Bon Voyage, Brian and Janine

Our last Oak Park visitors, Brian and Janine, have just departed for the airport and the long trip back to California, and we have a beautiful, sunny Sunday to look forward to - our last in Paris, at least for a while :-). We'll be joining them back in Oak Park pretty soon now, in only 3 weeks!

Brian and Janine arrived in Paris via Sweden and Italy - so they did not need any time to rest! This was good, as they arrived during a party we were having for our friends from the LEME (Laboratoire d'Étude de la Matière Extraterrestre) and then got up the next morning to begin the 'vertical' Paris tour -- top of the Eiffel Tower and , here, at Notre Dame. Of course there were also the Louvre, l'Orangerie, Champs Elysees, numerous gardens, and Sainte Chapelle to visit. At the latter we can find Janine admiring the stained glass.

But this was not all about medieval Paris - not this time - since on Friday night we all five went to see Paul Simon in concert. The venue was the Palais des Sports - about a 20 minute walk from our flat - it sounds big but was, in fact, a very nice comfortable place. We had excellent seats and the concert was fantastique! Simon played many tunes from Graceland but also some of the old favorites, including a solo version of Sounds of Silence and a funky Me and Julio (down by the schoolyard). Two encores and we all had a great time. This was the start of the birthday weekend, culminating the first half-century of a still-living boy from NY. Here's a snippet of the concert:

Last evening, we got to have dinner with Charlu (of Malibu) and Janine's sister, Nita. Dinner was good and dessert was memorable --- and there are still 3 more opportunities to top it!