MICHELE'S MUSINGS

Observasions. People dress more casually here than in spain in general. They speak in softer voices to eachother....don’t here moms screaming at their kids here. The spelling of a French word seems to be totally unrelated to the pronunciation....unfortuanately the French don’t seem to understand you unless your pronunciation is perfect...here in lies the problem. Luckily for us , many more French folks are speaking English these days. The younger people seem genuinely happy to try and help you in your language...this is a change from the past, when unless you spoke darn good French you were SOL. We entered France from Spain by train, and headed straight for Avignon, a lovely medievil walled city. Our timing was good. we found a nice reasonable room in the center of town easily; however, the week before, a “bull fight” (yes, I am talking about France, not Spain) had been staged in the nearby 2000 year old Roman Amphitheater, and there were no rooms to be found anywhere at any price. From Avignon (a city that if I have my facts straight was once home of the pope for a time) we day tripped to Arles and Nimes...all medievil walled towns with impressive Roman ruins including aquaducts, and the amphitheater I mentioned befor (seats 20,000). We spent 9 days in and around Paris visiting with friends and family; it was really terrific! Bill and Phyllis(Drew’s dad and his wife) met us in Paris, and my old friend Nathalie (met her when I was 17 when she was on an exchange), and her family gave us a warm welcome and put us up for a few days just outside of Paris. Of course we did the “must do’s”.....the Louvre, and D’Orsey museums, Versaille(the impressive palace and grounds of king louis the 14th), Notre Dame. We swung by the...ok, I’m going to say it, really ugly and boring eiffel tower, which was really built to be a temporary structure in the first place. We covered a lot of ground on foot, took the metro everywhere. We stayed in a cool neighborhoot called Monmarte where quaint shops line the cobbles streets, where people do that days shopping and everyone walks around with a baguette stuffed under their arm, and a bunch of flowers in the other hand. We stayed on the 4th floor (that’s 78 steps up...shower on the first floor) of a cute hotel....25 bucks a night, and cheaper than a hostel. Amsterdam used to have a reputation for being the dog poop capitol of the world, but I am quite sure Paris now holds the title...look before you leap is a really good rule to live by here. You see dogs in restaurants, dogs on trains, a cat in every bookstre...real animal lovers these french. We headed NW to St. Malo, a very cool walled town right on the coast. This place has 45 ft tides! Great beach and island walks, spectacular views as you walk along the top of the medievil wall that surrounds the city and look out over the water. This is a great place to stay, and then day trip to Mont San Michele, the famous island Abby. The English tried to take it....it was under seige for 30 years in the 15th century...if they attacked when the tide went out the soldiers rode out a ways and them found themselves trapped in quick sand, where they met their maker. We found a fantastic hotel run by a Swiss woman for $25 that was built right into the city wall.. There we had the most fantastic seafood meal of the trip... 4 courses and literally 12 specialized utensils to deal with it all ...salmon, smails, cockles, clamsmmussels, crab, prawns (I was given lessons upon request)...included was wine and dessert for $21 per person. Of course we don’t eat like that everynight when we travel, but every once in a while we just had to say “budget smudget” and enjoy a little luxury. The owner sat down and talked to us for a good hour. She loves americans....they never complain...always so nice....It always makes you feel good to hear that. Americans often have a rap of being demanding, rude, and loud. On this trip we never had any anti-American sentiment directed toward us. We were always taken at face value....several people did ask us however, what we thought about the Bill and Monica thing.. Most people said “who cares,”and wanted to know why it was such a big deal in America.

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