Tuesday, April 03, 2007

how many nude statues are there left to see?

I understand why drinking goes with smoking, it burns out the burn of the smoking. Yesterday, we went to Notre Dame again and climbed the towers. Even the hubby went despite his fear of heights. I went up higher to the rooftop and the bell tower. Now I'm going to have to read Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm glad it was worth it because we had to 1)stand in front of some American tourists that were smoking the nastiest cigars you can imagine and 2) had to climb the narrow spiraling staircase up and down.

Such a difference between the first two days and the last two in Paris. The first days were lightly rainy and drizzly and it felt like we had the whole city to ourselves. But April 1 with Easter Break and the sunny days have brought the masses to the streets of Paris from all over the world.

I've been trying to drink oj as much as I can to keep healthy as I can feel a slight itch in the back of my throat that could go either way. Britain will soon be enforcing a ban on smoking in public places. Don't know if France ever will. But it makes quite the difference.

We managed to see the Eiffel Tower in all its pretty sparkling lights. Ate at a restaurant and had an ok dish of Le Coq au Vin, but the champagne and dessert were lovely.

I think I'm about done with Paris for now. Feeling the fatigue of the travel, though we're getting up near noon each day. I'm a bit done too with the high traffic tourists even though we're one of them. You know that it's getting bad when you can't stand yourself! So, it's nice that we'll be in a new country later tonight with a new language surrounding us. There is a certain level of fatigue in my brain constantly listening to French which hasn't found a steady home in my cerebrum yet. I remember this fatigue in the Philippines when I was learning Tagalog. I'm looking forward to having Spanish around me to have the brain switch gears a bit. Though I'm sure if I stayed here for a few more weeks, my French would improve even more. Not good enough yet to go through the countryside completely, but good enough for the cities.

Left on the "to see" list for the next trip to Europe: Rodin Musee (which was closed yesterday), and actually going up the Eiffel Tower (the line was ridiculously huge). And I wasn't going to be one of the ones to scale the tower by foot. I had seen my quota of steps for the day at Notre Dame.

Not sure if I'll have internet in Spain. When we get back this will become a photo blog for a while. Alors, a la prochaine!

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