Paris blog from Venice

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Today we woke to the news that Brian's lap top had malfunctioned while shutting down. We were given the name of a computer shop FNAC and made our way there with the offending article.

Unfortunately their repair manager was most unhelpful and refused to help so we decided to send the lappy home and buy 2 replacements - one for managing the photos and the other for internet - as Brian was finding it hard to keep up with the blogs and organising photos etc plus with one PC it can only be used by one person.

Eventually we left with 2 new laptops which had non-QWERTY keyboards and upgraded Vista packages to translate the operating system into English. My job was to find a post office and send home the laptop - registered, and other packages. What fun!!! No English, wrong sized boxes etc. etc but done eventually.

When attempting to change Vista from Frog to English, multiple errors occurred and Brian and Owen were unable to complete the process. So Brian and Owen went back to FNAC but no English-speaking staff could help and our initial assistant was off duty.

To sustain ourselves after all this drama, we found a restaurant nearby which specialized in Fois Gras. We started with French onion soup with came with toasted slices of baguette and a dish of grated cheese - a sort of do it yourself soup. Quite delicious.

Brian and I shared the special of the day - featuring fois gras prepared in four different ways. One was pan fried and was quite delicious, then two cold - goose fois gras and duck fois gras. The goose was quite strong in flavour and I was not as keen on it, the milder fois gras was enjoyable. The remaining dish had been described as similar to creme brulee but was most disappointing - a hot egg custard, flavoured with fois gras - gag material!!!

Owen enjoyed his Aiguillettes de canard grillees (grilled strips of duck breast).

For desert I had a vanilla, prune armignac (Dartagnon), Brian had an "Illusion" - lemon, orange and blackcurrant icecream. Owen had chocolate mousse.

Off home and fingers crossed for a miracle in the morning!

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