Merde happens!

The screenshot above is from a Brazilian travel site... a clever idea, 'highlighting' some of the attractions of Paris.

Here in Germany people are getting awfully solemn about the repercussions of the financial crisis. I suppose it's because as a nation, and particularly since the reunification, the Germans have dearly wanted to believe that such a thing as a status quo really exists and can last for ever.

I am very much looking forward to time spent in France after not being there for a whole year. I shall practice my Gallic shrug, enjoy the kind of eye-contact which would here in Munich be considered dreadfully forward, smile occasionally in full acceptance of the fact that merde happens.