Looking down from the Eiffel Tower at Les Invalides.

No explanation needed, I’m sure. I went up to the second floor, but I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see over some of the railings.

This, of course, is Whistler’s Mother at the Musee d’Orsay. My nurse thought my pose was rather amusing.

My wheelchair liked Europe so much that it decided to stay an extra day. When my flight from Amsterdam landed in Minneapolis yesterday, we went down to baggage claim to retrieve my wheelchair. But we soon discovered that the wheelchair wasn’t there. What followed were several sheepish apologies from Northwest officials; apparently my chair never got put on the plane in Amsterdam after the flight from Berlin. So I had to plop myself in a regular wheelchair with the ventilator trailing behind me in another chair, making for what must have been an unusual-looking parade through the airport. The poor airline workers had to pool their cash to get me a cab ride home; none of the taxi companies would accept vouchers from the now-bankrupt airline. I had to spend most of today in bed until my chair showed up at around 8:00 tonight. I can only assume that the slight dents in the frame are the result of its lewd behavior in the red light district. When left unsupervised, my chair can be rather impulsive.
My body is still on European time, but it’s time to post some pictures, if for no other reason than to reassure myself that I didn’t dream the last ten days…

Riding over cobblestones in a wheelchair is a curious sensation. Not entirely comfortable, but not altogether unpleasant either. And there are lots , and I do mean lots, of cobblestones in Paris. Every day is like an amusement park ride.
If you stay in Paris long enough, you start to develop a certain contempt for things American. The food here is better, the people here are thinner, the parks are nicer, and the buildings are more interesting. Of course, in the States, I don’t have to usually worry about jumping a six inch curb to cross the street. Perhaps travel is meant to remind you of the things you take for granted at home.
My high school French teacher would be proud of me. Most of the time, I can achieve a basic level of communication with Parisiens. I probably speak like a seventh grade drop out, but I’m also remembering words that had fallen into the synaptic cracks of my brain. I suppose that as long as people aren’t laughing when I open my mouth, I’m doing okay.
I’ll write more about my specific activities once I can post pictures. I’m still using a public computer and I don’t want to dump my photos onto its hard drive. Tomorrow, I leave on a train for Berlin. Hopefully, another overseas dispatch will be forthcoming in a couple of days. A bientot.