Grand Paris

Two months since my last post? Really?? I'd better start with a chart, then.

Figure 1: Number of locally situated family members, as a function of time.

Right.  Let's begin at the peak.

 
A grand occasion requires a grand location, and we organised for the grand parental baton to be handed over in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles.   I carried an 18kg sack of beef in ritual tribute.

Halmeoni maybe left our apartment six times during her two months them, and that includes trips to the supermarket.  So her flight out of Paris was a crucial sightseeing opportunity.  HJ selected Versailles as the archetype of European opulence.  Not a bad choice for representing the continent to a first-timer. 

Jinu checks the map.

Gran and Grandpa specifically arranged their flights to get to see her for the first time since the wedding.  It was an amusing confusing trilingual day, with grandparents running in all directions.  Jinu got no sleep and nearly beserkered multiple times, until the shoulder-coma in the grand hall at closing time.  But they had a train.

Some random photos, none of really capture the imperial insanity of those gardens:

Now I'm curious too.  Prolly something motorized.

Big hedge!

Jinu and Halmeoni find chestnuts in a crazy anarchistic modernist addendum of the gradens (post-Louis).  Those trees are not aligned!  Still, I doubt they're really allowed on that grass.

Oop, a touch of imperial insanity!

No photos of Ian or HJ who, tired enough already, stayed at the hotel.

We five had rolled up from Clermont one day before the Aussies.  Ian loves hotels and Jinu loves TVs, so it was a reasonable first night.
 

The next day was like a rerun of Operation Groce! only in a more expensive location.  We had to move to a new hotel three doors up the street to meet Gran and Grandpa at 11:00am.  Thus, the first Paris sight Halmeoni saw was at 7:30pm.



When you've got two days to see all of Paris, and you're hauling 25kg of children, you need transportation.  It was a coin-flip between the bus and the boat, and we landed on the boat because I like saying Bateaux Mouches.  Paris' photo opportunities are conveniently laid out along the Seine, so it works.



Not so many photos of Gran and Grandpa, because they were usually on the other side of the camera.

And that's really all we saw of Paris.  It's too bad we didn't get to walk to the Eiffel Tower.  I have been there numerous times now, and every time I'm gobsmacked by its incredible size as you stand underneath.  From even just a few blocks away its immensity is lost in its meccano-like appearance.

Still, she was happy.  Gran and Grandpa too, who mainly wanted to see the grandkids at this stage.  And Jinu would be happy going to the dentist in Paris:




Then finally, there was the goodbye at Charles de Gaulle airport, and the rush of family was starting to dissipate.

See you in a year or two...

Watching her plane take-off.

I lied about which one was hers.