Paris, Mais Oui!

Yes, I know there’s a lot of sketching going on at the moment, life has popped in to stop me getting to my easel! This is my final France page, lets take a peek! 

Our first hotel in Paris was the Victor Hugo in Charenton, it was a bit seedy, with a whole basketball team staying there (don’t know where because the hotel didn’t seem to have enough rooms for a whole basketball team). That is a sketch of our window, with those very typical pale shutters. My mum and dad had the room below us which had a huge gaping hole in the floor (covered by a convenient rug) which meant they could order directly from the bar below visible through the hole! 

French parking was really an eye opener, Germans are generally car crazy and worried about scratches and dents, the French, wow! I watched agog as a young Frenchman manoeuvred his brand new black golf into a tiny space by bumping the cars in front and behind him till he could wedge himself in, he saw my consternation and on getting out he bowed to me and said ''Voila!''

We took trips out to Versailles, getting lost on the way ….. time for my rusty school French…… and drank the most expensive beer ever, at about 8€ a pop and that over 30 years ago! 

Finally, my daughter's mirror souvenir and one of the little dancing dolls from Disneyland; It’s a Small World the attraction was called, and along with Peter Pan, we must have seen this attraction about 100 times in three days! About 1000 dolls dressed in the traditional clothes of the country they come from sing and dance and you sail through in a boat. After about the third go the novelty wears off but my daughter and her friend insisted on going round again and again! Well, I suppose we actually got to see it, my friend who was pregnant at the time insisted I took her daughter with me when we visited Thunder mountain, I queued for 11/2 hours, finally got up the the gates when Lisa (the friend) decided she needed to go to the loo! I decided that other visitors didn’t really need a shower while on the attraction and had to exit, my friend was not at all amused ….. but needs must.

Next I have a bit of a weird sketchbook project in mind, it has something to do with this but more about it later! Au revoir!