1. We came across our first flat-out crazy person. He was a guy with a scruffy beard and old shoes without any laces sitting by himself in one of the "booths" on the Metro. About a minute after we'd boarded, he suddenly, violently, and for no apparent reason kicked the seat opposite him, letting out a kind of low grunt as he did so. I had just gotten out my camera to take the 500th picture of the boys on the Metro (not really, it only seems that way), and so quite by accident caught this interesting picture of their response. Son number one looks bemused; son number two is not quite so sure:
The crazy man didn't stop at one violent kick; he followed with several more, the last of which broke the seat opposite him. I decided it was prudent to get into another car, so at Denfert Rochereau we switched. From the next car, I took this picture. The crazy man is sitting to the left, slumped down in his seat.
One genuinely crazy person in 6 months is not too bad for a city the size of Paris.
2. We had lunch with the family with whom we'd stayed in La Rochelle. This is where we were going when we met the crazy man. We dined at a place we'd been to a couple of times before, called "Chez Fernand," on Boulevard Montparnasse near the Vavin Metro station. It is a very typical French bistro, serving excellent food in a very pleasant setting. Here are a couple of pictures of the boys, which give a sense of the place:
The best part of the lunch was seeing our friends Alain and Isabelle and their son Arthur again. They are the kind of people it is impossible not to like -- warm, genuine, and funny. We spoke mostly in French but a little in English, about a variety of things, during the course of a delicious meal that included wonderful, huge desserts. It was one of those experiences that strikes you as having a quality of timelessness to it, even while you are in the course of it. As Suzie and I remarked later, the lunch with them was the perfect bookend to our time in France.
3. Our other European friends, Suzie's old high-school friend Stacy and her family, were visiting Paris over the weekend. We'd had dinner with them out on Sunday, had them over to our house last night for burritos, and after lunch we went to the Gare de l'Est to see them off on their train back to Luxembourg. A picture of their extremely cute kids from yesterday, as well as a picture of the Gare, are below.
So that's about it for today. Tomorrow we see if we need to by just one new suitcase or two in order to get all our stuff back to California. Plus, in the evening, a special treat....
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