Pizza in Paris, Sunday, 15 November

No need to say anything about housework. At the beginning of December we are going to Strasbourg for a few days and while we are now reasonably conversant with the Gare du Nord the train to Strasbourg leaves from the Gare de l'Est. So we thought we ought to go down and suss the station out. Besides, it was a new bus trip for us and as you will have gathered, we enjoy exploring the city via public transport. For those of us with bad knees, bad backs, bad ankles, etc. buses are the way to go. The Metro, while much faster and more efficient in many ways certainly doesn't have the views and the deeper the line the less likely it seems to be for it to have either an elevator or escalators.

The Gare de l'Est is a very classy station. It is a bit like comparing Heathrow London (ugh) with Singapore Changi(Ooh la la). It has lots of nice shops and is very clean. The station is for trains heading East (as the name says); Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc. It also seemed user friendly with lots of languages being spoken and posters in a variety of languages to help passengers. Very different from Virginia's favourite station, Paddington, where a non-English speaker would find it quite difficult if not impossible.

After lunch at home we set out on another exploratory expedition. On Tuesday we are invited to dine with friends. Although we have been there before it is in a difficult place to reach. We worked out another route to reach them and tried that this afternoon. This required us to change buses on the rue Royal, near the Madelaine. There, we discovered the Village Royal; an arcade of gorgeous botiques all dressed up on their Christmas finery. Closed today, because it is Sunday, but I am sure we will be going back for a further look in the next few days. The bus to our friends' area took us through some of the most exclusive places of residence and shopping in Paris. They are pretty much across the river from the Eiffel tower and there are some wonderful views of that fantastic monument in the area.

When we arrived near our destination, we saw one of the more amusing sights in Paris. Apparently on certain Sundays hundreds, if not thousands of in-line skaters show up to do a "skate-a-thon." Naturally, with our usual luck, we got caught right in the middle of it. It is very structured; led by police and with dozens of organizational monitors in yellow shirts skating back and forth through the mob to keep order.

Of course this was in the afternoon for on Sundays no self-respecting Parisian is up in the morning. All of the cafes have "brunch," but if you think of "brunch" as being a combined breakfast and lunch, eaten some time between the two meals, you don't understand the Parisian "brunch" which starts around noon and continues until 4.00 in the afternoon.

I'll close for today with a note on the Americanization of Paris. There are lots of McDonalds and Pizza Huts and Kentucky Frieds around the city, but somehow they do not seem to have had the same effect that they have had in other places. Just the opposite. They seem to have become something French rather than turning the city into something more American. So here is a picture of the "delivery service vehicles" for Pizza Hut. Very French!