We are here in Paris, and most of you are not. We were in the air this morning on the first leg of our flight. I was looking forward to seeing Ireland, but there was clouds cover that began over the ocean and didn't break. We landed at Heathrow, did the changing gates thing, sat down and then boarded before I had a chance to look in the magazine shop at the cool British car mags. Took off, had lunch service (the veggie chicken caesar sandwich), and landed. Southwest and Americawest could learn a thing or two from BA in the passenger feeding arena. Once we were over the channel the clouds broke and I could see the meanders of the Seine, which was cool, but not as neat as the chateaus we saw a few minutes later. We landed at Charles de Gaulle, collected our bags and left. We had read all about the customs information (bring serial numbers and receipts for electronic equipment to prove you purchased it, red line if you have things to declare, green line if you don't) but we got our bags and left straight away. It was a little disorienting. Where are the dogs? The chain smoking customs agents in our faces? Took a shuttle from the airport around the perimeter road to our apartment. Nice driver, looked a little like our friend Ajay. Saw the big box stores (Ikea, and a bunch of French ones I didn't recognize) on the outskirts. Got the key to our apartment, got settled in and went out for a bite to eat. Really jazzed at the Frenchness of the whole scene - Small apartment! Kitchen in a closet! Cool French light switches! Small cars! Small dogs! Motorcycles! Scooters! We walked a few blocks to the next major street, ave General Le Clerc, and actually had an omlette and frites for dinner in an amusing smoke filled atmosphere. Lots of atmosphere. Then we came home and went to sleep.