Tuesday, April 19, 2011 4:39 PM
Dear Family and Friends,
Ah, Paris...and the longest day yet!
Isa is the best tour guide ever, with stories to go with every sight, but the woman never seems to need a break!
All the girls finally got together in the morning. Five women who have been chatting online for over two years, never thinking we could coordinate a meeting, and yet, it happened. Robert was the only man, and long ago in the planning we had been calling ourselves his "harem"...:-)) He has been so wonderful -- allowing us to chatter away and giggle, and I never once heard him say, "I'm sorry, I don't know them..."
Jean from Alabama sent a text to Isa from London before coming to Paris, asking "Do you have all your ducks in a row?" Isa showed it to me, and asked me to translate...and from that point on, Isa was "Mama Canard"...or Mother Duck. We tried to stay single-file, but failed miserably...
ROBERT WRITES:
My French phrase of the day is: "Mama Canard" pronounced "cannes-ard." *embarrassed, he says* I have been making the mistake of saying "Mama Connard" which is pronounced "Co-nard." In French per Isa this means...ahem...*Mama ass*!
We started off the day by meeting Sarah at Gare du Nord train station and then met the two other ladies that were coming in on the Eurostar named Jean and Karen. Jean and Karen, Sarah, Isa and Susan had never met face to face before so it was quite a moment. Karen and Jean were joining us for the day tour of Paris in which we were to walk most of Paris seeing a lot of the major tourist attractions.
None of us were aware of the amount of walking we were going to do on this day, but for me, having been bused into places like Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre Museum thirty years ago while with a student tour of France, walking up to these places was very special. You feel as if you just happen to turn around the corner while you are walking and Bam! There is Notre Dame or the other sites. I can't describe what we saw this day, and only some of the pictures do it justice.
These memories will be with me till the moment I leave this world and probably beyond. Walking Paris with someone who knows it so well is very special. Thank you so much Isa -- "Mama Canard."
SUSAN WRITES:
Robert said that one of the benefits of being with so many women was that he never had to ask where the "facilities" were...and at one point, just at the Place de la Concorde, all five of us paid our 40 cents in Euros and descended the stone steps to the "Ladies"...
...only to find...a male attendant. The well-traveled Sarah and Karen, and the native-French Isa didn't bat an eye, but Jean from Alabama, and Susan had a momentary look :-) Turns out we needed him, as they were having some plumbing problems. As we ascended the stairs again, Karen said with typical aplomb and in her lovely kiwi accent: "Well, he had his screwdriver at the ready, didn't he?"
So, my French word for the day is screwdriver: "tournevis" (which means literally, to turn a screw). And my thanks to the French for being so resourceful, and for being not too modest to have a necessary man in the Ladies...:-))
A bientot (see you soon!) and love from...
Robert and Susan
:-)) xx
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