Goodbye, Hello!

Anna out the window

Today is our last full day with Anna.  It feels strange knowing that tomorrow she will be jetting her way back to Minnesota and college and we will be staying here in Paris.  We have had a marvelous first week with Anna here in Paris.  I do think she's had a great time too.  I know for a fact she's enjoyed the shopping.

​Tomorrow morning, after seeing Anna off at terminal 2 of Charles de Gaulle airport, we will shuttle our way over to terminal 1 and wait for Kirstin, Derek, and Cora's arrival on Lufthansa.  Hence the "Goodbye, Hello" title for this post.  We've been busying ourselves today with "Cora-proofing" the flat.  I think we're in pretty good shape for the arrival of an active nearly three-year old.

Paris Catacombes

Yesterday, our major outings were the Paris Catacombes and the D'Orsay Museum.  We all found the catacombs to be fascinating...not nearly as creepy as we would have thought.  The bones were actually arranged in an orderly fashion, with Christian burials provided to those whose original burials could be determined to have been Christian.  The original remains entombed in the catacombs were from the Cemetery of the Innocents, which needed to be razed in the late 1700s due to sanitary concerns.  I'll let your imaginations run with that one.  Later, as other cemeteries were reclaimed for urban expansion, the remains were moved to the catacombs in groups.  Each group has its own sign, signifying where the remains came from and when.

The first interments at the catacombs

After the catacombs we made our way to Musee D'Orsay, one of our favorite museums in Paris.  We first lunched in the fifth floor restaurant (Le Restaurant on the second floor was closed), then we made our way through the museum from top to bottom.  We had thought about also taking in Monet's Water Lillies at l'Orangerie, but tiredness overruled.  We listened to a great jazz trio, in the style of Sidney Bechet, out in front of d'Orsay for a bit and then caught the metro back to the Marais, our neighborhood.

Dinner last night was at Capitaine, a newish farm-to-table restaurant which is just a few blocks from our flat.  We had a marvelous dinner.  Today has been spent in our neighborhood, relaxing, shopping, and taking strolls on the Seine, which apparently is what all of Paris does on a beautiful spring Saturday.  Tomorrow will be an early start for us all.

The Seine on a beautiful spring Saturday evening