update

Okay...I am sorry for the brevity of this message -- the keyboards here suck.... I will venture to find a good computer tomorrow.. in the meantime, here is a little update.... Today i went to Versailles. The best part of Versailles is that for a modest fee, you can ride around the manicured grounds on a little train that plays baroque music. Very amusing. I imagined I was Louis xiv and gave the royal wave to the sheep and japanese tourists... both very well represented in versailles, inceedentaly. I also said hi to the statues... Hey Charlamange, zup? Too bad you're illiterate and dead!The worst thing about Versailles (apart from the lineups and crowds of rabid British school chidren) is that it smells like pee. The hall of mirrors might as well be the men's room at a roller rink (hardwood floors and mirrors, check. screaming children, check. walls of gilded bronze? Well maybe in Dubai..) ... and let's not even talk about the Trianon (you know, the place Marie Antoinette used to go and dressup like a milkmaid to "get away from it all"). stinky! The most interesting thing that I learned about versailles, is that when it was built, the average life expectancy of a French person was 28. So, if I lived back then, right about now I would be sitting in a cafe and waiting for the end (hey..wait a minute...) But seriously..Versailles is, well, ghastly.....Perhaps the most overdone thing ever. No wonder they lost their heads. Afterward, I went to the Mcdonalds across the street. It was the least I could do to esscape the gilding and the mirrors and the grandiosity. But in reality, you could say I exchanged one stench for another! Let them eat fries!