary photo. In a rush to fly to Paris this morning. Adios to Spain.