Home Sweet Home

Our trip: Back to Paris!

I am almost done posting about our trip. In a couple of days I will change the date of this post to its real date--in this case August 14--as I have done with all of the other posts.

At the Casablanca Airport, we said goodbye to the water bottles from our beau-fils company, and hello to easily accessible cold beers! :-)   Husband was quite happy and eloquent about the latter item. 

In Paris it was very early morning. The taxi was easily available and the streets still fairly clam!

So i took some more Parisian pictures form the front seat! 

Buildings,

bridges...

and monuments! 

And at the train station Gare du Nord we were deposited! 

A view of the gorgeous train station building from the Cafe across the street where we had our first taste of European food after a week in Africa! 

The girls were pretty sure they would never ever taste a better hot "chocolat"!!

And my Cafe Au Lait... oh my oh my! 

Breakfast of fresh croissants and mini baguettes and... omelette et du salad! 

And here's our seasoned yet young world-traveler, very calm and satisfied, waiting at the Thalys High-Speed waiting area for our train from Paris to Amsterdam, passing through Brussels and Antwerp.
https://www.thalys.com/be/en/rch=1&WT.content=text&WT.source=google&cshift_ck=58829AEB-0AAF-445C-8ECC-358091B4A835csBv1Vi6TZ

Brussels, Amsterdam, and... home!

We saw plenty of Brussels, but only from the train. It turns out the train was direct, stopping briefly in Brussels and Antwerp. It was a very easy and comfortable trip.

Brussels

Brazilian snack upon arrival in Amsterdam, at a place very close to Number One's

Number Four and I walked to Anne Frank's house. 

I read the book when I was 13, and I identified so much with her. She liked to write, and journaled every day. She had a pretty older sister named Margo, and so did I! 

It was awesome being right there... where it all happened.

There were many of these around... I called them "half-cars"!

The canals are just beautiful.

Thomas found an interesting store...

Number One's place!

From across his canal.

Our Italian fabulous dinner 2 blocks away!

... and ice cream. I took this picture about 5 minutes after almost been run over by a huge bike!

Airport breakfast next morning!

Met a famous friend at the Van Gogh Museum store at the airport where I did some last minute shopping!

Bye bye tulips, bye bye Amsterdam, bye bye Europe!

Chicago O'Hare was showing old local stainglass windows on the hallways towards immigration & customs.

Nice to be greeted by sacred art!

The Annunciation

Number One said we must have a Tortas Fronteras Margarita! We befriended a couple of flight attendants and had a very interesting chat!

Home, Sweet Home.

Leaving Paris, Orly Airport

We finished our whirlwind tour of Paris and headed to the airport to catch our late evening flight to Africa!

At Orly Airport in Paris the girls ordered their dinner from a very high-tech MacDonalds!  

I wonder how long it will be until it will look like this here in the US.

And in the Happy Meal, ... fresh pineapple! 

Not far from our "French" dinner in the airport, there was a chapel. Not a multi-faith chapel like some of the airport chapels in the US, but a real Catholic chapel, with the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle and a little Marian shrine. Oh, solace for the itinerant soul and for the heart, filled with so many prayer requests--to sit quietly in an oasis of silence and prayer, feeling Home when so far away,  so displaced. We placed, again, the trip in God's loving hands, asking for each person we would encounter, for each dear child or sibling.

Mater Amata, Ora pro nobis.

And the European-adult child orders pre-flight beers! 

Last Parisian selfie!

Africa here we go! Another continent! 

After a very late arrival, a comforting breakfast of Cafe-Au-Lait outside at our hosts' Varandah.

Siblings reunite!

So happy to be together!

AH ah ah!

And we added another sister in the mix! :-)

Around Paris and Eiffel Tower

A refreshment break after Notre Dame at the Cafe across the River Seine. Consulting GoogleMaps... his take on the Coke bottle was, "the USA got man to the moon but can't glue labels on Coke bottles".

So "raisin juice" is actually Grape Juice. And it's much better than American grape juice.

A nursery with herbs, right on the street.

French artifacts.

Our guides and protectors!

The beauty of the Seine bridges.

We found this one made of beach chairs! 

The entrance to the  Louvre!

Champs de Mars, seeing the Obelisk and the Arch of Triumph all lined up.

First to spot the Eiffel Tower!

Yeah! 

Selfie for Facebook! It was very popular for some reason! 

It is gorgeous!

Actually all of Paris is gorgeous!

Husband decided to treat us to a sit-down, real French meal!

Aaah... real, delicious food! The last day during the train trip we had grocery store snacks for all meals! 

To be in a French restaurant... in Paris!!!

Aaaaaahhh...

Creme Caramel for dessert!

Where's the Metro Station?

Are we lost?

European cars, tsk tsk...

No. we are not lost!

Let's take an electric car!

These electric cars are plugged in all over the city.

Glad the metro was under construction. The "castor" bus was much more pleasant! Number Seven made friends with an American family whose daughter  was trying out for the Olympics for Rugby!

A bus is great for photo-taking! 

A beautiful if rainy side view of Notre Dame from the bus.