These are the last two pictures of our trip. Incidentally all the subway stations in The 11 ieme were in the old Art Nouveaux style.
The trip cost us a lot even though many treats were paid for by other people. Kim gave me some family money the first day up on the mountain along with the lap top he promised me for my sixtieth. He got all the guests with digital cameras to download their shots onto it and then tried to make a disk of 2800 pictures. The system crashed.
I have used the laptop a few times, but this old desktop is still easier for me. I was very frightenned of the computer and of carrying the money (in cash) at first.
Here are the things I forgot to mention. Perhaps I will enter them in the right places later. Long line, motorbike rides offered. Raised railway. Tent floor, carpets. Lunches Monday and Tuesday in main square, salad, viande hache and frites. gas driven heaters. Meringue cookies and Easter chocolates. The tartiflette and its enormous cooker. The journeys down, one driver and two taximen, the second in heavy snow without chains. Croissants, french baguettes and jam, lots of cafe express. Dinner at Palestinian's. The louvre pyramid. In-flight movies: I can only remember August Rush, Juno, Mr. Bean, Enchanted and Blades of Glory. Glad of William's Apacer MP3 player. 15 year old highlands single malt bought at the airport. Customs declaration. Emotional pleasure at being back in my homeland.
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"Here are the things I forgot to mention. Perhaps I will enter them in the right places later. Long line, motorbike rides offered. Raised railway. Tent floor, carpets. Lunches Monday and Tuesday in main square, salad, viande hache and frites. gas driven heaters. Meringue cookies and Easter chocolates. The tartiflette and its enormous cooker. The journeys down, one driver and two taximen, the second in heavy snow without chains. Croissants, french baguettes and jam, lots of cafe express. Dinner at Palestinian's. The louvre pyramid. In-flight movies: I can only remember August Rush, Juno, Mr. Bean, Enchanted and Blades of Glory. Glad of William's Apacer MP3 player. 15 year old highlands single malt bought at the airport. Customs declaration. Emotional pleasure at being back in my homeland".
Remembering fondly a year later, sitting in our tidied new house, typing on my knees with the old Dell keyboard, sitting in a back slung Ikea chair, in the jalaba, which Kim gave me for his birthday, was it the year before last, when he came back from Oman?
Gareth's crew had made a floor of boards outside the reception hall and he must have borrowed about thirty carpets to lay over the creaky planks. A friend of Gordon's daughter spent a long time talking to me, as I stared at one of them. She was half Chinese and very attractive and young and I spent most of the time wondering why she wanted to talk to an old trout like me.
Those typically French macaroons were delicious. I kept returning to this tower of them in the corner.
We did not go into the Louvres. Actually I was looking for the Gars D'Orsay, but by the time we were opposite it, in light rain, we were rather tired. In the sidewalk cracks of the street that runs in front, Cathy saw something glinting and pulled out a squashed silver ring. William straightenned it out and she wears it every day.
I had not been drinking coffee for about three yearts, as I thought it might be giving me arthritic discomfort, but the "express' is often so delicious in France that I got back into it. When we got back here, I found that Starbuck's did not make it well and, after some experimentation, I found that Second Cup, a Canadian company, comes closest. The croissants of France are unequaled.
We had SUCH a Good time. My employer will no longer approve leave without pay. It apparently cost them too much in other people's overtime. A shame. Everyone with a high stress job needs a spring AND a summer vacation.
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