Back in the US of A.

On Monday afternoon I packed my suitcase. I threw out  few more items of clothing to make room for all my treasures and zipped the suitcase shut.  I had left out clothes to change into he next morning and I also had a carry on bag that my sister Nan gave me many years ago.  It had wheels and was just big enough to hold some clothes.
Our plans for our last day was to pack and go out for a birthday dinner for Dona.  However it was only 3pm and the restaurants do not open until 7pm.  So decided to go for a walk.  When we left our apartment it was slightly misting but not bad.  We walked down to  Rue Monge street where we have often caught the metro.  We decdide to find out what was on the other side of Rue  Monge.  We walked for a few blocks and found  that there was a park up ahead.  As we approached I realized it was the Jardin De Plantes which is a park at the bottom of the Latin Quarter.  The main latin quarter park is the Jardin de Luxomburg.  I did not realize that the park was so close.  As we approached we also realized that it was a Zoo with real animals.  It also houses a botanical garden and a natural history museum.  The Park itself was very beautiful and amazingly there were some flowers still in bloom among some of the gardens.  The trees and other vegetation however were almost in the winter mode of stark naked branches.  We did have to pay a little to get into the the botanical gardens.  The plants in the big glass house appeared to be very old and reminded us that this park must be very old.  Older than our parks in the USA.  We walked around the park that had rows of plants that were native to France.  We saw a small cararusel that small children were taking a last ride.  There were many children in the park as school was over for the day and parents and nannies were giving the children a romp of the day.  It was starting to get dark at 5pm and Dona and I decided we needed to get back before it was dark.  We left the park and found our way back to Rue Monge.  As I stood in front of the Monge Metro station I looked at the map of the area.  Three people came up and were talking English. They were about Donas' and my age.  I asked them if they were from the USA and they said no they were from Canada.  They were from the great Canadian West.  We asked them if they had been to Rue Mouffetard street yet.  They said they were just on their way there.   We told them that it was a great place and they asked us if we had any recomendations.  Dona told them that she thought that every french bistro on the Rue was wonderful.  I told them that we were going that night to the one next to the Comfort Inn.  We bid them farewell and continued back to our apartment.   Back at the apartment we got ready and now it was 7pm and went to a restauran.  To our surprise when we got there, the people we had met on the street were there and they were just finishing their dinner.  They told us the restaurnant had been a great recomendation and that the food was great.  This restaurant was a little more up scale than the ones we had been to.  We ordered from the 18 Euros memu that included an starter, entre and dessert.  I had the snails for a starter.  Dona had never had escardo and she tried one and agreed they were tasty.  We had beef for the main course.  Tasty but a little tough. Dona had a creme brulee' for desert and I had a chantilly chocolate cake that turned out to be a fancy slice of cake with a vanilla sauce.  Very good.
We finished our dinner and went back to the apartment.  We tried to go to sleep but neither one of us could sleep very well as we were nervous we would not wake up at the right time to get to the Comfort Inn to take our taxi to the airport.
At 5Am I woke up and woke up Dona who had bearly been sleeping.  We got dressed, gathered our luggage and left our apartment for the last time.  It was 550am.  I slowly pulled my luggage up the slight incline.  I slowed down a few times.  We arrived at the destination at 6:15AM.  Wouldn't you know that would happen.  The Comfort Inn was not yet open and we had to stand there in the dark and cool night until the Morning reception person came and let us in the hotel to allow us to wait in the lobby for our cab.  Our cab came at 6:45 and we happily got in.  The cab was quick and our bill for the cab was only 52 euros.  This was better than the day that John and I took the cab early in the morning when the bill was 90 euros.  We got into the airport and found the right counters to check our bags.  It all went smoothly and with our bags checked we were free of the heavy luggage and now on to the gate for Dona's plane and also to look at the duty free shops to see if there were any last minute bargains.  At the Beverage section Dona bought some wine.  She thought that they would put it on the plane for her but that did not happen and she had to carry the two bottles to the plane.  We stopped and had our last capuchino and their version of American coffee.  There version is that it is very very strong.  We each had a croysant and another pastry and we enjoyed each bite.  Before we knew it, it was time for Dona to go to her gate for her plane.    We hugged goodby and agreed that the trip these past two weeks had been wonderful despite the rain.  We also agreed however that we were excited to get home to the USA.
As Dona's plane left at 1030AM my plane was not leaving until  150PM.  So I had a lot of time to wait.  I did this by finding the next book of the Lisabeth Salanger stories and sitting down and reading that.  I also had a last piece of Quiche and reminded myself that this was the last quiche I would have until I have lost at least 30 pounds or more.  The plane was on time and I found my seat.  It turns out that the plane was not completely filled and luckily I found that I could get a two seat section all to myself.  It was nice to have the room.  The little individual tvs had movies that I was interested.  I watched Sex in the CityII.  The flight was not as bad as I had feared.  The food was good and I did have a glass of Champaign and a glass of wine.  The steward and stewardesses were very nice.   As we came into detroit it was very gloomy and I saw snow flakes out the window.  But despite the rain and cold as I stepped off the Air France plane on to USA ground I felt a rush of excitement and pleasure that indeed I was home.  I had yet to take a flight to Chicago and a cab ride.  But all those activities went well and at 9:30PM my Irish Prince welcomed me with open arms.