Paris, Mahamilana, Marseille

I arrive in Paris after another red-eye flight and find the bus to the Gare de Lyon without consequence. Any directions in Paris, I would ask for by saying, "Speak English?" If they said "Little," I'd launch into a little French. Locate my hotel easily and leave to visit the Louvre, which I find fantastically rich with originals of paintings I have never seen before... It's a huge place, with two or three checkpoints for security, and amidst all the other sculpture and art, I manage to find the Mona Lisa in an elbow-to-elbow length room and much smaller than I'd expected. However, I did find da Vinci's portrait of Saint John the Baptist to be of estimable beauty and he, incidentally, has the same nose and face as my friend, Margaret.

After walking down an arcade-like park at what used to be something else a story above street level, I managed to find a grocery store where I was able to buy something to eat and drink which was reasonably priced. The next day, returning to the Louvre, I happened to look over my shoulder and there was Rich Meyers! He'd come to Europe as planned even after having just been through an angioplasty! It was fun to see him and we went to see the Mona Lisa (again, for me) and then split and walked to Pont Neuf and over into the Left Bank, strolling around and talking. I left around 19:00 and rushed back via Metro, picked up my bags and raced to the train station for my trip on the TGV to Marseille, which I made with 5 minutes to spare.


23:35
Sylvie, Philippe and Tony pick me up at the train station and we drive to Sylvie's house in the outskirts of Marseille. Meet Tim, Gilles (who I remembered, along with Philippe, from 31 years before) Alice, Artur and Anna, who I finally placed in my memory from the time of the Mahamilana in San Francisco. Meet Corrine (sp?), and Jamie and Vickie from New Zealand the next day, as well as Tim & Corinne's Kaylani, Tim's son, Simon and his friend, Matthew. Also, saw Anna Lyn, who was also staying there, too.

Monday morning, drove to Le Pescadou and proceeded to find rooms and people and with everyone showing up at different times, I turn around and see another face I hadn't seen for that long a period of time. This was the biggest Mahamilana yet, though the original in 1976 was very large. There were approximately 135 of us staying at a resort where we were served 3 meals a day and had the whole place to ourselves. By the end of the week, the staff seemed to be incredulous that so many of us different nationalities were there to enjoy ourselves and reunite, that they opened up the bar for us every night... And, we had excellent music from those involved in performing. Just great!

Simply because I have not the space to write about this event, I'll have to hold on to a point in the future where I can... The important point is getting the other stuff on paper and to cyberspace where you can read it...

Went to Marseille on Sunday, Sept. 23 and shared a hotel room with Rich, Charlie and Ron from England. Had very little sleep and left on a train to Italy at 5:46 a.m.