english keyboards are normal.

Hey! As our laundry's currently doing time at the "laundrette" down the street, we've dropped into our local internet cafe, which is equipped with normal, easy-to-use, god-fearing English keyboards. Or, as the girl who just sat down next to me exclaimed to her friend, "American keyboards." There are a lot of Americans here, and they're not too hard to spot. They're seriously exactly like you'd expect them to be: loud, short-tempered, somewhat indignant that everything is just that little bit different from back home... hey, it angrys up the blood.

So shit, I guess we should update you all on what horribly cliched things we've been up to over the last few days, but now that I'm thinking of it, what horribly cliched things haven't we been doing? Two days ago we went and saw the Eiffel Tower (which contrary to my expectations, is actually brown rather than dark, iron-y black--but still really fucking tall. Like, taller than at least five or six cats), followed by a trip to the Louvre, which was awesome. Our seeing both the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo was expectedly anti-climatic--obviously, it's just a painting/busted sculpture, with boatloads of camera-horny tourists crawling over one another for the Perfect Shot. But is the Louvre huge? Yes. Yes, it is. And pretty.

Then, yesterday, we went down to Montparnasse to check out the catacombs... and they were totally closed, and have been so for months due to restorations. So we ended up strolling around down there for a while--went through La Cemitaire Montparnasse, lots of cool crypts, saw where Jean-Paul Satre was buried; saw Hemingway's favourite bar, now renamed Chez Papas in his honour--and then we caught the Metro back up to Ile de la Cite to visit Notre Dame cathedral. While pretty cool on the inside, the real attraction was climbing up to the bell tower for the most amazing views of all of Paris, and the gargoyles that overlook the city. Got some rad photos; can't wait to post them. After a little wandering around the Latin Quarter and a stop at a creperie (where I had a ham and cheese galette since, as Kristine mentioned, it's actually not possible to eat something here that doesn't have ham or cheese or both on it), we went out for dinner to a four-level (!) Mexican/Latin/Cuban restaurant in Bastille called Barrio Latino which, as Kristine said, had a giant mosaic of Che Guevara (who as far as I know, Dad, did nothing for France, but they probably like his revolutionary sensibilities or something). It was good; I had a dish with fried plantains and beef in it. It wasn't ham and cheese.

And today, we took the train out to Versailles to see the palace--and by "palace" I mean "the backs of a million tour groups' heads as they frantically crowded around anything of historical or aesthetic interest." But yes, you've heard right: it's really, really opulent.

Now, we should go check on our laundry. Tonight, we're out for dinner and then going to climb the stairs of the second level of the Eiffel Tower for one of those night views of this fine city. Talk to you all later.