JET LAG AND CROISSANTS

Jet lag is evil.  Its funny how sometimes when I fly over here it isn’t too bad and other times I am so whacked out I hallucinate.

This is one of those times where we both are hallucinating.  So what we have done is stay in bed and sleep as much as possible until close to noon.  The first day we went out, found lunch and came back to the room and lazed around all day.  I found a nearby grocery store and we keep the room stocked with baguette and french butter.  Unfortunately we don’t have coffee in here!

Yesterday we did finally leave and we hiked it down to the Seine.  We walked the Champs Ulysee or however its spelt and took pics.  Its always interesting here...the French are a little crazy and so animated.  The Italians can’t hold a candle to the French! 

Here are some of the things we have observed:  the French smoke.  Smoking indoors in public places has been banned, therefore there are herds and herds of people in every doorway puffing away.  Clearly banning it indoors has not deterred them at all.

They shout.  Their language is quite gutteral and harsh and they always sound like they are yelling at each other.

For every French citizen their are three police.  The president is in town right now so the police presence is insane.  Our hotel is right near where he stays so many streets are completely blocked off and streams of police are everywhere.

The French eat and drink and eat and drink and eat and drink.  What they eat, the quality of their food, the freshness, the cream and butter is extraordinarily high.  And the wine, oh lordy, the wine!!!  And not just wine but all kinds of spirits.  There are more little bars here than there are little children.  You can’t walk more than half a block without passing small bars, sometimes with only two tables and a stand up bar...always busy.  

We think we make and drink good coffee.  Compared to here we do not.  The coffee in this city is incomparable to any we get at home.  And they don’t use take away cups...you just pop into one of those ever so handy bars and order a cappachino or cafe au lait, stand at the bar and sip it down and go on your merry way.

The French do not seem to bother themselves with friendly manners.  The actual individuals you talk directly with are lovely, but the rest of the population that is passing by or busy working either ignore you or give you very disdainful stares.  This is not one of the ‘friendly’ countries, like Morocco or India.

The French ladies dress....so stylish.  Even wearing our best clothes that we so carefully selected and painstakingly don each time before going out, feel dowdy compared to the walking fashion plates here.  And the women are total bone racks.  I haven’t seen a chubby french woman yet.  All those croissants and butter and cheeses...how the hell do they do it?

Anywhooo, its time to don our best dowdy clothes and head out.  The cleaning ladies are bumping into our door wanting in...so we are off to the Eiffel Tower and Trocadero.  There is an aquarium near there too and we plan to stay over there until the Tower is lit up at night.  Its quite a hike so we had best be off.  I am not looking forward to the sore feet and aching hips and back at the end of this day!  TTYL

YOU CAN JUST SEE THE ARC D'TRIUMPH

WALKING THE CITY

HMMMMM.....TOLD HER TO TURN AROUND

EIFFAL TOWER AND THE SEINE

ONE OF THE MANY 'PONTS' IN THE CITY