2eme jour de vacances

Because before I left for France I flew six days in a row, then got home and was rushing to be ready to leave again the following day, I did not really pay attention to the news; especially the weather. It turns out there is a hurricane over Guadeloupe right now. The island is on Red Alert and everything is shut down, and people are safely barricaded in their houses. I talked to my brother today and so far no extreme damages. The bad news, the airport is closed and they're not sure when it will open again. He was supposed to leave tonight and get here tomorrow in the morning. We would then have flown together to Marseille to meet my mom and my sister. Not going to happen. If he leaves on Saturday, he will get to Paris on Sunday and hopefully still have time to fly to Marseille and board the cruise ship. Boarding ends at 3:30pm and the boat sails at 4pm. If he misses the boat, I don't even know if they would let him catch up with us somewhere else. And that would be days later since the first stops are in some small islands in the Mediterranean Sea and I don't know how he would get there. I'm trying to think positive and hope that they lift the alert in Guadeloupe in time.

Yesterday, I had a nice evening with Valerie, our friend Yves and Valerie's brother and sister in law's "au pair" Kiki. Valerie's brother Jerome is married to a Danish girl and for the past 2 years they've had "au pair" girls from Denmark spending time with them and their son Alric who's now 3 and speaks French and Danish already. The 3 of them are in Denmark right now on vacations and I'm staying at their apartment in the 15th "arrondissement". So Kiki (a true Danish, blonde, blue eyed, beautiful 22 years old girl), Yves (who used to work with Valerie), Valerie (I worked with her when I lived here but we knew each other even before that), and myself had dinner at an Indian restaurant. Yves who lives in the suburbs took forever to meet us, because he cannot follow directions and got lost like 10 times!!! Kiki's French is still very limited (she's only been here a couple of months) so our whole conversation had to be in English. We had a wonderful time and laughed a lot. I was however getting really tired. We all got back to the apartment for hot cocoa and after a while I was literally falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. Finally Yves and Kiki left and Valerie and I went to bed. A looooong, fuuuuullll first day. I'm so happy to be here.

After a restful night I woke up to find a beautiful day outside. Sunshine and blue sky. Valerie left for work at 8:30am and I got ready to go for a jog. I felt happy running in the waking city with the great weather. After I came back, I had to finish bidding for my September schedule (the deadline is today) and that took a little while. I didn't leave the place again until 11am. I took the bus and the metro to go meet Valerie at her office. We had a nice lunch outside and walked around a little bit after before returning to her building. I stayed with her for a while, using her computer to check my e-mails, her phone to call my brother and my mom, and my ex Olivier. It's so nice to have a friend who's a Director!!! I made plans with Olivier, and we met at the Trocadero, facing the Eiffel Tower. The weather didn't stay as nice as this morning but it was okay. He took me to the bank of the Seine River to introduce me to "Paris Plage" (Paris Beach). It's something they do every year now and I had never seen it. For one month they close off miles of the road along the river and turn it into a "beach". Parasols, sand, lounge chairs, games, fountains, cafes, flowers and plants. It is truly amazing. You can walk along or stop and rest in one of the chairs and people watch or enjoy the "bateaux mouches" on the river as they go by. We walked for a couple of hours and then went to "Gare de Lyon" to meet Valerie. She's going to visit her mother for the weekend; a 3 hours ride south of Paris with the TGV (our bullet train). We had drinks at a cafe at the train station and chatted until it was time for Valerie to leave. Olivier and I decided to have dinner together and we went to a nearby "Brasserie". We had a wonderful time (except that we were surrounded by people smoking; it's time they pass the ban on smoking in public places). The food was great, and I guess people know it, because the place was packed. We finally left and parted ways. I took the metro back home.

Now that I've talked to my mom and my sister, I cannot wait to see them tomorrow. That hurricane better be gone so my brother can get here too...