I spoke French all day and my head did not explode - Part I of Monday May, 6, Luxembourg Gardens

While in Texas, I bought an eSIM for communicating while not on Wifi, hoping that as advertised it was indeed easy to activate. (suspecting that it is easy if you are under 40 years old, which is the case no doubt.  Or if you aren't using it for the first time.)  

Because I had not yet been able to actually turnit on to the available cellular networks it uses in France, I missed a Paris Greeter rendez-vous on Saturday, to the frustration both of my volunteer greeter and myself..if only.... we were waiting about two blocks apart for almost an hour to see if the other would show up.  Without confusion about   meeting spot, and if we'd used WhatsApp and I had a connetcion at the street cornerm all would have proceeded.  

But great end of story, rescheduled to meet at in indisputably spot Monday, oh what a day it was.

I later learned that Bernard and his wife had on Friday scouted the jardin du Luxembourg for a more successful visit.  Bernard has vounteered as a Paris Greeter for 12 years.  Monday morning, I spied him finishing an espresso at the sidewalk café in view of the church of the Sorbonne; he bought me orange juice; we started getting acquainted.  And in French!  I knew it was goig to be a good day because the conversation was easy, and the compliment I got that I spoke French well and almost without an accent.

We walked in kind of a spiraling pattern around the main upper part of the gardens.  He emphasized that this park is "propre", or clean, because it is privately owned by the (rich and) powerful Senate of French's government.  Some of the may many statues were under scaffolding or draped, being cleaned for summer and Olympic Game visitors; flower beds were being replanted with the next round of spring flowers.

Marie de Medici had the Luxembourg palace constructed 1615-1631 and never really got to live in its completed version. (for History --French Senate website--of the palace in French)

She had this grotto/fountain designed and built to remind her of her native Florence.

The Mask Merchant statue is flanked by masks of famous 19th century men.

The mask centered here is of Gustave Fauré, one of the foremost composers / music profs of second half of the 1800's and whose songs I've sung:  Au bord de l'eau, Après un rêve and Ici-bas.

Do you recognize any other faces?

One of the masks (Eugène Delacroix) got his own pedestal, along with rapt admirers:

Luxembourg Beehives (les ruches) - somewhere you can buy their delicious honey. (miel)  Hives are located near a pear and apple orchard with over 600 species of trees, as in the old days where a monastery orchard grew.  Bernard's nephew, a retired Ear/Nose/Throat surgeon, now teaches courses in apiculture here.

A statue of Watteau with admirer figure that he could have painted.  Interesting how in these busts, the living spectator is referred to in the admirer scullpture.

Zen arrangement of young trees in allées:

Looking back toward the Senate / Palace-- trees with flat-tops and flat-sides!

Not pictures, there is a very long section that allows multiple "pétanque" or "boules" games, several clay tennis courts (membership needed), and huge trees over on the "left "hand side of the garden, with happy birdsong to be heard.  I was happy we visited on a Monday morning, where few people were to be seen on the lawns vs. weekend crowds.  We did see one amusing young, muscly guy, scantily clothed and jauntily lounging on grass in a vista like the above, looking a bit like a lazy statue left there for the ages.