Paris, 23 and 24 April

There's not a lot to report for these two days.  The weather has been pretty bad.  Yesterday it rained most of the day and was cold.  Today, less rain but more overcast and still cold.On Monday we went out to lunch with an American friend who spends much of her time in Paris and spoke to Georges who comes over here from Adelaide to teach. 

Tomorrow we are off to Bordeaux so we are spending time getting organised, washing clothes and packing.  In the midst of all this the internet system in the flat has crashed.  Since the telephone and TV are part of the system, we are without internet access, telephone or television.  Gosh, 1945 all over again. How did we ever cope?  That is the reason for no pictures with this blog, however there are some which will go up when we get to Bordeaux.

One thing I have noticed here is the attachment the French have to their electronic devices.  Even in the metro, running deep underground, people are talking on their cell-phones, using their ipads and reading from their kindles.  The other day I counted the number of people near us and of the half-a-dozen passengers, only one was without an electronic device.  She was reading a book!  But even that was too good to last.  Suddenly she reached into her bag, pulled out her iphone and was jabbering away.  I thought that it seemed as if people were in some kind of individual electronic shell.  Very strange and a bit bizarre - or am I just getting old? The degree of electronic coverage is impressive.  It doesn't seem to matter where you are, if you have a mobile phone or ipad, you seem able to connect with no difficulty.

The French are very polite in many ways.  This may be a contradiction in terms since so many people complain about their rudeness - particularly in Paris.  Yet on the buses it is quite common for people to stand up and offer us their seats.  I'm not sure how I feel about being views as so old that they need to do this, but I am not stupid either, so I take the offered seat with a polite "merci." What is seen as rudeness is, I believe, the kind of big city abruptness that one finds in all large metropolitan areas.  Everyone is in a hurry and this is often mistaken for curtness and/or rudeness.  So, maybe it is, depending upon how you define "rudeness."