occurred to us that the 10 hour bus trip from london to paris would involve a ferry journey across the channel. this would have been less of a surprise if we had consulted a map. to the left is a self portrait in a surprisingly strong sea breeze on a ferry with the cliffs of dover in the background.upon arriving in paris it then occurred to us we may have benefited from a french refresher course. this may have allowed us to compliment the extensive range of phrases we did know, (largely including bonjour and merci), with anything that would be remotely helpful in attempting to communicate. we compromised by speaking english with a french accent.
first stop in paris was the lourve (free on the first sunday of every month!), where we experienced the rush of heavy tourist traffic on the mona lisa/venus de milo express route. being serious arty cultural buffs, ramsey and i quickly abandoned the crowds in order to truly appreciate the exhibits (see below).
one blustery evening we packed a picnic (wine and chocolate), stole a rug from the hostel and went with our new friends from dorm 106 (very excellent french canadians) to the bottom of the eiffel tower, where we witnessed the very exciting light spectacle. we noted that cheap wine is bad in most countries.
and a here is picture of our friends from dorm 106 below... we learnt from them that the question 'are you allergic to fun?' is not a successful pick up line, contrary to the belief of an enthusiastic american gentleman. 
musee d'orsay was a definite highlight for us (we were starting to tire of the renaissance). again, as in every city, we walked a lot and stumbled across interesting things, pausing every now and again to eat baguettes with cheese (left). see below for some funtimes shots.
another highlight was visiting dad's friend michael kennedy at his canadian bar, the moosehead. here we drank tasty canadian beer and ate tasty canadian bar snacks, and even received complimentary t-shirts! yayyy! here is me being a moose. quite a likeness.
