PARIS!

We went to Paris. What a great burg.
You can rent a little sailboat for the pond.
We stumbled onto a street market on the back streets.

The ever present security.
I took this shot so I could say this line "I ate the last mango in Paris." My apologies to Jimmy Buffet.

And the Louvre. .Jam packed with some of the finest art in the world.

Eiffel Tower

We went to the Eiffel Tower and I went to the top. . had to. ..Once anyway. It was a beautiful day. I took a couple shots of the entire tower but then I thought everyone in the world knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like so I tried to get some different angles and perspectives. I hope you enjoy.
This guy shot me right after I took this picture. He only winged my shoulder and I managed to duck into the crowd. . . . . . . I'm kidding. . . . We actually became friends and he left his machine gun with my wife and we went up the tower together. . . . . .I'm kidding again.
The mighty Arc.
Gustave Eiffel himself (he's the one on the bottom.)

A view from the top. I held my camera out as far as I could.

I'm attracted to shiny objects so I loved these telescopes they had all over the tower.

The Champs-Elysees

This couple cracked me up. My Wife and I were taking turns photographing each other standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe. I noticed my Wife laughing while taking my picture. When I went to get my camera back from her she told me this couple was hamming it up behind me while she was taking my picture. I figured they must want to be photographed so I turned my camera on them and they started posing. I was laughing, My wife was laughing and even the woman on the bench in the background was laughing. It was a good moment.



We walked down the Champs Elysee from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre. What a street!

The trip home

This is typical of the views you see from the train window. I wish I knew the history of this castle.


This was sitting in the train station in Paris. The trains were clean and fast. Paris to Montpellier in 3 hours.

And then the lights went out.

Ok, we went to Paris. We had a great time and I took a lot of pictures.
I will post them. But when we came back we had problems. We came home from work on a Friday night, I opened the mailbox and there was a slip in there. It was a from the electric company and it was marked up like a lazy student’s test paper. I had a feeling it was not a good sign. The power was out. This is what happened. Our real estate agent did her job and faxed a contract to EDF (Électricité de France.) They lost the fax, apparently. We have been living off the previous tenant’s electricity. They found this out and cut our power. This pissess EDF off because they realize they just got screwed out of 3 months of power money. Ok , this is Friday. We call a colleague for help and he jumps in to help us. EDF says Wednesday of the next week. We had many people call to fix this but Wednesday was carved in stone and Wednesday it would be. We lasted 5 days with no power.
The EDF guy showed up today (Wednesday). . ..he walked over to the little white box on the curb outside my street and inserted his key and opened the door and threw a switch. Wa-la we had power. Five days we took cold showers and sat around candles at night. We were being punished for their fault.
Good things that happened: Everybody at work tried to help us. They felt bad for us and generally had bad things to say about EDF. . ..it’s a monopoly.
A guy at work took all our freezer food and put it in his freezer.
The same guy insisted we come over for dinner and we did and had great time with him and his wife and two kids.
We got three months of free french electricity.
I made my my first French joke .. . EDF stands for Electricity Doesn’t Freakinwork.
It got a few laughs at work. La vie a belle (life is good.)

Sète Photo Three

So ends our day trip to Sète. A quaint little French fishing village on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.

Sète Photo Two

Clash of cultures:
This was a sign outside a restaurant. To the average European it is a colorful advertisement which promises great seafood from a reputable 'fisherman' character.

I thought. . . ."Village People?"

Sète Photo One

We went to the seaside city of Sète. It's about 40 minutes from us down the coast. It was a nice little fishing village and a fun place to take photo's.

The modern side of Montpellier

We were up at the center of Montpellier again. The ancient architecture always grabs my attention. France has modern malls as well.

The Circus is coming to town.

The Circus (or Cirque) is coming to town. They have these signs all over the town. I've been annoying my wife by saying "ZAVATTA!" every time we pass one. It's fun to say, try it.
Za-Vatta! . . .See?

Eating is Beautiful

This is up at Comedee again. My wife and I were siting across from this dining party. I don't drink coffee after dinner so my inlaws have me drinking Sambuca. They don't have Sambuca in France so I figured it was something that I would have to get "un-used to." At the same time my co-workers were telling me I can't live in the South France without drinking "Pastis." So it was this dinner that I tried pastis for the first time. Guess what? Pastis tastes a lot like Sambuca! It's anise based.

The street musicians are fantastic up at comedee centre (center of Montpellier). This area is Europe coming at ya!

Soccer ball tree

It was a busy weekend but I feel guilty for not posting.










I have a tree in my yard that grows soccer balls. Soccer is called football in France so I'll honor that. So I was out doing yard work this weekend and noticed my football tree. The mower makes a heck of a racket when you hit one of these footballs.