Wot I did in my holidays - part 6 - the final you will be pleased to hear

My nine year old niece offered an opinion about tourism in France based on her visit last year. "The trouble with France" she advised us "Is that they speak French there"

She's so right. We pottered round Italy with no problems with our four words of Italian. So I've got schoolgirl french so we should be able to communicate, right? I do okay getting the train into town "Bonjour, deux Paris sil vous plait" "merci beaucoup". Then I find the next time I try it, and the next six times, that the French are having a joke at my expense. I have no expectation that I speak correct french, in fact I am sure it is appalling. I would guess that my grammer is equivilent to that of a toddler. It must be blatantly obvious to all native french speakers that I am groping for the correct phrase or word fairly regularly. So of course they go off into paragraphs of rapid fire french and roll their eyes when I look blankly back having understood about three words of the explanation. I gain a new sympathy for migrants at home trying to grasp Kiwiese (one of husbands workmates who speaks English as a second language once went to the doctor as he thought he had broken one of his "leg fingers" when he dropped something on it. An xray confirmed a broken toe). It somewhat offends me that where the Vatican museum can put signs on exhibits in four or five languages in the Louvre it is all in French and only french. Okay I can paraphrase that into English fairly reasonably for husband who picks up his regulation four words and sticks to them but what's so hard about another couple of languages? (Italian translations are delightful at times - I particularly liked the one in the hotel lift that began "Respectful guest, please do be visiting the bar").

Anyway - we find the hotel. Nice to have a decent sized bed again. This one is two singles pushed together so somewhat more spacious than the little room in Rome. There is room to park the suitcase too, the heater is on and it isn't half bad.

The Louvre is pretty amazing anyway. We do of course see the Mona Lisa though you have to sharpen your elbows to hold your own in crowds like that. Some of my favourites were the less notorious paintings though - standing back across the room you suddenly notice how amazing a painting is when viewed from a distance. So we worked our way down the hallways with an eye on the opposite wall.

We couldn't go to the top of the Eiffel tower due to high winds. I don't mind, the view was good anyway. Happily too we went early as when we came down a couple of hours later the queues to go up were stretched out for miles. We had another look after dark.

In Champes Elysees they were painting trees white for Christmas. So pretty. I am a bit worried about the passing pedestrians when the people applying the stuff are wearing respirator type masks and full protective suits though! And what about the poor trees?

So it was allright.... bits of it were even good. But it isn't too bad getting on the Eurostar to London.

It takes me 24 hours in London to realise that I am still formulating sentences in my head in French before I converse with anyone except husband. I get over it.

The shops are packed solid, and the underground is sardine like. We go do touristy things - The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, several museums (and surely there is a museum for everything in London - my favourite is the Britain at War one, though the stories of the evacuee children made me cry. Catch a Westend show - Guys and Dolls. I chose that as Patrick Swayze was in it, except he wasn't by the time we got there. Not to worry it was great anyway. It is darn chilly in London.

Am sort of happy and sad when it is time to go home. If we had known how bad the flight was going to be we would have refused to get on it and stayed where we were. The Air New Zealand flight from hell, 4 and a half hours to get a glass of water! Food choices run out by the time they get to us, horrible smelling overcooked food that I couldn't bear the smell of anyway - and believe me I am not that fussy. At 7 am New Zealand time we are watching the second sunrise of the flight when a flight attendant demands extremely rudely that we shut the blind on the window. The reason - they are not serving breakfast for another three hours and they do not want everyone woken up.
Dear whoever you are:
1 Learn to ask politely
2 I paid for this trip in a tiny seat in this cramped tin can so I can be at the mercy of idiots like you for 24 hours. I will f'ing well watch the sunrise if I want to.
3. What the hell do you think you are doing serving BREAKFAST at 10am New Zealand time? (anyway reheated noodles have never been my idea of a reasonable breakfast, though your reheated eggs are only marginally better I would not have minded having a choice instead of having the noodles dumped in front of me with a "that's all that's left")
4 Will you all get over the obsession with the blinds FFS. I am tired of hearing the blinds must be up or must be down.

So we're home. We had a good time. The Visa bill looks rather large. Next time we'll fly with another airline.