If you go

Many travel articles and web pages have a little sidebar entitled "if you go," making suggestions for visits in the destinations discussed in the articles. I had a few such suggestions culled during our recent trip, especially comparing Paris and London.

	London	Paris
Local transportation	Basic subway tickets are £1.30 (about $2). The bargain fare is an off-peak fare good from 9:30 a.m. through the rest of the day, for about $7.	Basic subway tickets are €1.30 (about $1.30). Sometimes they can be used for forwarding rides, but not returns.
Hotels	Rooms are expensive and in short supply. The only "low-price option" is youth hostels, which begin at about $25 for a single bedroom with hall bath. They usually don't include towels, but do come with bedding. Dorm-style beds (e.g., 12 people to a room) can be booked for less. Look for "deals" combining bargain airfare with hotel stays.	Rooms are plentiful and relatively inexpensive. We stayed in a one-star hotel with en suite bath for $31 per person. It included two towels per person, upper and lower sheets, normal blankets as well as the de riguer European "divet" or "one-ton quilt" (also found everywhere in the U.K.), daily cleaning service.
Sights and sites	Good - Historic and literary sights and sites abound. There are many parks and beautiful walks by the Thames.	Better - Historic and literary sites are available everywhere, but even typical city streets and cafes are picture worthy.
Coffee	Overpriced everywhere, and only reasonably sized at Starbuck's, which is found widely. There, largest cups are £1.75 (about $2.50), no refills. Clotted cream is eaten but regular or half and half is not used in coffee. Think milk. Think tea; think tea and milk. Don't think iced tea.	Overpriced and undersized. Small cups are at least €1.30. No Starbucks, and McDonald's coffee shows little resemblance to that you know stateside. Espresso is more easy to find than regular coffee, sometimes called "cafe filtre." If whitener is desired, say "cafe au lait." Iced tea is available here, even in vending machines.
Museums	The best are free: British Museum and National (Art) Gallery.	The best are expensive and crowded; the Louvre and d'Orsay; €9 and €7 respectively.
The people	Often are friendly, pro-American, and ready to help tourists.	Working at it, but still often come off as anti-American, perhaps anti-humanity (with exceptions).
Entertainment	Plays rated better than Broadway's. Some street performers.	Lots of free or tip-supported musicians and performances on streets, subways, plazas.
Public attitude	As in most of the U.S., roller blading and skateboarding is largely outlawed. Busking is illegal.	Roller bladers are everywhere, even sometimes in police uniforms. Busking is tolerated.
Food	English breakfast is special and cheap. Local cusine, otherwise, is perhaps an oxymoron. Lots of ethnic restaurants are available.	Is historically and still rated the world's best, and is good even from typical cafes. Most cafes have their French menus translated to English in the fine print.

If I sound sour on tourism, I'm not. Just trying to give a full picture; but I'm looking forward to my next trip.

—Webmaster Jon Kennedy

Stock market terminology

Bull Market - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

Bear Market - A 6 to 18-month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry and the husband gets no fun.

Momentum Investing - The fine art of buying high and selling low.

Value Investing - The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E Ratio - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the Market keeps crashing.

Broker - Poorer than we were in 1999.

Standard & Poor - Our life in a nutshell.

Stock Analyst - An idiot who just downgraded our stock.

Stock split - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split all your assets equally between themselves.

Market correction - The day after you buy stocks.

Cash flow - The movement our money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

Call option - Something people used to do with a telephone in ancient times before e-mail.

Day trader - Someone who is disloyal from 9-5.

Cisco - Sidekick of Poncho.

Yahoo - What we yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

Windows 2000 - What we jump out of when we're the sucker that bought Yahoo for $240 per share.

Institutional investor - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

Profit - Religious guy who talks to God. "

—Sent by Mike Harrison

Thought for today

When the whole moral and psychological atmosphere is secular and common, how can we escape its deadly effects? How can we sanctify the ordinary and find true spiritual meaning in the common things of life? The answer is plainly apparent but to some of us it will seem too tame and ordinary. It is to consecrate the whole of life to Christ and begin to do everything in His name and for His sake. That just means that we begin to do for Christ's sake what we had formerly been doing for our own!

— A. W. Tozer
Sent by Judy Martin

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