Continuing the Western theme, I write from Paris (on a bloody useless keyboard).

The Good: The Louvre

The Bad: Exhaustion

The Ugly: well, we will get to that.

John and I spent a lovely night in Paris wandering the streets and taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower and other famous landmarks.

The next morning, we got up early and went to the Louvre. It was heaving with excited French schoolchildren, screaming at a decibel that made me seriously reconsider having children. I was also disappointed when we could not visit the medieval section of the Louvre; it is supposed to be very cool, but it was closed for the day.

In the afternoon, we retreated to the cemetery of Pere Lachaise; home to many notables such as Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde and Abelard and Heloise, my personal favourite. However, it was soon painfully clear that John and I had had it. Hungry and exhausted, we beat an early retreat to the hotel, althought the cemetery was a welcome quiet.

We then napped, and went to the boulangerie downstairs for some sandwiches. We bought large bottles of drinks as we were both dehydrated. We then napped, I yelled at John and we rested, trying to escape the hot weather.

That evening, we checked out the Brassiere Simplon; it is a friendly bar close to our hotel. The entire neighbourhood we visited was beautiful; we did our laundry in the neighbourhood laverie with children, visited the family run bakery and tried a variety of Belgian and French beers. Staying there was such a nice respite from the bustle of tourism.

Now the ugly - I haven't been feeling well for a couple of days, and I was really ill in the night, puking up and worrying John. I felt better in the morning, but it has curtailed my activities somewhat.