I hope Paris and Berlin are Ready for Me!

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've heard about our upcoming trip--first to Paris and then on to Berlin. We take turns every couple years, making the big journey across the pond, as they say. Calvin's son, his only child, lives in Berlin. Kelly and his Berliner wife, Katrin, come to the States for a visit every other year or we go over there. Kelly is very much like Calvin--warm, caring, intelligent, fun-loving, tall, and slender--and handsome.

 

 

 

Kelly holds a PhD. in High Energy Theoretical Particle Physics, earned after carrying a double major of math and physics at MIT. Katrin runs a large beauty shop in a fashionable part of Berlin, where she grew up. In her broken English, she told me "he is the brains, I am the muscle of this marriage." The woman is high energy, let me tell you. While I lumber along, her feet barely touch the ground as she flits from here to there.

 

We're flying out of Roanoke for this trip. Usually, we use our regional airport, but a friend told me it would be much cheaper to use Roanoke's. I went online, did some comparative shopping and found we'd save $120. per ticket, which makes the hour drive to the Star City worth it. From Roanoke, we'll fly to Atlanta and from there, directly to Paris, a nine-hour flight. We'll arrive in the City of Light at eight in the morning. Once we're through customs, we'll catch a train through the city, getting off at the rue (street) Royale exit, or sortee. (See, you've learned two French words already!). Our little Parisian apartment is a short walk from there.

 

 

 

 

Here's a couple shots of our living room and one of our tiny French kitchen...

 

 

Do you see the washing machine in the corner? According to the apartment information we received from the rental company, it takes 4 hours to wash a load of laundry. We're on the second floor by European standards, third floor American. In Europe, the ground floor is relegated for businesses and is not figured into the floor count.

 

Our apartment is on the Left Bank, in the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne University, where centuries ago all the students spoke Latin exclusively as they walked the streets and argued politics and philosophy in cafés. We're a few blocks from rue Moufftard, one of the oldest streets in Paris, narrow and curving with chariot groves still visible in some places. In times past, monks used to run outdoor markets there. The tradition carries on today...

 

 

Come back next week and I'll bore you with more pictures. I'll be like a child with her nose pressed to the candy store window. Paris fills you with wonder...I hope it fills me with story ideas.