Paris Je t'aime

Melissa wondered what the photo on the blog had to do with the heading ‘Boring Blog from Paris’. The answer is nothing – it is a photo of the moon rising over Mt Rainier in Washington State. Well – I didn’t have any new photos so recycled an old one.

No photo today – technical difficulties – I have to write the Blog in the bar and there are no photos on my new PC.

My Mexican Swine Flu is getting worse so I stayed in bed this morning and did not venture out until after lunch. I went to the Luxembourg Gardens and took photos of statues and trees. To get close to the statues I had to walk on the grass which had a sort of a small iron fence around it so – as no one else was on it – I assumed that it may be verboten.

I asked a man ‘can I walk on the grass?’ but he looked at me strangely and was non committal. Reflecting later on our brief but unsatisfactory conversation I think I may have asked him ‘can I sneeze on your sheep?’

There were no Bees and no Ducks (has Merisi been here?)

But, generally speaking, my French is holding up and I managed to have lunch without the waiter sneering at me at spitting at me in English. I think my judicious use of a few ‘Dankes’ may have thrown him off the scent.

There is simply nowhere like Paris and I know why Melissa loves it so much. It is just so.....well...Parisienne! The streets, the shops, the mélange of people, the light – it has a certain ´je ne sais quoi’ which is hard to explain – but wonderful to see. The city has a charm of its own and I see more inside it each time I come here.

Melissa and I went to the back of the Butte tonight to try a new Restaurant Japonais that she has been eyeing. Not bad – the first glass of white wine was execrable but of course it improved (funny how that always happens).

We cruised back up Rue des Abbesses and the Patron in one of the bars recognised me a waved – so of course I had to go in for a Mélange and a glass of white wine. He had only met me once before but I had taken the trouble to explain to him that I was Melissa’s father.

I had my coffee and white wine and one of the patrons remarked – that is an unusual combination. The Patron shrugged and said ‘Ah...he is Australian’.

Needless to say my USB Wireless Internet connection does not work here. It should but ‘should’ doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in Internet World. I will go back to the man in 3 in Landstrasser-Hauptstrasse and he will say ‘Ah yes...this one works everywhere except the 6th Arrondissement in Paris!’

Cate arrives home each night at 1-ish and flops into be exhausted. Well....one of has to work and I love her for it.

Cat photography tomorrow. Melissa says that there are no cats at La Cimetiere Montparnasse – I hope to prove her wrong.