We arrived via Icelandic Air last Friday. I was sure something would go wrong, but nothing did. Our flights were on time and our luggage arrived without a problem. Our driver was there waiting for us as well — so everything worked out just great.

It has taken 5 days to settle in. The apartment, though very clean (thank you to our cleaning person and our neighbors), still showed signs of our 2- year absence. The insides of the closets were dusty and needed reorganizing. I’ve taken the opportunity to get rid of ‘stuff’ that has accumulated over 14 years and it feels really good. All that hasn’t left much time for ‘enjoying’ Paris — as so many of you hope we are doing. But today was different we finally got started and did we love it!

Paris is relatively quiet this week as Monday was a bank holiday and this week is school vacation week. So, whoever can, has left the city. Up to yesterday, I think most of our building was empty except for a few neighbors. One can tell because the elevator doesn’t move for several hours.

But in these few days we did walk a bit around the neighborhood to see what has changed. Our local Tunisian grocer sold to another Tunisian grocer whom we met today and next to his store the butcher shop has been replaced by a small but rather nice cheese shop. Our boulangeries are all the same, but one is closed for the week and the other was closed today, frustrating a few passers by. Usually the bread stores take turns closing so that there is always one open within a two-block radius.

Checking out the neighborhood, somethings just don’t change — fortunately. The Eiffel Tower needs no description, but you might not recognize the other — Les Invalides — Napoleon’s tomb.

Wow!! What a vehicle. Our nephew car enthusiast nephew Jonathan who is in California right now, ID’d this one for us — it is a Caterham sport car. Pretty neat!

One neighborhood restaurant, Bistro de Breteuil, is gone and in its place is a rather silly eatery, Central Park Terraza. We decided to try it for a quick bite of lunch. After showing our French Certificate of Health and having it scanned (which one has to do for all restaurants and public places) we opted to eat out-of-doors in the terrace area despite it being pretty cold. (We haven’t eaten indoors yet). We ordered pasta (There are lots of appetizers but only two main items on the menu — pasta and pizza. The menu is a big come-down from the three-course, wine included pretty good dinners we used to look forward to here. We were disappointed.

Today, though was another story. After a very leisurely morning we got out for the afternoon. We decided to have lunch at La Récamier Cigale which is close to the Bon Marché. We headed to #28 bus but as it has been more than two years, I’d forgotten that we needed to catch the #70, not the #28 to get to Sèvres Babylone, our destination. George looked at me and asked, ” Do you want to get there today? Let’s take a taxi.” And that’s what we did. It was so much better than the bus — I could get spoiled!

We were able to get in without a reservation as the La Récamier is a popular place for Parisians as well as tourists . Some time back we’d leaned, sadly, that the well-known owner-chef, Gérard Idoux, had died. He always came out and greeted the patrons and when we were there we always had delightful conversations with him. So, we were concerned that the atmosphere and the food might be changed without him. It was a little different, but whoever has taken over has managed to keep it going in the spirit of Idoux. We sat outside in that enclosed area which you see on the left. It was heated, but we were still cold. Amazing how one gets used to being cold while eating a terrific meal.

Right next door to the restaurant France’s electric company, EDF, has an exposition hall where they present topics of interest. The last one we saw here was on climate change. The current show is entitled Fake News. Although all of the captions were in French we were able to understand the points being made. It was done so well. We were able to get in although advance tickets would have been advisable.

There were many topics covered from Bush to Trump, to Facebook, to Covid conspiracies. They had a whole series on Pizzagate, how it started and was amplified, There were examples from print and tv media, all presented in clever engaging ways to keep the many kids who were there interested. They even had a book with the bogus emails we get saying, “my name is …., and I’m stuck in ….. can you help me?’ There must have been a 100 pages with these emails.

From there we headed over to the Bon Marché Grande Epicerie to admire the displays and do a bit of food shopping. We ended up taking the #70 home using bus tickets I had purchased two years ago. By the time we got home, after a little more food shopping, we were exhausted and I think might have worked off one of those soufflées — well maybe not a whole one!