What's a fille to do? or You've got to be kidding me!

I've been out roaming around Paris neighborhoods for hours on end. And sometimes, I think it might be nice to use one of these:

From 2009-04-17

However, we had these same $150,000 toilets in Seattle until they had to be scrapped because they were havens for drug deals and other such nefarious activities. I never dared use them in Seattle; needless to say, I haven't dared use them here.

Today, we were in the 17th arrondissement - near the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees - which you would think would be fairly tourist-friendly. On a lovely little side street - rue Poncelet - we decided to have a cafe in a cafe. (Forgive the lack of proper accents, but so far, I'm not French enough to bother to put them in.)

Imagine my surpise (surprise!) when I opened the door to the toilet to find this:

From 2009-04-29

The last time I came face-to-face to one of these was in rural Yugoslavia when Yugoslavia was still Yugoslavia!

Of Souffles and Thimbles

Last night we had an awesome dinner at Le Soufflé here in Paris. It's not that common to find a souffle at an American restaurant. Usually when you do it's a dessert souffle. However, at Le Souffle it is 3 courses of souffles. Check out their video which itself is delicious! I love the last line of the video which roughly translated is: "We are always waiting with our smile."

Here's what I ordered:

• Starter: Soufflé forestie - Forest mushroom souffle
• Main: Soufflé sanglier - Wild boar souffle
• Dessert: Soufflé pommes et Calvados - Apple and Calvados souffle

It was truly an experience. Kathie and Stephen each had different starters, mains and desserts so we each got to try nine different souffles - really amazing.

Now for the thimble story...

I was sitting in the office when I received this email message from Kathie: "Washing thimble doesn't seem to be working!" at which point I burst into very loud fits of laughter that, I'm sure, only reinforced my image as a "crazy American" to anyone on the 9th floor of the Tour Winterthur - or perhaps all across La Défense. But doesn't it really look like a thimble? Certainly it's nothing compared to the super-sized top load washer we have at home that has a separate dryer while the "thimble" has a self-contained so-called dryer that basically does not dry yet runs up the electricity meter like there's no tomorrow...

From 2009-04-28

My Pauvre Petite

As you can see in the picture, Monaco seems to be wearing her mud vest with pride (?). Is that a look of pride??? Be prepared, Eric, for the wrath of Julie (the groomer)!