European Vacation, part 2
Jan. 9th, 2004 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaSchwerin. Lovely place. A castle on an island, tasty bakeries and the weirdest obelisk I've ever seen. This thing was proudly displayed in the town square and appeared to have 4 scenes of significant events of the town's history. One of them was a medieval man riding out of town on a big ass horse. The road in front of him was lined with hundreds of people bending over and mooning them. Yup. Carved in stone and displayed in a place of honor. Toto, we are so not in Kansas anymore.
The language barrier was pretty substantial. I had dictionaries with me, and honestly, I did attempt to learn a few basic phrases in German before I left so I could communicate if the other person was willing to help. After a few days, I began to notice that these folks don't use a lot of hand gestures and were very verbal, so it was frustrating when they would persist in explaning things just using words--which of course, I was slow in understanding. (And actually, I do speak a second language, Spanish, which is practical since I live in a heavily hispanic area in Southern California, and no, I did not expect everyone to speak English, in case you were wondering.)
Actually, my mom, who was my traveling companion and I didn't speak very much to each other while we were in public. GW Bush was over in England and dominated the TV while we were there, so we kept a low profile. More than once, when we ordered food, the waiter would look startled and whisk the menu away to replace it with a English language one, so we were successful to a point. If we spoke English in public, you could see a jolt go through the people close to us. It was unnerving...as was a staring thing that was common over there. I gather we were making small faux pas, like trying to order wurst for dinner, small things like that, I think, but people would notice and stare, mentally willing us to correct our behavior. This happened a lot and became wearying to a point where it felt freeing when we got to Paris (where one was given a thorough once over, catagorized as a fashionless tourist, then discarded from further notice. That I can live with.) (As an aside, a fellow at work who I consider a rock, went to the big Auto Show that's in town. He was looking at a few of the German displays and laughingly told me he now understood what I was talking about. He had a soda in hand and he could feel the German attendants mentally willing him to move away from the cars.)
Our adventure holiday continue via rented car. The Avis guy was nice, but things got changed around from what I ordered via the net. He automatically assumed that as an American I would want an automatic transmission. Since I couldn't say, "I've only owned manual cars and I'm really looking forward to driving a cool German car on the autobahn" I ended up with an automatic. Well, my rule is not to sweat the small stuff, so I figured the Vacation Gods were nudging me to get the automatic. I was thrilled it was a Mercedes Benz...but it was an A class. We were dubious about whether it would hold our luggage, but it seemed to be the only model on the lot. Okay, that's got to be a Vacation God nudge so we took it, feeling the stares following us until we drove out of sight. I *know* they thought we were going to ruin that car, but I'm proud to say it was returned without a scratch or even a near miss. The car we knicknamed Pug, The Pita Pocket Mercedes; the car with 100 dachshunds under the hood. We had to offer encouragement to Pug to get him up to speed: "Come on! Get those little Scully legs moving, now!" It did turn out to be adequate for our needs and actually its small size and lack of hood allowed us to manuever through a few very tight places that were scored with lots of paint from other cars not so lucky (like the parking structure in Detmold.)
We drove through the forests, finding the small villiages where our ancestors came from. The weather was cold, and the forests a mass of gold, orange or red; we couldn't have picked a more perfect time to visit. From Schwerin we drove south to Wernigerode and our hotel Der Kräuterhof in Drei Annen Hohne, which was a solitary 'resort' in the woods of the Harz Mountains. We chose this place because we like trains, especially steam trains. The hotel had a stop of Harzquer Railway across the road and we could hear the whistles and see the trains steaming up from our hotel room. We took the train to the top of the Brocken, the tallest mountain in Northern Germany. It had been a GDR post, but now has a touristy stuff on top...so I'm told, because we sure couldn't see any of it when we got off the train! It was windy, foggy with snow flurries. I thought my glasses had fogged up, but they had frozen up. While the rest of our hardy passengers marched away through the snow, mom and I looked at each other and hopped back on the train. We spent the rest of the day in Wernigerode, which was a wonderful town filled with 1000 buildings over 500 years old. The Christmas stuff was out and we finally got in some good shopping. One nice young man in a gallery type store was excited to try out his English on us, as he had studied it for 10 years. He did very well. He said we were the first Americans he knew of that had visited this place; I imagine we were the first ones that he had seen as I can't imagine other Yanks hadn't discovered this wonderful city.
We drove west through the Harz mountains, finally ending up at a place called Detmold. From there some other ancestors of ours and migrated to America. Detmold was another bustling market town, filled with half-timbered old buildings and decked out in Christmas decorations. More good shopping, delicious bakeries and interesting museums filled our days. Two curious places we visited were The Externstein, which are some odd limestone (?) monoliths, and over on a hill top through the Teutoburger Wald forest, a *really* tall statue, Hermannsdenkmal. This commerates a victory in the 1st century of the allied-Teuton tribes over the Romans. The battle took 3 days and even though the Romans outnumbered the natives, three legions were destroyed. This statue is 24 meters tall. While we were up there, we could hear explosions and shelling. At first I wondered if this was some of the ghosts I was wondering about earlier, but I imagine there was some sort of military manuevers going on somewhere over the next hill. Still, I was left to ponder how much confict had taken place near here, and the ebb and flow of different cultures. People and neanderthals have been stomping about this area from tens of thousands of years.
From there, we went to the Rhine and did the usual touristy stuff. This river has so much history that it was a blast to explore the region. Marksburg castle was an unmodified castle and was delightful. In our little group, half were Americans, the most I'd ever seen in one place so far. I'd wanted to go south and visit Worms Cathedral, but we ran out of time. Our next stop was Cologne, and we managed to fit in a day trip to Aachen so I could see at least one Romanesque Cathedral and I was very impressed with that one. Charlemagne founded it in 800 CE, and it was wonderfully steeped in history. The Dom was small and quite intimate, decorated in a Byzantine style. It was a good trade off, so I figure the Vacation Gods were still guiding us.
Koln was terribly confusing to drive in, what with all the one-way streets and congestion. It was also the only place where we ran into someone, a taxi driver, that didn't want to interact with us because we spoke English (and I was never sure if this behavior was because we were Yanks or just "English" speakers.) I had the hotel address written out, and even could point to where it was on the map because it *was* devilishly hard to actually drive to.) He didn't want to deal with us but the other cabbies looked disgusted and made him take us as passengers. I would have rathered one of them drove us, though. This guy kept up a irritable monologue and I swear was trying to sideswipe bicyclists and chase pedestrians back onto the curb. In my opinion, this guy was scary.
Lastly, we took a high speed train to Paris. For some reason, I was totally fretting about how we were going to get our luggage on this train (probably because the guide books kept mentioning how little space there was on this type of train.) Luckily, there was a car at the end of the train for overflow or something and only about 5 people in it. The car we were supposed to be in was packed to the gills, so we went back to the cheap area and enjoyed all the space. The conductor guy explained that we'd have to take our assigned seats before Brussels as the train was full from then on, so we did as instructed. As to be expected, there were dozens of disapproving stares as we claimed our seats. Apparently, the connecting train didn't make it, so we eventually left, without any more passengers. A quick vote and we were back in the cheap area with all the space and freedom--followed by the everpresent stares and frowns as we abandoned our assigned seats.
Paris was sunny and mild, sunny and cold, cold and rainy. The coldest day was the one where we went to Notre Dame, then wandered around the Highlander shooting sightes. It was bitterly cold next to the Seine, and we ducked into a nice cafe for lunch. Their special was Turkey and dressing, which I thought was very thoughtful as it was the American Thanksgiving Holiday. Mom had turkey, I had French Onion Soup, and we both had a couple of 'white coffees' American style (ie about 10 oz.). We spent one day at the Louvre looking at, surprise, surprise, Egyptian and Greek artifacts. We tried to visit the Musée d'Orsay one afternoon, but a wagon load of police closed the place, shoo'ed us all away and put yellow tape across a busy street, closing that down. Being tourists, we took a few pictures and then thought maybe it'd be wiser to cross the river and watch the activity from there. But it was quite cold again, so we just went back to our hotel before we dined on Chinese food that night. I know it's strange, but I like eating at chinese restaurants in different countries, just to see what the differences are.
French City Con was out at the convention center in La Defense. It was a Stargate convention, with the guests of Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, J.R. Bourne, Amanda Tapping and Sarah Douglas. The first day was terrible, with very bad organization. The second day improved with the help of the Brits/Dutchies/Barcelonians who volunteered to help with the gophering. The guests were delightful, but seemed to work without breaks. And I enjoyed meeting and hanging with friends I'd only interacted with through the net, plus long time friends with great ideas on where to dine. There was a Christmas fair just outside the convention center (more good shopping.) We had fun, until I noticed we were being followed by a guy in a black leather jacket. When we left the fair, a persistent vendor of Morocco goods wanted to buy us coffee and wouldn't take no for an answer. Who knows what his agenda was, but we had to duck back into the con to ditch him, and as I peeked back to see if he was leaving, I saw Black Jacket guy taking the escalator back up. What?! I was so distracted by Moroccan guy, I totally forgot to keep an eye on him. Very strange.
While I did feel that the Parisians were a tad weary of American tourists (of course, it could have just been tourists in general) we did have a nicely gracious thing happen to us. A friend was quite eager to try the legendary Café de la Paix. We approached the desk, but as wizened women in furs were being turned away, I didn't expect much, but they seated us immediately. We had a delightful time, the food was marvelous and the staff gave new meaning of what good service is actually about. The Vacation Gods were very, very good to us.
The rest of the trip was routine and we arrived home safe and sound. Since I'd missed Thanksgiving, I never quite got into the swing of the holidays, kinda like that Pink Floyd song: "No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun." Strange that. And when we entered the house, I could still smell the wildfire smoke from the month before. That would have been terrible to be overseas and not know just how close the danger was.
Speaking of overseas, just before Christmas I buzzed out to Las Vegas to visit with a couple of good friends from England. Shopping was the preferred activity, and watching them and my good friend Bunny eagerly dodge the crowds and dip into store after store, I realized my shopping gene is defective. I'm a lightweight, a charlatan, a poser, though I did hold my own in used bookstores.
And for those that care, Cutiepie the Raccoon and her family of 5 are still nightly visitors, and Skinnytail the Skunk is continuing to get fur on his tail. And we've got a selection of flickers that are hanging out around the birdbath--I don't think I'd ever seen flickers around here before. Maybe they're refugees from the burned out mountains?
I was given a book called Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews; rumor was that there was a Daniel Jackson avatar in this series. From the way the character lounged, I thought he sounded more like Methos, but I suppose he isn't either one. I've quickly sped through all 4 books that are out and I don't know why. The characters were 2 dimensional, their behaviors purely motivated by plot and not by anything realistic from the characters, the situations implausable and the main character a Mary Sue. The writer did have a great sense of place and did a fair job of juggling the actions of a plethora of characters. So, why have I pre-ordered the next one of the series?? It's kinda like my guilty pleasure addiction to Jo Bannister's Daniel Hood novels. Main character a Mary Sue, definitely a Daniel Jackson avatar (the waif version of that character) but she does put him in deliciously dangerous situations...but, but there is so much that she does poorly (says a intermitant fanfic writer of a author who has published many, many books.) Yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe I'll make whine out of those sour grapes.
We finally get a new Stargate ep tonight. Jack goes into the jungles of Central America to rescue a kidnapped and tortured Daniel. Having seen this on squinty, I've banked my expectations and will enjoy
what I may and try not to despair of yet more wasted opportunities by the show's writers.
Work is very busy with all the flu and pneumonia about, and on top of that I have to do jury duty next week. I wonder if I can take my pocket pc into the jury room? Hmmm...fanfic.
And that's all the news that fits, for now.
The language barrier was pretty substantial. I had dictionaries with me, and honestly, I did attempt to learn a few basic phrases in German before I left so I could communicate if the other person was willing to help. After a few days, I began to notice that these folks don't use a lot of hand gestures and were very verbal, so it was frustrating when they would persist in explaning things just using words--which of course, I was slow in understanding. (And actually, I do speak a second language, Spanish, which is practical since I live in a heavily hispanic area in Southern California, and no, I did not expect everyone to speak English, in case you were wondering.)
Actually, my mom, who was my traveling companion and I didn't speak very much to each other while we were in public. GW Bush was over in England and dominated the TV while we were there, so we kept a low profile. More than once, when we ordered food, the waiter would look startled and whisk the menu away to replace it with a English language one, so we were successful to a point. If we spoke English in public, you could see a jolt go through the people close to us. It was unnerving...as was a staring thing that was common over there. I gather we were making small faux pas, like trying to order wurst for dinner, small things like that, I think, but people would notice and stare, mentally willing us to correct our behavior. This happened a lot and became wearying to a point where it felt freeing when we got to Paris (where one was given a thorough once over, catagorized as a fashionless tourist, then discarded from further notice. That I can live with.) (As an aside, a fellow at work who I consider a rock, went to the big Auto Show that's in town. He was looking at a few of the German displays and laughingly told me he now understood what I was talking about. He had a soda in hand and he could feel the German attendants mentally willing him to move away from the cars.)
Our adventure holiday continue via rented car. The Avis guy was nice, but things got changed around from what I ordered via the net. He automatically assumed that as an American I would want an automatic transmission. Since I couldn't say, "I've only owned manual cars and I'm really looking forward to driving a cool German car on the autobahn" I ended up with an automatic. Well, my rule is not to sweat the small stuff, so I figured the Vacation Gods were nudging me to get the automatic. I was thrilled it was a Mercedes Benz...but it was an A class. We were dubious about whether it would hold our luggage, but it seemed to be the only model on the lot. Okay, that's got to be a Vacation God nudge so we took it, feeling the stares following us until we drove out of sight. I *know* they thought we were going to ruin that car, but I'm proud to say it was returned without a scratch or even a near miss. The car we knicknamed Pug, The Pita Pocket Mercedes; the car with 100 dachshunds under the hood. We had to offer encouragement to Pug to get him up to speed: "Come on! Get those little Scully legs moving, now!" It did turn out to be adequate for our needs and actually its small size and lack of hood allowed us to manuever through a few very tight places that were scored with lots of paint from other cars not so lucky (like the parking structure in Detmold.)
We drove through the forests, finding the small villiages where our ancestors came from. The weather was cold, and the forests a mass of gold, orange or red; we couldn't have picked a more perfect time to visit. From Schwerin we drove south to Wernigerode and our hotel Der Kräuterhof in Drei Annen Hohne, which was a solitary 'resort' in the woods of the Harz Mountains. We chose this place because we like trains, especially steam trains. The hotel had a stop of Harzquer Railway across the road and we could hear the whistles and see the trains steaming up from our hotel room. We took the train to the top of the Brocken, the tallest mountain in Northern Germany. It had been a GDR post, but now has a touristy stuff on top...so I'm told, because we sure couldn't see any of it when we got off the train! It was windy, foggy with snow flurries. I thought my glasses had fogged up, but they had frozen up. While the rest of our hardy passengers marched away through the snow, mom and I looked at each other and hopped back on the train. We spent the rest of the day in Wernigerode, which was a wonderful town filled with 1000 buildings over 500 years old. The Christmas stuff was out and we finally got in some good shopping. One nice young man in a gallery type store was excited to try out his English on us, as he had studied it for 10 years. He did very well. He said we were the first Americans he knew of that had visited this place; I imagine we were the first ones that he had seen as I can't imagine other Yanks hadn't discovered this wonderful city.
We drove west through the Harz mountains, finally ending up at a place called Detmold. From there some other ancestors of ours and migrated to America. Detmold was another bustling market town, filled with half-timbered old buildings and decked out in Christmas decorations. More good shopping, delicious bakeries and interesting museums filled our days. Two curious places we visited were The Externstein, which are some odd limestone (?) monoliths, and over on a hill top through the Teutoburger Wald forest, a *really* tall statue, Hermannsdenkmal. This commerates a victory in the 1st century of the allied-Teuton tribes over the Romans. The battle took 3 days and even though the Romans outnumbered the natives, three legions were destroyed. This statue is 24 meters tall. While we were up there, we could hear explosions and shelling. At first I wondered if this was some of the ghosts I was wondering about earlier, but I imagine there was some sort of military manuevers going on somewhere over the next hill. Still, I was left to ponder how much confict had taken place near here, and the ebb and flow of different cultures. People and neanderthals have been stomping about this area from tens of thousands of years.
From there, we went to the Rhine and did the usual touristy stuff. This river has so much history that it was a blast to explore the region. Marksburg castle was an unmodified castle and was delightful. In our little group, half were Americans, the most I'd ever seen in one place so far. I'd wanted to go south and visit Worms Cathedral, but we ran out of time. Our next stop was Cologne, and we managed to fit in a day trip to Aachen so I could see at least one Romanesque Cathedral and I was very impressed with that one. Charlemagne founded it in 800 CE, and it was wonderfully steeped in history. The Dom was small and quite intimate, decorated in a Byzantine style. It was a good trade off, so I figure the Vacation Gods were still guiding us.
Koln was terribly confusing to drive in, what with all the one-way streets and congestion. It was also the only place where we ran into someone, a taxi driver, that didn't want to interact with us because we spoke English (and I was never sure if this behavior was because we were Yanks or just "English" speakers.) I had the hotel address written out, and even could point to where it was on the map because it *was* devilishly hard to actually drive to.) He didn't want to deal with us but the other cabbies looked disgusted and made him take us as passengers. I would have rathered one of them drove us, though. This guy kept up a irritable monologue and I swear was trying to sideswipe bicyclists and chase pedestrians back onto the curb. In my opinion, this guy was scary.
Lastly, we took a high speed train to Paris. For some reason, I was totally fretting about how we were going to get our luggage on this train (probably because the guide books kept mentioning how little space there was on this type of train.) Luckily, there was a car at the end of the train for overflow or something and only about 5 people in it. The car we were supposed to be in was packed to the gills, so we went back to the cheap area and enjoyed all the space. The conductor guy explained that we'd have to take our assigned seats before Brussels as the train was full from then on, so we did as instructed. As to be expected, there were dozens of disapproving stares as we claimed our seats. Apparently, the connecting train didn't make it, so we eventually left, without any more passengers. A quick vote and we were back in the cheap area with all the space and freedom--followed by the everpresent stares and frowns as we abandoned our assigned seats.
Paris was sunny and mild, sunny and cold, cold and rainy. The coldest day was the one where we went to Notre Dame, then wandered around the Highlander shooting sightes. It was bitterly cold next to the Seine, and we ducked into a nice cafe for lunch. Their special was Turkey and dressing, which I thought was very thoughtful as it was the American Thanksgiving Holiday. Mom had turkey, I had French Onion Soup, and we both had a couple of 'white coffees' American style (ie about 10 oz.). We spent one day at the Louvre looking at, surprise, surprise, Egyptian and Greek artifacts. We tried to visit the Musée d'Orsay one afternoon, but a wagon load of police closed the place, shoo'ed us all away and put yellow tape across a busy street, closing that down. Being tourists, we took a few pictures and then thought maybe it'd be wiser to cross the river and watch the activity from there. But it was quite cold again, so we just went back to our hotel before we dined on Chinese food that night. I know it's strange, but I like eating at chinese restaurants in different countries, just to see what the differences are.
French City Con was out at the convention center in La Defense. It was a Stargate convention, with the guests of Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, J.R. Bourne, Amanda Tapping and Sarah Douglas. The first day was terrible, with very bad organization. The second day improved with the help of the Brits/Dutchies/Barcelonians who volunteered to help with the gophering. The guests were delightful, but seemed to work without breaks. And I enjoyed meeting and hanging with friends I'd only interacted with through the net, plus long time friends with great ideas on where to dine. There was a Christmas fair just outside the convention center (more good shopping.) We had fun, until I noticed we were being followed by a guy in a black leather jacket. When we left the fair, a persistent vendor of Morocco goods wanted to buy us coffee and wouldn't take no for an answer. Who knows what his agenda was, but we had to duck back into the con to ditch him, and as I peeked back to see if he was leaving, I saw Black Jacket guy taking the escalator back up. What?! I was so distracted by Moroccan guy, I totally forgot to keep an eye on him. Very strange.
While I did feel that the Parisians were a tad weary of American tourists (of course, it could have just been tourists in general) we did have a nicely gracious thing happen to us. A friend was quite eager to try the legendary Café de la Paix. We approached the desk, but as wizened women in furs were being turned away, I didn't expect much, but they seated us immediately. We had a delightful time, the food was marvelous and the staff gave new meaning of what good service is actually about. The Vacation Gods were very, very good to us.
The rest of the trip was routine and we arrived home safe and sound. Since I'd missed Thanksgiving, I never quite got into the swing of the holidays, kinda like that Pink Floyd song: "No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun." Strange that. And when we entered the house, I could still smell the wildfire smoke from the month before. That would have been terrible to be overseas and not know just how close the danger was.
Speaking of overseas, just before Christmas I buzzed out to Las Vegas to visit with a couple of good friends from England. Shopping was the preferred activity, and watching them and my good friend Bunny eagerly dodge the crowds and dip into store after store, I realized my shopping gene is defective. I'm a lightweight, a charlatan, a poser, though I did hold my own in used bookstores.
And for those that care, Cutiepie the Raccoon and her family of 5 are still nightly visitors, and Skinnytail the Skunk is continuing to get fur on his tail. And we've got a selection of flickers that are hanging out around the birdbath--I don't think I'd ever seen flickers around here before. Maybe they're refugees from the burned out mountains?
I was given a book called Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews; rumor was that there was a Daniel Jackson avatar in this series. From the way the character lounged, I thought he sounded more like Methos, but I suppose he isn't either one. I've quickly sped through all 4 books that are out and I don't know why. The characters were 2 dimensional, their behaviors purely motivated by plot and not by anything realistic from the characters, the situations implausable and the main character a Mary Sue. The writer did have a great sense of place and did a fair job of juggling the actions of a plethora of characters. So, why have I pre-ordered the next one of the series?? It's kinda like my guilty pleasure addiction to Jo Bannister's Daniel Hood novels. Main character a Mary Sue, definitely a Daniel Jackson avatar (the waif version of that character) but she does put him in deliciously dangerous situations...but, but there is so much that she does poorly (says a intermitant fanfic writer of a author who has published many, many books.) Yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe I'll make whine out of those sour grapes.
We finally get a new Stargate ep tonight. Jack goes into the jungles of Central America to rescue a kidnapped and tortured Daniel. Having seen this on squinty, I've banked my expectations and will enjoy
what I may and try not to despair of yet more wasted opportunities by the show's writers.
Work is very busy with all the flu and pneumonia about, and on top of that I have to do jury duty next week. I wonder if I can take my pocket pc into the jury room? Hmmm...fanfic.
And that's all the news that fits, for now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wie gates
Date: 2004-01-10 01:43 am (UTC)You should have brought pictures to the bash -- next time, ok?
*hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 08:32 pm (UTC)I saw some other things that gave me pause. There was some mocking of a pair of French travelers who'd made an honest mistake that seemed way out of line. I figure I would have gotten The Stare instead so I imagine there still might be some friction between these two peoples even at the most basic level. The whole trip certainly gave me more insight into the whole Euro thing, too.
I'll bring the photos next time. By then I should have them put in a nice album...with captions! Bet you can hardly wait, eh?
Thanks for commenting.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 09:44 pm (UTC)I suspect this is true. And I agree about not going on tours, I think it's better to visit a country and flounder around with the language than be herded around the country.
esl = english as a second language
Can't wait to see the pictures.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 08:33 pm (UTC)Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 08:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 08:16 pm (UTC)I am waiting for the next one, rather impatiently. Sounds like an actress prima dona is going to make Michael's life difficult, and any story that has gorgeous Michael in it more is a good thing.
Thanks for your comment. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-11 08:32 pm (UTC)Yes, we want to see pictures.
ESL = "English as a second language"..... i.e. not a native English speaker.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-12 09:06 pm (UTC)As for Germany, we were there in November and we didn't go to the big touristy place for the most part. As a result, we went days without hearing another American accent in the crowds. Aside from psycho cabbie, we experienced nothing more overt than the Stares and a few frowns/exasperation. Oh, except for the hotel on the Rhine; the second night of our stay we kept getting the automated wake up calls until I unplugged the phone. Who knows what that was about. Anyway, I would just clarify that if seemed prudent to be low-profile, not that we felt we had to be.
Will bring photos to the next bash. Thanks for being interested.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-13 11:52 am (UTC)And that dinner at Cafe le Paix was splendid. :)
Parisians are weary in general. I've been there three times, and every single time I've found nice and not-so-nice people.
The city is gorgeous, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-15 05:42 am (UTC)Thanks!