Galleries Lafayette Opera and Brittany's flat

Well I did not have to vacate the hotel til  12.00 lunchtime, so I enjoyedbthenfull breakfast which is almost Danish. the cafe au lait, was wondrous, and I had a sort out til Brittany came. We stored the bags andwandered around, It was a Sunday and later on we would get the bags to a bus no. 52 by the Opera because it went right to Brittany's door at the Bois du Bologne.

t was overcast and we ate  Chinese  food down the road. 

It was here that we witnessed first hand child begging.

This urchin burst through the door and made a lunge for the diners food . he shipowners were around in a jiffy shouting Allez Allez.

People were uncomfortable and the kid  just stayed  and made repeated lunges .Wow , he was dressed exactly like the cast in Oliver. Ultimately  an American woman gave him fer filled roll , and he took off.I get the feeling he was mute, he was kind of using sign language abit like Makaton , but here is the problem.

Paris has an influx of Romany gypsies. I mean hundreds of them. Brittany was translating for me this woman's woe and it is not an easy problem to solve.

We wandered about the big department store called Galleries rLafayette and admired the amazing and shyly window displays. huge department store .These were all done with paper.

this is all done in paper.

Going to Brittany's was a breeze in the end because a 52 bus went from the Opera area which I was in to Bois du Bologne where she lived. And on the way it pased every conceivable major sight seeing  tourist structure.As I had a 5 day  go as you please pass this was pretty cool.And no hiking up and down the stairs of the metro. Buses are so much nicer than tube trains.

Her apartment is sophisticatedly understated. It is small, furnished, white in the interior with some lovely pieces (antique) that belong to the owner who is French but his wife is a kiwi, from Wellington originally. they spend half the year in Auckland and the other half in Paris - perpetual summer. These tall. apartments are in a big garden complex, quite  leafy and green and  not just one building high rise.They were away playing golf in the South off France. So this is no no Bohemian existence . I drowned off at 6 pm. What a piker ! Comfy bed 

Brittany at her apartment complex.