Les poissons Les poissons hee hee hee haw haw haw

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Bonjour les petit pommes!

Yes my French is atrocious. Lucky I've seen The Little Mermaid and Charade - they are both certainly getting me by verbally. Wild gesticulations get me a lot further.

I cannot express the frustration I am currently feeling from my computer freezing and wiping my extremely creative, quirky and insightful previous email I was typing. Here is the abridged version....

The sights we have seen and the things we have done...

*Sacre Coeur - amazing big white basilica on top of Butte Montmartre. 1 million stairs to get there, but the rewards are breathtaking views and buns of steel.
*Arc de Triumphe - egotistic Napoleanic monument. Crazy motorists zooming around the bottom. Very awesome.
*Eiffel Tower - I didn't spit off it.
* Moulin Rouge - topless dancers singing in pretty costumes (well, g-strings and feathers). Made me blush, made me laugh.
*The Louvre - saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Lacemaker (Vermeer - my fave), a few Raphaal pieces and saw the crowds. Spent hours there and I'm sure we only saw 1/5th.
*Notre Dame, Pont Neuf, Champs Elysees,the river, etc.
*All the old buildings with balconies and red geraniums in their windows.
*We sat around in dark bars smoking lethal French cigarettes talking existential nonsense.
*Having petit dejeuner (breakfast) in sidewalk cafes at 11am.
*Walked cobble-stoned streets and tree-lined paths, pointing at little dogs and watching people people-watching.

The food we have eaten....

Oh the food! Parisians love their food! And so do I. From chocolat chaud (hot chocolates), onion soup, escargot, crepes, fresh delicious berries that dribble down my chin, fromage (cheese), chocolate eclairs, baguettes, croissants, avocado mousse, frites (French fries) to drinking glasses of red Bordeaux and real French champagne - I love it all! Lucky we are balancing off the meals by walking so much.

Our hotel is very cute and right in the centre of Montmartre. It is slightly bigger than a shoebox, but it has a fantastic viewpoint of the bustling street below, much to my liking. It has served us well and I recommend it to anyone. We will be leaving for Nice tomorrow. I was planning on heading to Switzerland next, however if you have been watching the news you will have noticed that half of central Europe is underwater and the other half is on fire. We are heading to the sunny bit for a few days. Pebbly beaches, tanned bodies and the rich and famous at Monaco. Doesn't sound like my kind of place at all, does it?

Hope you are all well.

Au revoir my petit canards,

Jude

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