good talk

I've now been doin' this for 7 years, hopefully you Lowlifes appreciate my Blogsmanship.  I wanted to push into France, but was tired of flying (fly from one sterile airport to another, seeing nuthin'), so I took the first train smokin' towards France, and it was a total milk-run, 14 hours from Milan to Paris.  I was in a compartment with 2 Albanian guys, who didn't know each other, one was "24," and a Moslem, he was a 2nd Chef, and the other was "23," and a Christian, he was a construction-worker in England.  And there was an older Pakistani guy who was taken off the train by the Swiss Police as his travel-document wasn't proper for Switzerland, he was just returned to Italy.  I get along well with young people, I haven't changed since I was "15," and this was no exception, they were really-nice young guys and we got-along swimmingly, I did the construction-guy a good favor.  And he asked me if there was a lot of good ..... in Las Vegas, I had to tell the truth.  I hope all the best for both lads.  Once in Paris, I got a ticket to Lourdes on the TGV, the fastest trains in the world, go 200 mph and the scenery rushes past, you should take one if you haven't.  I had made a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2004 (See My Blog for Dec. 4, 2008, one of my first), so this was my 2nd.  It's a wonderful experience, and now they have a lot of teen-agers from various countries who volunteer to come to Lourdes to push infirm, old people, around in wheelchairs (it would take a miracle).  Annette is a friend of mine from the gym.  Her parents fled Armenia in the Genocide (you don't want to hear what the Turks did to her grandfather), and France took them in, Annette was born there.  A couple months ago, she was involved in a slight traffic mishap, and the police had her Lexus impounded and she was taken to the bughouse, where she remained a week until they realized that she was sane.  And they billed her $1300 for this, which she is trying to get out of since she hadn't wanted to be there.  The Las Vegas Police are quite good, I think the matter was this was a flustered little old lady in her 80's who had a bit of an accent, and that her conversation seemed garbled.  Under usual conditions, this sweet lady comes-across as very normal, speaking intelligently, maybe she shouldn't drive anymore.  I brought Annette a bag from Lourdes which she liked very much