May 31 - Paris

I made it to Paris, after flying through nine time zones. I am still adusting to to the jet lag, but half a sleeping pill does wonders getting me through the night.

Paris has been great, but quite different from my last visit in 1984. The people are predominately young with a large proportion beinng African or Mideastern. The most notable change is everyone knows English and they will speak it. The next big change is how expensive Paris has become...about double US prices. The Holiday Inn room Terry and I share costs 300 dollars a night, and breakfast is 25 extra. Gas is 9 dollars a gallon, a beer is 6 - 12 dollars. We are looking forward to getting out in the country side.

I am at an internet cafe slowly typing this because the French keyboard has moved the a,m,q,and w letters, and symbols...really slow going. As I look around the Cafe, most of the men are typing in Aribic...interesting local color.

Yesterday Terry, Don, and walked down to the river and toured some of the sights. We stood in a line of leveral hundred people to get into Notre Dame, which was packed with tourists. It is still a beautiful cathedral. Next was the Louvre museum, which was spectacular with the new pyramid visitors center. We wondered around it for three hours, taking in treasures from around the world until we became brain dead. By the time we got back to the hotel we had walked for eight hours and had reqlly tired feet.

The two pictures are at the Louvre courtyard and in front of the Mona Lisa, which turned out to be more people watching than art viewing.

My riding group is quite worldly. Several are just coming off a four month ride from Egypt to South Africa. Six are continuing on from Istanbul to Bejing and will finish in November.

Tomorrow we hit the road. We do an early Sunday morning so we can tour the city and then head out into the country.

More later