Last Day in Paris

Today was Eli's last full day in Paris on this trip. After a morning visiting parks in Les Batignolles with Sam while I got some work done, Eli had lunch and his nap. Sam and I then took him to the Jardin du Luxembourg, the largest park within the limits of Paris. Note that the much larger Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, while owned by Paris, are actually located outside it. The Jardin du Luxembourg, on the other hand, is within Paris but actually under the direct control of the Sénat, the upper house of the French legislature, which meets in the Palais du Luxembourg at the north end of the Jardin. We also got to walk around the Latin Quarter. This area is called the Latin Quarter because it used to be filled with Latin-speaking students from the schools and universities. It's now filled with English-speaking tourists and students. That's not quite fair; on pretty days like today, everyone who can comes to the Jardin du Luxembourg to lie out in the sun for an hour or two.

I spent a lot of time in this part of Paris during summer 1996, when I was taking classes at the Sorbonne, and then during the 2001-2002 academic year, when I was at the École Normale Supérieure. Normale Sup' is right nearby, too. A lot of days I would eat lunch in the Jardin. It was fun sharing this part of Paris with Eli and Sam.

The Jardin is pretty big and includes many areas. Particularly interesting today were the central basin with its toy sailboats, and the jardin des enfants, which was very crowded. We were getting ready to leave when Ally called. She was finished at the BN and wanted to join us. So she came over and we walked around a little more.

Ally wanted to get Eli some new toys for the flight home. We ended up walking from the Jardin du Luxembourg up Boulevard St. Michel to the Île de la Cité and then to Les Halles. That involves crossing the Seine. We found a couple nice things in a small toystore in the underground mall. We hope they will keep Eli entertained. We came home by métro, which was actually quite an ordeal. I got to practice my French. We gave Eli his last bath in France, then made our favorite pasta sauce and started packing. I managed to find the Irish Coffee Mamie Nova puddings we'd been wanting, and they were very good.

Tomorrow we will finish packing and cleaning, then go to Roissy by taxi. Sam has a direct flight to Atlanta, while we are flying to Birmingham via Dallas. Sam leaves later but arrives earlier. He's renting a car in Atlanta, which he'll use to pick us up and drive everyone to Tuscaloosa. He'll be staying with us in Alabama for a few days. Yes, Sam does have lots of vacation!