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Friday, May 27 page 88 |
2005 BALKANS TOURBen Oostdam |
La Garenne Colombes |
| A good thing I only had my sidebag - which proved heavy enough after an hour's walk along the quet streets of this pleasant Isle de France suburb. I asked for directions in three stores and did not have too much trouble finding the rue August Buisson. When I got to their apartment building I managed to get in using a code they had E-mailed, but ringing their doorbell was unsuccesful. I tried to ask some neighbors but they were not very helpful. So just when I decided to give up I saw Isa with Thea walking up. She looked somewhat surprised and invited me in. |
| I had met Isa and David briefly in Greece when we stopped to take pictures of some goats. We had continued to E-mail and they had just had a little baby-girl who was the main objectives of my visit. Unfortunately, David had had to go to their farm near La Manche. |
 | When I got home two days later, I found her Email telling me that and suggesting we meet somewhere for dinner. Now I did not know and she was very tactful not to embarrass me, so we had a nice homemade meal, watched their picts, talked a lot, and enjoyed playing with Thea. Well before 22:00 she had to go to bed and made the sofa-bed in their living room for me. |
| While we were having breakfast early the next morning, Thea was crooning in her crib - which was a lovely sound - I found out that she and Dave planned to get married in July and that she had a twin sister named Veronique. After our goodbyes, it was amazing to see Isa go to work on a scooter behind a pram which she had to push to the baby-sitter's home. I took off in the opposite direction on what I thought was a shortcut, but ended up having to take a taxi to the station anyhow. The train was considerable less crowded by now, and I knew the way from the spectacular station in Paris proper to the Opera where I took the airport bus. Since this was the only sightseeing I was going to get I took lots of photographs to be able to reproduce the Parisian je ne sais quoi at home in PA. |