Deana in Paris

From: Deana

Sent: Thu 06/11/2004 10:07

Bonjour, Bonjour!!,

Just on my way back to the apartment from my morning jog along the river Seine, Paris.

Let me just start by saying that this keyboard is really difficult to type with because all the letters are in different spots and some of the symbols are just in really weird spots. So I hope that you appreciate reading this email in the luxury of your home or work PC.

I think the last time I wrote I was in London on the way to London’s oldest square called Covent garden. Which is a sqaure filled with shops and markets, in the which we ofcourse shopped in, and where buskers congregate, so we also watched the street entertainment. A true covent experience as per Dave!

On the friday Laura and I departed from London city and headed into the countryside where a good family friend from Sydney is currenty residing. Anthony M drove us around the medieval Leamington Spa, aka shakespear’s territory. Mondee and his friend accompanied us on our visit to the Warwick castle. As soon as I entered the iron gates of Warwick I was arrested at the site of the enormous castle hidden behind the stone walls. The castle is now owned by the madam Tussauds group which are famous for there reinvention of real life peope by the use of wax. In the castle many of the rooms were refurbished with old furniture and filled with recreations of some of the famous and infamous people made of wax and dressed in costume to give tourists a glimpse of how life must have been centuries ago. Just extraordinary! We strolled through a victorian rose garden and imagined how the ladies must have strolled with their gowns. Then climbed the towers to reach high enough to enjoy the incredible views of the country. We then danced the night away at a club called “sugar”. We had an awesome time in Leamington, Mondee you rock.

On Saturday we went shopping at Portobello road in Notting Hill. The street is just so charamastic with it’s tall coloured terrace house which had shopfronts below. The street was blocked off and then filled a thousand market stores which just drew in people ike magnets. We were lost in there for hours but it could of been days. It was just great. At night the markets cleared and we strolled to find a cosy restaurant for dinner. In search for our restaruant we visited the bookshop and garden where “Notting Hill” with Huge Grant was filmed. But the bookshop was actually a butcher which was turned into a bookshop like the one around the corner from the butcher which was actually the bookshop in the film. Did I confuse you? Good that was the point.

That night we set fireworks off with the friends we were staying with cause they are legal in London. Fireworks are aways awesome to watch and even though a few fingers got burnt, they weren't mine, so it was all good.

Now with a minor hiccup, being that our seats were not reserved on the eurostar we made some last minute phonecalls and arrived safely in Paris on Sunday. I was a little daunted at first cause everything was in French and we can’t speak french but we somehow got to our apartment. Pure talent! It was also an ordeal to buy grocceries. The supermarket was huge with lots of everything; like a whole refridgerated isle was dedicated purely to crème caramel, Anthony D you would be in heaven. We could not read the signs of what was what and where was what and could not ask anyone either, so out came the trusty french dictionary to put to end 15 minutes of searching for eggs, ie, “ouefs”. It’s just a too funny.

Yesterday we did a river tour of the river Seine and saw the major monuments incuding Miss Eiffel Tower of Paris along the river front. The bridges, trees and architecture are just so gorgeous! People say Paris is the city of love and I LOVE Paris!!!!!!!!!!!! This city of lights has stolen my heart.

We have also visited the Lourve which is within walking distance of where we are staying.The Lourve is a famous museum which has aquired the largest collection of art thanks to Napoleons conquests.

Here is housed the very famous Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. You know the portrait of a lady that kind of looks like a man that smiles for no reason! Well Mona Lisa’s status is one of the most famous piece of art in the word and although she has been stolen from the gallery twice before and the last time was in 1911, Parisians wept the streets and wrote newspaper articles begging the theives to return the painting, it was apparently found two years later in a Florence hotel room. So I’m not sure that what I saw behind glass was the original, but I’d like to think so. The countryside behind her is lowered on the left side, which makes the left side look larger and historically the left is assigned to females and the right assigned to males. So there, Da Vinci was a fan of feminine principles as he made the female side of Mono Lisa more majestic! Some woud simplify this to say Da Vinci was a fag but you’ ll be interested to know that the Mona Lisa and her mysterious smile is Da Vinci’s way of expressing his belief that a human soul could not be enlighted unless it had both male and female elements. There is actually a lot of symbology in the artwork and am very glad that I saw it. Now there is some useless information for you! Better than most forwarded emails!

I miss you all, but having lots of fun. Anthony, Adam & David I miss you terribly, feels like we have been separated for months; cant wait to thrash you all in pool.

All my precious girls I miss and love you.

Many kisses Yours Dee