Jim and Sam Arrive

Hooray, Jim and Sam Arrived yesterday!!!! They managed to make it up the Arc Triomphe, to lunch at Victor Hugo Cafe.We dropped off the ties from Nantucket at Institute du Sein, to see the Eiffel Tower and on the Seine for a Bateaux Mouche . We all got a little groggy on that lullaby boat, so we metroed home from Trocadero, reconnoitered a bit. Sam crashed, and Jim and Erin and I held out till 10, and then likewise hit the hay.
Thursday night I had a farewell dinner with Lorena and Dr Cl at of all places the Grand Colbert, where Jim and I had celebrated our 13th anniversary. We started with a terrific platter of Fruits de Mer which included snails, oysters, wonderful and small, small very small shrimp like things that you pluck off the head and the tail and eat the whole thing!

Grand Colbert

I had magrette de canard and salad de artichoke and finished with creme caramel, none of which I could finish. Dr Cl was animated as usual, Lorena, happy to be finishing, and their nurse was a convivial  guest.

We finished at 1, Lorena and I taxi back, my first in Paris this season, if ever! She has passed her exam in Nice, and has an invitation to stay with Dr Cl, but she has some reluctance to stay in France, even with a French spouse, and is drawn back to Mexico, for a sense of pride, I think, honor, service, and family. Her mother has told her to keep this door open, that life back home is not so great, with the drug wars, etc. So it seems a tremendous challenge for her. A Bittersweet time, wedding August 20th, honeymoon, but also time to sort this out. 

Anyway, I now move on to  pure vacation mode, surrounded by the fam!!

To Orsay and Eiffel today,  adults and teens respectively and then Quartier Latin and dinner at the closerie. I asked DrCl for the name of this place and promised not to divulge, thinking it was non-touristy, only to find it in each guide book, on trip advisor, etc!! Ha!!

I found L'atelier de Chefs, about 5 blocks from the flat the evening before Jim and Sam arrived. They had a macaron class the next day not at 74 but 57 euro!! They are closing for the season! If I had known they'd crash for sure I'd have planned for it. I mentioned it to Erin and her expression said, "Are you kidding Mom Dad and Sam will be here." I mentioned it to Jim Saturday, no comment, to jet-lagged.