Catching up - Paris and Scotland

Sorry everyone! I've been absent for a while due to my hard drive crashing....again....why does this always heppen when I'm overseas?? Anyway today I'm in Greenock, near Glasgow, Scotland, with about half an hour's free time in town before I need to return to the ship. I went on a tour of Glasgow this morning. I found a little museum here that has free use of computers for the internet, hallelujah!
I must tell you that I have finally been to Paris!! I have always wanted to see it, and was able to have a few precious hours in the city last week on a tour. The drive is nearly 3 hours by bus, each way, from Le Havre (our port) to Paris, so I needed the whole day even to get there for a few hours. I can't describe the feeling of finally seeing the Eiffel Tower in person, it was so neat for me. There may have been tears...:-) I also got to spend a while in the Notre Dame Cathedral, and walk all around it as well, which was very cool. We drove to all the highlights of the city, and had barely enough time to snap photos of the Louvre, Les Invalids, the Arc de Triumph and many more....it was really a whirlwind tour - there is no way to properly see a city like Paris in a day. But at least now I've seen a little bit for myself!! I hope to go back someday. It was fantastic.
I've really enjoyed Scotland these past few days, Edinburgh being perhaps my favorite. I also visited Inverness (of the river Ness, of Loch Ness), which was a nice town as well. I didn't make it out to Loch Ness proper, but maybe next time. In the small town of Invergordon where we were docked, I had the pleasant surprise of running into some artist's booths. One man was letting people make their own metal castings, by carving out a design on a flat surface, then sealing it and filling it with liquid metal which then hardened into whatever shape you had carved. It was so neat! I made a little flower. What a perfect, free souvenir!! Better than anything you'd buy in a store. I also met some well known graffitti artists called Dufi, who were working on a project I got to help with. It was such a neat day! I love it when the unexpected finds me.