FRANCE

Hi all I've been in France for 6 days now and I gotta admit I don't really enjoy it. First of all, my plane was delayed in Auckland as the engine was on fire. We stayed 6 hours in an "aqaurium" and I missed my connecting flight. I arrived in Sydney, stressed and I didn't know what to do. Moreover I had no credit card, nothing for going to an hostel or eat. Luckily as British Airways saw Qantas was unable to solve the problem they managed to find me a flight. The only problem was i didn't fly through Singapore but Tokyo and I didn't know if my luggage was taking the same plane. Tokyo was cool and I managed to take a shower. London Heathrow was a garbage. This airport is crap and it takes ou at least half a day to go from one terminal to another. I almost bought a GPS!! Hundreds stranded at UK aiports over Christmas due to fog and I was very lucky my plane was on time. I was the last plane to take off! I finally arrived in Nice with 7 hours of delay. My mom, brother and sister picked me up and guess what: my luggage was here! We drove through a deep fog and my dogs and grand-father were happy to find me. We celebrated Xmas and I didn't really suffer of the jetlag as I was thrilled to be in family. The following day I just walked the dogs, saw my grand-mother (she's paralysed) and went to the cemetery to say "hi" to my dad... During 2 days the weather was crap with lots of fog, that's why I didn't go out. I just went to Port Grimaud the 26 a small village inbetween Saint Tropez and Sainte Maximes, Saint Raphael the 27, Draguignan the 28 and yesterday to Nice. I'll go back today to Nice to see an Opera and we play to go to Italy tomorrow. Nice was great. There's absolutely no car in the downtown now and that was cool to take the tramway, walk to the castle and old Nice. The only problem is that France is sad, depressing and very expesnive. I was shocked at the number of homeless people sleeping in the cold and rain in doorways of the richest neighbourhoods. Soemetimes you have to thread your way over beggars and homeless, victims of the French indifference to expanding their economy. Indeed, the crisis in France can be summed up simply: a quarter century ago, the French economy was 15 percent bigger than Britain's and growing faster. Today, the French economy is 10 percent smaller than Britain's and is slowing down-again.