The First Few Days.....

Greetings everyone, from the sunny French Riviera!

We’ve been here for a few days now and I’m glad to report that things are going swimmingly! We had a great flight over on Air France. We arrived early in Paris due to strong tail winds. This, combined with improvements (yes, actual improvements) in the security sector of CDG airport meant we had to wait for quite a while for our connection. Both legs of the flights were wonderfully uneventful (although there was quite a lot of turbulence from Toronto to Paris!).

We arrived in Menton on the 15^th and I was lucky to not be too jet-lagged. Even Paul commented that he wasn’t over-tired (have we mastered the art of air travel?). We spent the night in our usual hotel – the Hotel Napoleon (www.napoleon-menton.com), and then took our apartment on Saturday the 16^th – in the brand new Hambury Palace apartment. For those in the know – the 16^th was indeed also my Birthday.

Paul actually forgot – and it wasn’t until we were in the grocery store and he was telling me what he wanted me to make him for supper that I reminded him that it was “my special day.” After some suitable back-peddling, he suggested we go to my favourite restaurant for supper. TRAGEDY! Soto le Stelle (Sur le etoiles) is no more L! There is a beautiful new restaurant there now (which we want to come back and try). So we headed off for the Breton creperie. We both had a terrific crepe for supper (with some brut cider to wash it down with). For dessert came the most amazing Birthday crepe – stuffed with black cherries and chantilly cream, finished with a meringue cookie – delicious!

I spent a good portion of today working with the folks at SFR (Society France Radio) to get my internet up and running. I now have 3G all over France and can surf the net ANYWHERE in the country! The nice girl at the office even wished me a happy belated birthday!

Anyway – lots to tell all ready – but I don’t want this to be a mundane forum of just day to day events, so I’ll sign off for now. Looking forward to what the next 4 weeks hold! Oh yes – weather is sunny and warm, all the time. Sigh.