Yesterday I got a letter from John Kerry. He was asking for money to beat those cary republicans. According to Kerry, “Republican senators marched in lockstep to hurtthe middle class”. Those bad “republicans also tried to balance the budget on the backs of working families” and “attempted to destroy organized labor”.

Don’t worry tho, senator Kerry says he doesn’t think we are “flawed people”, we just have “flawed policies”. You could have fooled me.

Kerry’s goal is to raise enough money to stop Karl Rove – who last time I checked was a political pundit. I don’t quite get the logic but maybe that is why Kerry is a senator, and I’m not.

I brought the senator’s appeal to the radio station yesterday, to talk about it on the air. Since I’m a registered republican it seemed a bit of a waste to waste 8.9 cents in postage on me.

That’s right – 8.9 cents in postage. John Kerry can send me a letter asking to fund the democrat party for 1/5th of what I must spend to reply to him. I probably would not even have noticed, but my co-host, Dick went ballistic. He headed straight for the Post Office to demand the same price for his stamps.

The Post Office is going bankrupt and John Kerry cannot even read a voter list. Yet the perks keep coming for him.

My 8 part journey home from Paris ended about 4:00 this morning Paris time which means I got a normal night’s sleep Massachusetts time, which isn’t all bad.

Caro, my traveling partner insists on taking the subway at one tenth of the cost of taking a cab. Who could argue? Well unless you have taken the subway from downtown Paris to Charles DeGaulle, then you could argue. An “adventure” is putting it mildly.

My reputation of having no sense of direction is well known to those who know me, so Caro took me on the first leg of the journey so I could make no error and end up in Pakistan rather than the airport.

To get to the airport by subway you must travel through parts of Paris, that even Paris pretends do not exist. Once on the train, I made it into the first pew, clutching my oh, too large suitcase in front of me leaving no room for my feet, and waved goodbye to Caro who snapped a picture lest I would be lost in the bowels of the metro forever. I had no sooner taken my seat when I heard french screams from behind coming my way. It’s very odd when someone is yelling and you have no idea what they are yelling about. But this guy had some urgency in his voice. I guessed maybe he had found God and was compelling us to follow. Turns out he was selling something, that clearly he thought we all needed to buy. The product was inside his coat lining. It looked like syringes to me. I still don’t know what it was, but from his voice, he really thought it was an important purchase.

At the next stop, a guy entered the ante-car and rather than come into where the seats were, kicked off his flip flops and simply laid down in the corner and went to sleep. And sleep he did, waking up occasionally to make sure he didn’t miss his stop. When the time came, he scooped up those sandals and staggered out, probably to the closest park bench.

The sleeper was replaced by a very young, very small woman who had a baby strapped to her chest. She extended her hand when she entered the car begging in a very soft and whiny voice. She fixed her gaze on you and pleaded with her cupped hand daring you to turn her down. I couldn’t help but think this was her day job.

Arrival at Charles DeGaulle isn’t really arrival at Charles DeGaulle. There are simply too may ways to not get where you are going. Leave the subway, enter a building and figure out that you have to exit the building to take the train to terminal one, which is where I thought I took the subway to. I met a man, as confused as I, from Detroit. I asked if he knew where he was and he replied in a great American voice: “Haven’t a clue”. I tracked down a gendarme to help us (something Caro would never stoop to) and he pointed to a certain stairway. After getting half way down the gendarme motioned to me. “No, not you. You are on the wrong side of the tracks.” Ain’t that the truth?

I got there, more stairs and a train stop later and the place was packed. Once in the Swiss Air line there was no personnel. Another passenger told me there had been an evacuation and hopefully the personnel would return at some point. Eh. No one knew why the evacuation, apparently this is common occurrence at Charles DeGaulle. Eh indeed.

I made it easily though security complete with a full water bottle in my purse I’d forgotten about. They spotted it in Zurich in a heartbeat. Ahh the french.

Before I boarded I spent some time with two Australian girls, probably college age, who were on their way to Greece and the Greek Islands as the second leg of their 3 month round the world journey. Oh to be young again.

Me, I’m just tired.

Paris is lovely in the spring – well except that it is 40 degrees and rainy which is precisely the Sturbridge weather until 2 days ago that I was desperate to escape.

The trip over was hell, including a subway showdown between a very tired me, a very heavy suitcase, a kajillion stairs, and a lost ticket.  By tomorrow I’ll be well rested and wear it all as a badge of honor.

And speaking of ugly Americans, does anyone else find “chic” just a little annoying?  This is my third trip to Paris and some time during my second wind, I started to remember some oddities easy to forget in the glam.  They don’t have ice in Paris – well I take that back, it’s sold not in bags, but in packs of 12 cubes.  Each pack costs a Euro.  It’s a heck of a racket.  Add to that the cost of Grey Goose (made from french wheat) is triple the price at Yankee Spirits, one could decide to forgo cocktail hour entirely, or not, if it’s 6:00 PM and you can barely keep your eyes open.  

Skin tight pants on skinny legged men are all the rage, along with long, and I mean very long, pointy toed shoes.  On the last leg of our fight from Zurich to Paris, a gorgeous man was sitting across from me with his foot extended into the aisle.  And by ” extended” I mean his actual shoe went on for about 20 inches.  I actually wondered if the poor hunk had a deformity until I saw every other man in Paris similarly clad.

I had a brush with hypocrisy last night when, after complaining how impossible it was to drag a suitcase up a fan-shaped staircase with the bannister on the wrong side, which never would have been allowed in the US, I realized that the real problem was that it never would have been allowed in the US.
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Another long walk this morning with an overpacked suitcase to our new hotel where we didn’t fall prey to any fan-shaped stairs.  Tis a pity perhaps.  

Breakfast with old friends and soon to be new ones, was fun.  Dick Morris walked into the room and promptly walked over and introduced himself to every person at three large tables.   I thought that was quite nice.

Then off to the Rue de Rivoli, with a stop on the way to watch the royal wedding at a TV store with half of Paris.