ok, so i have picked out a hotel in the marais.......for my tentative january trip to paris.....scw claims that i am incapable of a calm, non-frenzied trip to paris.....i may go just to prove him wrong.......well...maybe i could prove him wrong.....i have never been to paris and just lingered........and i have been to paris 10 times.......i have either gone with my parents for a few days, or my new spouse for an afternoon....or deedra...well...i took the train out of town nearly every day so when i was in town i was a madwoman..........and then 3 trips with bate....all carefully orchestrated with no free moments...and the trip with just us...the one that started in london with the chunnel crossing and ended in paris....well....that was also jam-packed..........scw does make a valid point....i visit paris like someone who will never return....and yet i do return......only to scurry about like a woman posessed........i love the stores, the museums, the cafes, the gardens......even in winter.......even when they try to pick my purse..........i long to tell you that my people are parisian, but so far we have no direct connections to paris.......just dubious relations to charlemagne......my mother-in-law posessed a discharge paper, signed by napolean, from some relative let out of prison during the empire..i guess that is dubious, as well......like being related to someone sent to australia as a thief............presumably sister elaine has said paper now, but she is not telling at this point...........on one of my bate trips. my mother-in-law asked if i could take a 1/2 hour or so and look up this paper in the library.......of course, it is in french, which i do not speak,and we were on a tight schedule...and she became quite annoyed that the entire bate escursion did not revolve around a napoleanonic discharge paper..........for the record, this is the same woman who would not tell me the address of the family home in baltinglass, ireland, presumably because i might actually go there..........anyway, back to paris...........it is the city of colette, my favorite author.......she dealt with the bad weather, and the changable political scene.....and got a state funeral outof it.......maybe i could just sit in the palais royale, outside of her windown. and read her books (en anglais) and get a bit of rest and relaxation.........