Ally's birthday

Today is Ally's birthday. We had a leisurely breakfast at home before taking the bus to the Parc de la Tête d'Or, Ally's favorite park in France. The Parc de la Tête d'Or is huge, so we only visited a small part of it: a children's playground, some of the zoo, and the rose garden. I'm looking forward to going back when we return to Lyon a few weeks from now. Eli enjoyed the playground. At the zoo he identified giraffes and elephants, which he calls "elelela."

For Ally's birthday lunch we went to a creperie near Bellecour. Eli started to get angry right after we sat down, but Ally got him some milk and that calmed him down. We ordered Eli a ham and gruyere galette, which at first he did not like. After a few minutes he came around and devoured a good part of it.

We then walked around Ally's old neighborhood, Ainay. (Quite by coincidence, this is where Mary and I stayed when we visited Lyon.) After looking up at her old window, we stopped at her favorite bakery and got some treats for later: a lemon-meringue tartlet and a piece of apricot-almond-pistachio tart. They were excellent!

The rest of the evening we have largely spent getting ready to move out. Our apartment is a good deal in that we are getting a very nice place for about half what a minimal hotel would cost, but we have to do our own cleaning.