On a cold day in Paris.....

After a "too short" trip home visiting family, friends, and even getting in an early holiday, we both returned to a Paris with fewer leaves than before (Lyle six days before me, so his trip was REALLY short!) When I arrived on Sunday morning, I saw snow flurries, but the 40's still felt a lot warmer than the 20's back in Minnesota!

So I blame it on "jetlag", assimilation, or....just being in my 50's (and I am not talking temperature).....when I stupidly locked myself out of the apartment. Yup. The night before, Lyle asked me why my car keys were sitting with my apartment keys, just waiting for me to mix them up. I, of course, told him I would put them away until our next trip home. Which I didn't. Yesterday, with his shirts in a bag ready to go to the cleaners, I shut our door .... and then had a sick feeling. The car keys were in my pocket, not the apartment keys. The sad part of this story is that this happened a few months before with BOTH of us, so we spent 64 euros for two duplicate keys. Well, they were also in a drawer, inside.

It was late afternoon, and Lyle could not get home until after 8:00 pm. What could I do for four or five hours? I certainly couldn't sit in a cafe! I started walking and thought I could either ride the metro around the city, hop on a tourist bus or......a museum? The Hotel des Invalides is a few blocks from our place and I have never been inside it....so that seemed like a good place to go and keep warm.

This was originally built as a hospital for veterans, in 1671, by Louis XIV. The Dome Church took 27 years to build and was his private chapel. Now, under that beautiful dome, lies the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte which were brought here 19 years after his death in 1840, in a huge stone sarcophagus.

The church is just part of a huge military museum (which covers military history from the Stone Age to World War II!), and I thought this was something that maybe Lyle and I should see together some other day. As I walked through some of the long halls, I saw "Ferme" signs (closed), due to a private party of some sort. I was told I had to leave. Now where to go?

Well, my next "life line" was PHONE A FRIEND. I called Nora, who lives in the next arrondisement, and she told me to come over. Two metro trains and 15 minutes later, I arrived to a warm apartment, and a dinner invitation to both Lyle and me! We sipped some tea and talked, and then later I got a cooking lesson on how to prepare fresh trout (with head and fins). Both of our husbands arrived around 8:30 and we sat down to an excellent meal.

So......it turned out okay, but I am now taping a key in a secret hiding place.

Seasons

Autumn days in Paris this year have been a mixture of crisp, sunny days to cold and rainy. But, on the whole, the weather has given us beautiful days where we have enjoyed the walks along the Seine, viewing the few trees that do show a little color....


......or a boat ride along the Marne into the Paris suburbs.....

......watching the leaves fall on a pond in the Boulogne Park on both real and crystal swans.....






By November, the leaves were still trying to hang on in the Tuilleries Gardens.....



Then, it was summer!

Well, not in Paris, although we did see some beautiful warm days in October. Lyle and I decided to make a trip home because we could not get home for the holidays. I flew to Florida, first, to visit my mom, who is recovering from surgery to remove cancer from her jaw. It was a hard trip to make, but one I value for the time I am able to spend with her. That is one of the big hardships of being so far away from family.....not being close when parents and kids are going through tough times.

And then a few days later, it turned into winter. Minnesota greeted us with an early dusting of a snow. There was even a turkey wandering in the woods behind our house, who left his tracks in the snow.

I wonder if he knew that his brother ended up on our table, as we celebrated the American Thanksgiving with both of our families, two weeks early!