(depending on how you normally read postcards, either view the picture before or after reading the rest of this)

Hey there, have an elongated E-mail postcard. I reckon that you'd need about 4 or 5 normal cards to fit this all in, writing small. That's about £1.50, not including stamps.. Unfortunately I haven't included any streaming video as I didn't take a video camera. When I get the photos back I might digitise them and send them.

Just got back from two weeks in this place. Well, 11 nights with a couple of stopovers in Paris. On the way to St. Jean, two nights including one day at Eurodisney, and a simple one-nighter on the way back with an evening exploring the city.. I may say on the picture that St. Jean-de-Monts is an armpit but Paris is a sweaty, unwashed armpit belonging to a sewage farm worker... :) Except for the tower, which is colossal but frighteningly rusty.

Eurodisney was disappointing, sort of like a smaller, more pathetic version of the florida one, but better than a slap in the face with a rotten kipper. Although the French "Space Mountain" and runaway-train things were miles better than the U.S. ones. Just.

St. Jean itself is only an armpit because there is toss-all to do. Sure, there's a beach that's 5 miles long (with a wierd kind of marker pole thing every kilometre or so) and about a half-mile wide at low tide, but even building really huge sand-fortresses can get boring after a while. The sea was freezing, and left massive jellyfish behind as it receeded so an Atlantic swim was out of the question, and the pool at the campsite was also freezing, basic and packed. Apart from these questionable pastimes, there was a profusion of go-karts, waterparks and dodgy quad-bike outfits. The karts were too far away and going on waterslides was out of the question due to gale-force winds, but quadding is kinda addictive and expensive to boot. That (combined with a lack of addresses) is why i'm sending an email card instead of a proper one - skint! About £35 spent on those mad motorised thingies in total.. try it some time. Also joining jellyfish spotting in the palace of dubious delights are playing with crap elastic-band powered plastic planes, riding around in a sort of 4-person pedal powered contraption, and my dad's driving. Oh, and the ancient arcade games. The best one I found was something called Roadblasters, copyright Atari 1986....

Thankfully, we're here, back in one piece. So it can't have been that bad. In conclusion; France is a dump, but it's pretty cheap with it. And no matter where you go, the best food is always found in greasy takeaways and chinese restaurants. Their websites suck as well. The picture enclosed in this email postcard contains ALL the images I have been able to find relating to that bit of the country.. 20, and some of them were created by chopping up a slightly larger picture. The one in the background was the same size as the rest, just enlarged.

So, how have you been? :)

EddyH

Sorry for the slightly strange manner of writing in that, but it was originally an email, you know?