Rain, Rain Go Away

It won't stop raining in Paris.  We've been in Paris for almost three weeks and I think we've seen blue sky only 2 or 3 days.  Even when it isn't raining, the skies are grey.  But we don't mind.  It rarely rains the whole day and we just feel lucky to be in Paris.
Sunday was one of those few sunny days.  I had to snap a picture of Kelly by Nôtre Dame with the blue sky while we were walking home from church in the Marais.

By the Solferino pedestrian bridge not far from Kelly's office stands Thomas Jefferson, who was ambassador to France from 1784 to 1789. He is holding the plans to Monticello.  Jefferson was close to the Marquis de Lafayette who fought in the American Revolution.

Jefferson holding the plans to Monticello

The French Revolution broke out while Jefferson was living in Paris. As a supporter of the French Revolution, Jefferson met regularly with the Marquis de Lafayette, who was now a rebel, and even advised him on how to conduct revolutionary activities. Lafayette's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, was a declaration identifying basic human rights and was directly inspired by Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.  The Concorde métro stop is tiled with the Declaration of the Rights of Man.  It's one of my favorite stations.

The rain started to cause some flooding along the Seine over the past couple of weeks.  Kelly has had to alter some of his running routes because of it.  He now has to run on the upper quais with the car traffic rather than on the lower ones by the river.  The flooding was starting to abate but it poured rain all day today and more is expected all week.

Trees inundated with water
 

Stairway to the river and
covered road

Kelly's running road covered with water

This gangplank once led to dry land

Kelly was surprised on one of his runs to see the police swimming in the river as part of their training.  A police boat was following along with the swimmers, who were in wetsuits.  I read in the newspaper that a policewoman drowned last week in the Seine during training.  The river is so high and the current so swift.  We were surprised they were still training under those conditions.