Les Kelloucq en voyage

Je vais essayer un nouveau truc. Je n'écrirai que dans une langue à la fois, en alternance. Ecrire un topo est vivable, c'est traduire dans la deuxième langue qui rend l'entreprise plus longue et parfois rébarbative. 

I am going to try something new. I will only write in one language at a time, alternating between French and English. Writing once is not a big deal, but translating in the second language is always daunting because it makes it so much more time-consuming. English gets to go first.

The boys and I spent our first week of vacation in Châtellerault with a short trip to the port city of La Rochelle. The experience was more relaxing than usual since the usual out-of-towners were not around and we had a more leisurely program including lots of naps for me and a daily walk. This week, we are back in Paris for a week of sightseeing with my parents. On our first day, we went to the Quai Branly museum devoted to the cultures of Oceania, Asia, Africa and the Americas. We kept with the theme with a dinner in an African restaurant in our neighborhood. La Jungle is nice, but very slow. We spent more than four hours there, eating and drinking, but mostly waiting. Yesterday was a bit of a disaster. Our visit to the Père Lachaise cemetery got rained out. Our visit to the Edith Piaf museum also got cancelled because my guide had misinformed me on the opening hours (you must call to make an appointment in case you ever want to go, this site is clear about that). But we finished the afternoon pleasantly at Nathalie’s to visit her and her new baby with my mom and Emmanuel. We ended with dinner at Clair de Lune, a very simple North African restaurant in our neighborhood. It has been here for ever, resisting the recent trendiness, but we had never been. Their couscous is excellent.

Today, we got lucky at the Marie-Antoinette exhibit. We did not have tickets to get in at a specific time, but got there as soon as the Grand Palais opened. As we started lining up, a security guard pulled us out of the line to let us in directly….thanks to the children. The exhibit is impressive with many portraits and objects that were designed for the queen. The end of her life feels a bit glossed over by comparison though the staging of the long, dark room narrowing towards her bloody end is efficient. We spent the afternoon at the movies as the weather was once more rainy and cold. The photo shows people lining up for the Marie-Antoinette exhibit in the rain.