Bob:

Well, since the Longitude had changed from West to East, clearly we had worked our way East a bit in crossing the Channel to Le Havre, France, and were now just about due South of Greenwich, England. We decided to do a walkabout on our own in Le Havre, so after breakfast we hiked out of the cruise ship dock into town, a total distance of about 2 kilometers or a bit over a mile. The dockyard area was given over to industry and so although I'm sure it was quite an economic backbone of the city it was not very photogenic.

As we crossed a small isthmus and crossed a bridge into town, however, things began to look more interesting. We had a curious shopping list of things to find, to whit: mouthwash, a black belt, a 2-gigabyte storage chip, and an Internet Cafe to do our email. Since all the signs on the storefronts were in French, we had to actually walk by each shop and see what articles were really being sold rather than just reading it off, and that made it noticeably harder. We also made the (incorrect) assumption that the big cathedral we saw would probably have the town marketplace nearby. Instead, after we walked over there we found a mostly residential district with a few shops (mostly closed) and very few people.

We turned back into town and finally started to see some signs of commercial life. Running across a shop with a variety of items similar to a U.S. drugstore, we found the mouthwash we had been seeking and as a bonus a fancy black band for Monika's hair that we thought would work well for formal nights on the ship. In a pedestrian mall area we found a no-frills menswear store, and there I bought a black plastic belt for 15 Euro that was also intended for formal nights aboard ship. Continuing our scavenger hunt, we did locate the 2 gigabyte chips at a electrical gadgets and appliances store called "Darty" that most closely resembled a Best Buy store in the U.S. in both ambience and product range. But the prices were 25 Euro for a standard, plain vanilla 2 gigabyte chip, and that was about twice what I had paid for the same chip back in the U.S., so we decided to see if we could be very careful in our picture taking and get along without it.

Monika:

Bob:

Looking at all these shops gave us a curious impression of what I can only call the "artistic flair" of French culture. Most everyday objects like dinnerware, table decorations and even small appliances were commonly available in colorful, highly decorated, or fancifully designed forms. Sometimes those objects impressed me as tacky or overdone, but quite often they were exquisite or at least would have looked very pretty in the right type of decor. Our luggage was already bursting at the seems with dolls, beer steins, folk music CDs, and chocolate from Germany, so we tried very hard to not buy anything. But finally we found salt and pepper shakers shaped like cats that were just too cute to resist, so we bought them for some "cat lovers" we knew back home.

That artistic flair was also evident in various buildings and public spaces in Le Havre. One movie theater was shaped as a huge, lopsided white cone and it reminded me of the tall white cooling towers used at some nuclear power plants. Beside that was a slab of slate, I think, mounted upright on a base with two rows of holes punched in it near the top. It clearly was a piece of art but I couldn't find a title or plaque or anything and so I really could not understand what the artist was trying to do, if anything, beyond saying, "Hey, Look at this slab of rock!". In front of the Hotel Ville (City Hall) we found a very pretty park with graceful fountains, flower beds, and shady green arbors. But right in the middle of the park and flower garden they had installed huge metal statues of flamingoes. They weren't like your garden variety plastic pink flamingo at all since they were about 10 feet high and constructed of rusty steel. But they were located on a little reflecting pond and posed in a very lifelike fashion, so they kind of, sort of fit into the park.

We also saw some of what I would call traditional French architecture on the side streets as we wandered through town. By that I mean Mansard roofs with slate tiles atop homes or buildings constructed with fancy brick patterns. I found it pleasant to look at those and I expect that the craftsmen who built them also were proud of what they had wrought when they were finished.

Monika:

Bob:

Thus we had a nice walking tour of Le Havre but our search for the Internet Cafe was fruitless until we gave up and returned to the ship after about 3 hours of walking. Back on the dock right beside the ship we found an information center that offered free WiFi connections. Nuts! So after lunch back on board I grabbed Baby, inserted the WiFi card, and ran back down to the dock where I spent a happy hour catching up on our email and also checking out how the prices were faring for future cruises. I was happy in part because I had some very nice messages from our friends and family, which is always a good feeling, and in part because I saved the $30 that an hour of Internet use aboard ship would have cost me. No joke. At the information center we chatted with a couple who had just paid 50 cents per minute to check email on board the Jewel of the Seas.

Returning on board, I promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours, but revived in time for dinner. Since it was an "open seating" night, we had dinner with three other couples and at least there were other men I could chat with, which was rather a relief. After dinner we retreated to our stateroom where we took turns using the computer and working on various crossword or acrostic puzzles until it was time to retire for the night.

Monika: