Waiting for the Plane

Our flight home is three hours late. Not sure if it is because of the general strike here in France which started yesterday and which some unions, including Paris rail transit, are apparently continuing today, and indefinitely until the government abandons its plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. The plane is actually here, but we were told that it arrived late, and that the crew needed their eight hours of sleep before heading back. Even though it was posted last night that the departure would be delayed, we were still told that we should arrive in anticipation of the original departure time; and that in fact, we still had to check in and deposit our luggage an hour before that time. I mean, why then do they tell you to call ahead if you have to be here at the scheduled departure anyway, and even though we were told when we arrived that the new departure time was firm? What's the point?

Well, just more time to drink cheap wine (cheap in price, not in quality). Even at the airport, it's not overpriced here.

We were in the Musee Carnavelet on Wednesday, and were thrown out at around 3 so that employees could participate in the protests (as were tourists at the Eiffel Tower I understand). We eventually found ourselves in the heart of the action, and just by chance (thanks to my insistence on finding some good glace [ice cream].



















































































































I don't know if I'm ever going to be hungry again after this trip. The food may not be cheap, but they're certainly not cheap with the portions. I ordered oeufs le plat (fried eggs) this morning and got four of them, ooo la la! The Head Chef is spoiled by her own food and didn't think that any of our meals were transcendent, though they all met her standards. Don't tell her that I thought they were all amazing. I thought it might be all downhill after the first night, when we went to a restaurant specializing in steak frites. In fact, it was the only thing on the menu. Actually, there was no menu, the only question asked was how do you want it cooked? (saignant!) But each night seemed to exceed the prior one, climaxing with the roast sucking pig (I'm not kosher) followed by the lemon sorbet soaked in vodka at Le Petit Prince de Paris, right in the Latin Quarter section where we stayed.

Well, obviously we have tons of photos and stories, but, I know, it's time to get back to racing, mostly equine, but the electoral ones as well. The Head Chef will surely comment on her Grapes and Greens blog, and we'll put the photos up on flickr or something like that. Just over three weeks until the Breeders' Cup. Here, I'll be focusing on handicapping, at least on the races I either care about (not the Marathon or the juvenile turf races), or can decipher without the uncertainty of a preponderance of European entries with their scanty past performance lines. We're not going to get bogged down on the stuff we know - that the Breeders' Cup has effectively diluted and ruined most of the rest of the racing season, that there are too many BC races on too few days, that ESPN sucks, that the BC Challenge races have gotten totally out of hand and meaningless, that the Ladies Classic should still be called the Distaff, and that the whole Fillies Friday idea is stupid. You have plenty of other blogs to read about that crap. None of it really matters anyway, because the issue at this point is strictly handle in the face of all of the competition for gambling dollars that the industry faces. And even if Uncle Mo is for real, even if ESPN devotes a few minutes at halftime of a Monday night game to the races, even if their ratings go up by a couple of points, even if Joe Tessitore is less insufferable than usual, that's not going to change or help the bottom line given the current state of the industry. So we'll just deal with the game. Be back stateside soon.