Vive la hangover!

Even backpackers are stylish in Paris

I do not know if this blog will make any sense or how long this post will be because I am not only using the new Windows Vista but I am also at the mercy of a brutal hangover. Despite the copious ingestion of Tylenol and Gravol, the 10 hours of sleep, the hair of the dog which I just chugged down a moment ago, and the fact that it is 9 o'clock at night all seem to do nothing for my aching head, my pukey stomach and my overall sense of death and defeat.

Of course I should have seen this coming, suffering from jetlag and arriving just the other day from an extremely long journey of 25 hours or so. Thankfully, I am not the only one hungover. We are staying in Ross's sister Cat and her husband Chris's 300-year old flat in Lyon that overlooks the river Soane, and all of us are suffering under the mighty spell of way too much vino, rich Lyonaisse cuisine and unsuppresable Scottish spirit.

Anyway, as much as I would love to blog about what has happened to me in the last few days, my body tells me to quit in and go dig into the pizza that will be arriving downstairs at any moment. So instead I will break things down easily and quickly by the numbers:

Number of flights: 2
Number of times I wanted to kill the kids sitting in front of us on the plane: uncountable
Number of hours Ross went without a cigarette: 17 hours
Number of cigarettes Ross has had since then: one billion
Hours spent traveling without proper sleep: 32 hours
Jet-Lag pills consumed: 8
Number of train rides: 1
Speed of train ride: 300 km an hour
Cities visited thus far: 4 (Seattle, New York, Paris, Lyon)
Curses mumbled while carrying my heavy pack combined with sore tootsies: unmesurable
Number of times I've snapped at Ross because my feet hurt: way too many
Ross smiles due to the nictotine in his system

Hours spent in Paris: 6
Drinks while there: 5
Number of berets spotted on Frenchmen: 5
Number of police sirens heard so far: too many to count
Number of semi-automatic machine guns seen: 10
Number of times I tucked my skirt into my thong and paraded my bare ass for all in the bar to see: 1 (and it was enough)

Times I've thought that I prefer Lyon to Paris: several
Attempts made to order delivery pizza in French: 2
Times we've visted the Wallace pub in Lyon: 4 (and all in one day)
Number of snails I've eaten: 8
Glasses of wine consumed last night: 9

No sleep for 35 hours does crazy things to you

Times I've uttered the phrase "Desole, je parle seulement un petit peu de francais": 5
Amount of goat cheese I have inadvertently ingested: 5 kilos
Times I've eaten duck so far: 3
Macarons eaten: 5 Restaurants visited: 4
Times I was mistaken for Paris Hilton: 1 (and it was enough)
Pictures taken: over 100
Times Cat has phoned the police about the noisy piano bar below us: 2
Articles of clothing bought: 1 pair of really cool boots
Articles of clothing lost: 1 (my scarf)
Times I've admired the chic and simple style of the French: every five minutes or so
Hours of sleep we will get tonight before we have to catch our plane to Amsterdam: 4
Hangovers: 1

Number of times I have to pinch myself in order to realize where I am: a million

Defiling Paris property