Thursday morning is our "housework" morning and we are trying very hard not to think that this time next week we will be on a plane bound for Singapore. While there is always an element, as one comes to the end of a holiday, of "reaching out" for the comforts of home, I suspect neither of us is quite ready to leave Europe. Virginia, even after forty years in Australia, is still essentially European in her outlook and I find myself drawn into what is going on in England and France to a far greater degree than I would have once thought possible. In fact, we are both so caught up in it that we are talking about coming back in 2009.
Yesterday, in our wanderings through the Marais, we caught glimpses of the Pompidou Centre. It is a mass of bare exposed pipes in reds and greens and sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the older buildings. One wonders if, in 100 years, it will have become one of the Parisian icons similar in its status to that of the Eiffel Tower. Like many of the nineteenth century critics of the tower, we think the centre is hideous - but then, what do we know? 
In previous blogs we told you about repairs to the higher floors of buildings but we now know how people move their furnishings in and out. Special trucks with very large ladders and with platforms which can be run up and down the ladders like elevators are used. Thus, if you are on the sixth floor, for example, rather than try to manoeuvre a refrigerator up a narrow winding staircase or fit it into the rare elevator in an older building (generally designed to take no more than two passengers)it is delivered through a window which faces the street. If the window needs to be removed temporarily in order to provide greater space, this is done. The mind boggles and Virginia's favourite image is of a grand piano being hoisted up to a seventh floor flat. 
A more mundane image is of the cooking of chickens and meats in the rotisseries which seem to be found in front of just about every boucherie. A chicken can be purchased for 7-8 euros but the real treat is the tiny potatoes which are cooked in the dripping from the poultry. They are wonderful and we can just feel the cholestrol clogging our arteries as we eat them. We justify such excess by constantly reminding ourselves that we are doing a lot of walking. Probably in the neighbourhood of 7-12 kilometers a day. The high point of the day was lunch with our North American friends who live in Paris. We returned to La Cremaillere and had a leisurely lunch over two or three hours. Although we enjoy the French experience, it is nice to have an opportunity to speak English - especially for Bruce who spent the morning trying to explain to the lass in the Boulangerie that he wanted "sliced" bread. After about fifteen minutes of violent gesticulation on his part, she said "Ah, monsieur, 'tranche'".
He can now order a sliced loaf; such is the progress one makes in learning the essentials of a language! By the way, a loaf of bread here is about 1/3 the size of the loaf we are accustomed to in Australia (or the United States) and that is because most French people buy their bread fresh at least once a day and often more frequently.
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