Grande Paris

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I wish I were a more eloquent writer so that I could justly describe Paris. Alas...

What a city! Paris oozes history and energy like no other place. Beautiful buildings and streets are in every view and people of every nationality bustly about.

My cousin Jodi and her fiance, Emmanuel, hosted us at their roomy place. It was wonderful to have a homebase for a bit. We spent the first few days walking around the city and dusting off my french. (I successfully ordered several third-world country drugs 'for staying very not sick,' and took both Jim and I to the hairdressers 'It is much too long. Short here and shorter here.' We came out unscathed.)

We also visited some typical and offbeat museums: the Catacombs house millions of dead Parisian bones, a special Matisse/Picasso exhibit traced these two artists lives in conjunction, the Musee de l'Armee had military artillary and supplies from hundreds of years ago, and, of course, the Louvre.

Another big highlight of the trip was meeting up with some long lost relatives of Jim,s. To make a VERY long story short, his great grandmother hailed from Russia. Her brother, a Russian soldier, was captured by Germans during WWI and exhiled in France. He escaped and lived in Paris after the war where he again had to escape the Jewish roundup during WWII. We met his daughter and grandaughter who had no idea what had happened to Jim's branch of the family. Exciting.

Au Revoir, Tera and Jim