Ville de Lumiére part deux

It's been four days and I'm glad we've adopted a leisurely pace of checking out the must-sees and must-do's. I've always wanted to stay away from the hordes of camera-clicking tourists and collecting the same postcard picture collecting routine that most folks seem to aspire, so instead of merely taking photos of the famous Notre Dame (yes, the same one in the Victor Hugo classic, complete with a Quasimodo lookalike posing with tourists), we decided to attend the Sunday service instead, which was followed by a Georgian chant by choir. Cés't beau!! We then made our way to the Champ des Mars, a lovely park facing the awe inspiring Tour Eiffel, or the Eiffel Tower. I slept while sharing an iPod tune with Viv ..

Today was de Musée du Lourve which was exhausting, but extremely satisfying. The Mona Lisa was small and simple, yet stood above all the other marvellous paintings by various Renaissance masters. The Persian exhibition was simply mindblowing and immediately got us thinking of the possibility of sneaking into Iran some time next year.

But you know folks, at the end of the day, it's all about the people. There is no point having seen all the glorious monuments and sights of Paris without meeting Parisians. For this purpose, I had subjected myself to a crash course to understand and speak basic french, a course that I am still undertaking on a daily basis, by speaking in broken french which will hopefully improve over the next few weeks while we're here. Aided by a book of course, and Dany has been of great help. Though I've bumped into the famously rude waiters in the local restaurants (we saw one chap pick a fight with a prospective customer!), I have personally found folks here to be very courteous, polite and warm ... unless you speak English as a first step when engaging a Parisian. With a slightly higher pitched voice and an undulating accent (I think influenced by Americans taking the mickey out of the french on TV, see Robin Williams Live on Broadway 2002), I have been Bonjour-ing my way through Paris in the past couple of days and it's fun. Have always wanted to pickup another language ... Anyway, time for dinner, and tonight it's jambon au fromage (that's ham & cheese) from the local super marché plus a €4 bottle of Bordeoux which is awesome value. We're off to Versailles in the morning ... A bièntot!