Dear Mom,

It's been some time since I last wrote but I've been quite busy for a change. To start with last Saturday we didn't have anything to do so Mac, Lew and I went over to Foggia. We left early and stayed all day - went to a show in the afternoon and wandered around all morning. Nothing much happened but the change was interesting, at least we saw new scenery and new faces.

Sunday we went to Florence and we had to spend the night in Marseilles. We really had a good time. First of all the people are clean and the towns are all clean too. Everyone is real friendly. The town was pretty badly beaten up, lots of buildings were hit. We had quite an interesting evening. First we got settled in a 10th class hotel and started out for supper. The officers' mess didn't open until 7 PM so we stopped at a café - you know Pa - they have tables on the sidewalk with the bar inside with more tables. We had some beer that tasted like home-brew - it wasn't very good but that didn't matter.

We got talking with some enlisted men and they told us there were girls and dancing down stairs so we went down - there were about five girls seven Frenchmen and three sailors and four women. One of the Frenchmen was in the Free French Army and he could talk English very well. So we had an interesting time talking. Then the girls sang some French songs for us,

We finally left and had supper. Then we decided to look around the town. We started in at a Red Cross information place and found out where the first class bars were. They told us of two places. We started out going down back streets and alleys and finally we found it in the darkest little street imaginable. The place had red leather stools and chairs with a thick maroon colored carpet on the floor. The walls were decorated with murals - it was really quite the place. At the table next to ours was a man and two ladies - they had a French poodle with them; he was sitting on a chair at the table. He was all white with real curly hair with a red, white and blue ribbon around his neck. He was the cutest dog I've ever seen. Well the joint was a little too quiet so we had a dry martini and then left.

The next stop was in a place that had music pouring out the windows and open door. The place was small and crowded but it had a four piece band with a Spanish girl who sang and played the go to me from me. (Ed. Note: accordion?) We stayed here for the rest of the evening drinking champagne. When we finally decided to go to the hotel it was quite late and there are no lights in the town. We had quite a time finding it but we got there.

I bought some post cards that I'm sending; maybe you will like them. We didn't get up to see Notre Dame but we could see it up the hill. I was disappointed because when we flew over it I couldn't see the hunchback on the roof. In one card notice the street cars, they go real slow and hardly ever stop, you catch them on the fly. The post card of the La Porte d'aix shows the corner where we stood hitching a ride to Aix. The fountain at Aix is just as pretty as the post card. The water spouts continually day and night.

We got home without further incidents. Today we went into Cerignola and saw a USO show. It was really good - had some ice cream then came home. Oh yes, Mac is the proud father of a baby boy so we finished off our last bottle. I guess that just about covers everything so I'll close for the night.

Love,
Rae