Yesterday we took off our hats and gloves and dared to try a picnic in a local garden (le jardin de petit palais). We ate apples, oranges, bananas and drank mixed fruit juice. I took my sketchbook. Randy took a nap. Today, we took our coats, but did not wear them as we ventured outside the City Proper and wandered a flea market (marche de puce). It had more than 250 vendors and was very fun. We got to practice a little more French as we haggled for the best bargains. Randy is a little miffed that I wouldn't let him buy a 3,000 euro set of chairs. Honestly, we're already eating pasta every night. If we get to bread and water, HE is going home! (jk)

The market was on the outskirts of Paris. As Rick Steve's says in his book, "the under belly" of the city. Randy thought it was just like Harlem, NY. I said I didn't know as I've never been there...neither has he! It was a little more raw population than that of the city. I wouldn't have gone there alone, but I was comfortable with Randy and would probably feel the same about going with a girlfriend. (Not that Randy is girl-like)

The market had everything from second-hand jewelry and toys to authenticated antique furniture, old silver and designer label clothing. It had some art, some crafts and some stuff that just looked like it had nowhere else to exist. Old-and-rusty to old-and-still-got-some-bling to WOW! We didn't buy any WOW!, but we had a blast exploring all the different alleyways, the permanent shops mixed in with the temporary ones, and shop owners being brazen enough to block the narrow passageway until you had to step into their shop to get by, then they would turn quickly around and greet you with a smile and the traditional "bonjour!" and begin showing you their wares. Not all were like that. Some were very kind to allow us to "regarder" the merchandise and explain it's history even though we all knew that it was a "no sale."

Outside the actual market are street vendors. Rick Steve's recommends that tourists not venture into that area, so of course, we did. We had even more fun! We visited and bartered and explored all kinds of "African" art; hats of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities; shoes; "seconds" from designer labels that "didn't make the cut" (had a small flaw) and listened to Caribbean drum music played by Blacks claiming to be from Jamaica, but had Nigerian accents. I so wanted a drum. I think Alya and my other children have always wanted African drums, or some type of cultural rather than traditional drums. (Zack did have traditional drums!) It was soooooo close and yet still as elusive as if it had been on it's continent of origin. No one shopping today had that kind of cash. Oh, but the sound was sweet! And it's song was rich with variation! I am so grateful that I was allowed the gift of being able to even hear it and to be close enough to feel its vibrations. (Sorry, Alya. I guess you now know you are NOT getting a drum when we come home.)

Today was our four-week anniversary. What seemed to loom ahead of us as day-after-day of not knowing the language or any people, now seems to be breathing down our necks like a Chinese dragon. How will we fit all the people and all the studying in?

I bought me a simple journal today. I will record the rest of my experience in that journal using my limited French. My goal is to someday re-visit that journal and breeze through it as though it were an English reading primer. ;o) For now, I am looking up words and grammar structure and "rough-drafting" much of what I want to say in advance. The sister missionaries promised and blessed us that if we tried every means available to us to learn the language, that it would come. We were soooo naive to believe that college-level French and three months in Paris would give us the "gift of tongues." We now realized that it's a lifetime endeavor, goal, journey and we have just "left the train station." (But unlike Elvis, we have not "left the building.") So we are grateful for the extra blessings the sisters left with us. We also learned when they came for dinner, that they will not be transferred before we leave. We get to have them for two more months!!!! When they left, our apartment felt empty, but peaceful.