Why is it when I’m surrounded by the smell of croissants and the fashionable French that all my French vocabulary comes flooding back?  Just yesterday, I could not conjure up the word for napkin (serviette) or jam (confiture) but when sandwiched between a cute little Hermes bag (trop cher) and a cafe au lait, I suddenly become fluent again.  Yet I never seem to remember that the French are serious rule followers.  “Il ne faut pas” should be beginner French for all.  That’s how I almost got arrested.  That Hermes bag was oh so chic et chouette that I had to snap a picture.  Well, they practically called the gendarmes and I scurried out of the store to find a happier moment among the Kinder boy.  Don’t you love the Kinder boy? We should all be so pure, so happy and well, maybe not so German!

By the way, some people have all the fun but don’t know how to enjoy it. There was Kathy in first class, while the rest of us (Miranda, Tuborg, Finn and myself) were sandwiched like sardines in coach.  I could almost hear the first class cabin attendants encouraging the divine Miss Kathy to indulge in one more glass of Veuve Cliquot. I would have been slathering my crackers with Scottish salmon, but Kath was snoring away like a baby with soft Air France slippers and a quilted blanket!  Truth? Perhaps some people are indeed as happy, as pure, and maybe even as German as the Kinder boy!