Sunday January 10th

The last three days have been a boring slog of cleaning, painting and more cleaning. Who wants to read a blog about that? Not me so I won't go further

We are staying at the Nassau Inn in Princeton. Their slogan ought to be "We don't try hard because we don't have to." They are situated in the middle of Princeton. It is absolutely prime real estate and they have the monopoly for anyone wanting to stay in town. After all who wants to stay in one of those anonymous hotels chains on the busy Route 1 corridor. Here we can stay in a building that is historically listed, and slap bang in the middle of Princeton. We can walk everywhere and parking included in our daily rate. It sounds idyllic but anyone that has ever stayed here will tell you that the nick name of the "Nausea Inn" is given for a reason. I'm just trying to decide whether to waste my energy and fill in the "customer survey" but I probably won't . As I said , they have a monopoly and so have no need to change.

It reminds me of when we lived in France. We were therefrom February 2003 until August 2004. 18 months is about all we manage in any one place so it will be interesting to see how long we stay in Sao Paulo.

Anyway, the children went to the British International School of Paris. We have had experience of a variety of International schools when the children were younger. The British International School of Paris was very similar to a lot of the others but here is the thing about the similarity with the Nausea Inn - they had a monopoly. There were several international schools and American schools but only one "British" school. Some things were good - some bad. I was on the PTA for a while but it soon became very obvious that their attitude was that you can complain / suggest / encourage etc., all you like, but in the end they didn't have to change a thing because they knew that you would leave before they had to.

I wonder if they still serve "Friday Fish" -ugh