At the airport, you’ve been wonderful. Excited by all the activity, at the prospect of the trip. Milo Schindler, according to his mother, survives in Paris on bread, butter and chocolate, and you’re prepared to follow suit.

We arrived without incident, and were met at CDG by Abby. Faced with nearly equal RER and cab fares, we hopped in a taxi to 149 Belleville, our really quite wonderful home in the 19th. To reach the apartment you pass through a coded door flush to a sidewalk, through the entranceway and courtyard of the apartment building that abuts the street, through a door at the rear of the courtyard and, then along an interior walkway that feels straight out of Charade (actually the remake), past several small bungalows, to the left and finally our house, straight ahead and to the right which runs along with the walkway, yard on the interior, house on the exterior side with an gated garden and a set of 5 foot swinging windows opening out of the kitchen into the common space defined by the walkway. The apartment is really wonderful. Concrete floors below, wood up, sparsely but carefully furnished, with an eat in kitchen, living room downstairs, a bedroom. study/foyer, bath up, each distinguished by the large double windows and the bathroom by a deep tiled bath with side faucets.

Unable at first to get in the house, we left our bags and took the Metro (much to your’s and Daddy’s excitement) to the 15th to the Parc Arche Citroen and to retrieve Abby’s bag. All well enough, but the heat and a few wrong turns, and a message from the land lord to hurry led us again to a cab, past the Sorbonne, Ile de la Cite, etc. and home, where all the heat of the day and the long trip were made up by a tour around our immediate neighborhood, which includes – literally across the street , 2 patisseries, a cafe/honey (miel) shop, a wonderful cheese shop, and a very pleasant seeming wine shop (all on a metro line). True often in Paris, I guess, but contributing to a delicious lunch of bageutte and cheese. Late afternoon at the flea market and walking around Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th. You feel down the steps – an awful sound- and got a terrible bruise on your bum and both your thighs.