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Trip Start May 22, 2011 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 10, 2011

  Lake Oswego, Oregon
Sunday, June 12, 2011

This is it – our last posting. We kept a small list of things we noticed and have combined them into this randomly organized list for your interest and possible amusement.  So here goes.

All the eggs are brown. Kind of reminds one of a song. "All the eggs are brown, and the skies are gray.  California dreamin', on a summer’s day."  Catchy, huh?  We saw no white eggs.

Also, the hotels have these very clever egg boilers, where there are several small baskets, each of which can accommodate two eggs.  You lower a basket into the water, and four minutes later you have an undercooked egg.  Voila!

All our hotel showers were in tubs, and they had glass doors that extended only about 1/3 the length of the tub.  The room attendants cleverly set the shower head so that it points out of the tub just past the end of the glass.  So when you first turn on the shower, it sprinkles out all over the bathroom floor.  Voila!

There are a number of street scams in Paris.  There’s the ring-drop scam, the “sign a petition for deaf mutes” scam,, the old crippled person scam, and the bracelet scam.  Please rest assured that we were not victimized by any of these scams.  We simply went to the nearest American Express office and wired home for money. 

We both bought beautiful new genuine Rolex watches for only 20 euros apiece.

Kissing is an art here.  The number of kisses increases from south to north.  In Nice, it’s two, in Burgundy, three, and in Paris four. Everybody in France has the same cold. What happens in Nice if one gives a third kiss is anybody’s guess.

We were somewhat amazed that except for one train ride, from Paris to Dijon, we never saw a conductor collect a ticket.  On one train, we boarded and found someone in our seat.  She immediately left for another car.  Later we asked one of our waiters in a restaurant in Nice what was going on.  He said that they just check at random. We assume there aren’t enough conductors.  But it turns out that about 20% of riders don’t pay.  The waiter told us that they are in the process of new legislation to address the issue. This will result in a national strike.

Ruth noticed that almost all of the cows we saw in Burgundy were white.  Our guide told us that they were bred for their beef only. They are not milked. The breed is called Charolais, named for the region where they were originated, and they are renowned for their tender and good tasting beef.

There is nothing like an authentic French baguette.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, it doesn’t matter.  It is an essential part of every meal.  There’s something about the texture and chewiness of the crust that is just pure magic.  And then there’s the cheese….

Bill spoke his fractured French to anyone who would listen.  The hotel people are the best because they have the most to lose by being mean!

Our son, Dan, tells us that he was surprised that the “quality” of Bill’s French did not lead to an international incident. The reason it didn’t is because Bill started every conversation with “Pardon my French”.

Thanks to our daughter-in-law, Lea, who got us started with TravelPod.  What a great website.  It's pretty easy to use, and we had fun putting it together.

That’s it, folks.  Thanks to all of you for your kind, funny, and welcome comments. Thanks to Ruth, who curbed Bill’s tendency to add volumes of detail.  By providing our running commentary, we have spared all of you the hours of travel tales we’d usually tell over dinner and long after we’d overstayed our welcome.  Instead, you can all have the opportunity to view our 800+ pictures.  Voila!

See you all soon…

Ruth and Bill

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