Moaning Hores

My hores are moaning. Arthur said that to me our life together when I felt like this. My ovaries hurt and I feel yuck. WWhhaa, I am just achy and tired. I have done so much and walked more miles in a month than I did last year. Got my packages ready and forms filled out, walked everything to the poste, only to find out it was closed, along with the bank, which was my next stop. I still don’t know what holiday it is, but honestly, I thought maybe I was confused and it was Saturday. Definitely pms.

Really interesting night with the fellas. I was privy to 3 men, longtime good friends, get on like silly boys, men will be men. They were very good about slowing down their speech and translating when needed, but mostly I felt like I was keeping up.

Guy had one of his firefighter guys, also Civil Service, come by to meet me, as they all hear about Travis. I am on a mission. Nice young guy, same age, doing the same thing as Travis, even working next on his paramedic. They do not get much off time here but must work normally 120 hours a week – I think that is 5 24’s. He hung out with us oldtimers and I mostly teased him about finding an American girl.

We had another great meal that went on till midnight. The manager was from the same region as Guy, and that started the boys playing. They goofed around and told stories and told many naughty jokes. I needed some translation here and there, especially as they start talking so fast. But one of the last ones of the night, I understood in French, without translation, and made me laugh out loud… so funny.

I was pretty low energy yesterday so wanted to do something with no walking.

Enjoyed the Canauxrama. Absolutely cool and nothing like what I expected.

Canal St. Martin, with a fully enclosed tunnel..to parc de la Villette. An excursion through the 4.5 km canal built in 1806 by Napoleon. Four double locks, the pictures will explain and look at the video. The boat gets brought into the lock, one door opens – the other closes. The water gets brought in until the water brings you up to the level of the next piece. One of the final ones brought us to street level. I hope you can get an idea from the pictures. I had never seen anything like it before.

There is grand history to all of this but nothing to yack about here. A very fun excursion, unexpected awe on my part, met some nice people from Suffolk and probably only walked a mile all day. My body is tired of walking, some days I have done too much. Working today, watched a movie, tried to get business done but I told ya how that went.

We are all meeting tonight for dinner as birthday boy Patrick is leaving tomorrow.

I am suppose to meet Catherine tomorrow at her new place and to go for an early dinner. It is our last chance as I will be on the go this next week. My trip for Mother’s Day leaves at 7am and gets back at 10PM.. big day to Bruges. Tuesday’s adventure on EuroStar is 7am out of Paris and back at midnight…yippee!!

If I had another six weeks here, my language would be at it’s peak.. still much to learn, but my conversations flow much better and I have so much more confidence. Really excellent conversation with my taxi driver last night about the Louvre as it compares to the other museums. We talked about all the walking I had been doing and he felt that this generation of French kids complain about walking 10 minutes. If there is not a metro stop near their destination, their not interested.

Haven’t heard from many of you as in the beginning. People get use to someone being gone. I have a small tiny handful of fans that keep me going, I suppose which is really true for everyday life. It won’t be long before I am home and the blog mostly ends. Then I will probably be back to more telephone talking, but I feel fortunate that I had this method of mass communication throughout this journey.

Everybody have a very nice weekend.