In France

Hello Everyone!

I've arrived safely in France, and so far I have some mixed impressions of the place. I will try not to let this awful French keyboard influence my opinion too much! For an example, I will type "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" as I normally would on an American keyboard: "the auick brozn fox ju,ps over the lqwy dog:" Right; so, slow going on this computer. On my flight, I sat next to an elderly French couple and decided to practice my French a little by talking to them. I explained that I am an American living in Austria and that my German was much better. They were very friendly. The husband went on a long diatribe, which, from what I could understand, was complaining about how the younger generation has no respect for Americans. He said he was 84 years old and had lots of respect for our country because of WWII. They helped me find the train station in the airport once we landed. Then, the impression got a little worse. I went to buy my train ticket, and the clerk was typically snobby and answered my carefully prepared (and not incorrect) sentence in English. Also, there was dog shit smeared all over the floor in the station, and the restroom had a sign saying it would be closed for the next 15 minutes. Not exactly what one wants to hear after several cups of coffee on an airplane, and such things simply do not happen in the German speaking world. The TGV was fast and effective, but not as nice as the ICE high speed trains in Germany and Austria. Those are always impeccably clean and modern. The French version was kind of stinky. No matter though, I made it to Dijon to meet Alice and her parents. They are very friendly and wonderful people. They took me on a little auto tour through the city, which looks beautiful. It has 200,000 inhabitants and lots of pretty old buildings. Alice's family just built a new house last year, and it is very nice. They gave me my own bedroom, with a real double bed!! That makes it a true vacation to me, since I've never been a fan of twin beds. Alice and I will venture into town today, and I'll be sure to take some pictures. You will have to wait until I am back in Austria to see them though, since my camera cable is still there. I've pretty much had it with this keyboard, so that'll be all for now. Hope you all had a lovely holiday time and all that rot :)