December 30th - Last Day in Paris

On Friday 30th December, we enjoyed our last day in Paris.  We decided, in wisdom, to take the Paris Underground, as opposed to the car, but the kids quite enjoy the train...

We headed off to our ''Meeting the French at Work' visit at a local Bakery/Patisserie, Au Grand Richelieu.  The Bakery itself is the oldest bakery in Paris and we learnt that in order for someone to buy a bakery, they must have a qualification and also 7 years experience.  It was also interesting to learn that in France, while pretty much everyone and anyone strikes from time to time, it is illegal for bakers to strike ever!  The French sure do like their baguettes!!!!!

Claude Esnault has been running the bakery for 42 years and was more than happy to share some of his craft with us.  We shared the tour with a family from Boston, and we all had a go of rolling a croissant and also scoring our own baguettes.

Claude with this Baguette Rolling Machine

Pheonix scoring his baguette

Sequoia's turn

Sequoia rolling a croissant

Baking away

Yum!!!!!!

Parisien Sequoia

 We were given each the baguette that we helped make and also a croissant and we were on our way....first stop the Louvre....

We ended up skipping the massive line to go inside the Museum and opted instead for a leisurely stroll down the Champs Elysee...however all three of us appreciated the awesome archetecture and also the sculptures that are exhibited throughout the grounds.

Notice the Ferris Wheel in the background????  So did we :-)  Of course we jumped on and enjoyed the awesome views....

Down the Champs Elysee

Eiffel Tower from the Ferris Wheel

 We enjoyed a stroll down the Champs Elysee where they had Christmas Market stalls all still set up, and then made our way to the foot of the Eiffel Tower once again....

Pheonix really enjoyed his time playing in the snow at the snowshoe place on Wednesday that he really wanted to spend some more time there.  I got the chance to enjoy a delicious mug of steaming gluwein (mulled spiced wine), and Pheonix spent some time making me a special gift...

For you Mum xxx

We then set off for our boat trip down the Seine....

The boat company was running quite behind schedule so even though we had paid to go on the boat that had been currently boarding, someone made an executive decision and just cut off the line even though the boat was barely full - we got to witness some of that famous French passion (a local went pretty wild with anger), which kept us fairly entertained until the next boat docked....

Our cruise down the Siene, was worth the wait...
I'll just post a few of the pics we took....it was quite wet and we were inside the boat (yay cause it was freezing outside!!!) so between the water-spotted windows and the window-flash, only a few of the pics turned out.

...but I am sure that you get the drift...lol
One thing that these photos will never be able to communicate is just how freezing it was!

Our homestay family were really lovely to us, but one thing I have learnt is, next time, we will go for the English-speaking family and I will know what questions to ask before signing up.

It really was quite awkward....Sequoia, Pheonix and I slept in the three children's room, who slept in their parent's room and Leila and Omar slept on the couches in the loungeroom.  The two younger children didn't seem to mind so much, but I got the distinct feeling the older child really resented us being in his space.  I keep telling myself that the children really would benefit from the money that we paid the family to stay with them, but it was just....awkward.

Maybe it is just me, but to me homestay is a little bit of a culture-exchange and I chose this family because meals are included and in hindsight, I had envisioned us all breaking bread together and muddling through the language thing around the table.  Alas, Sequoia, Pheonix and I were relegated to the tiny breakfast table in the kitchen all on our lonesome....

Also silly me expected that, included in the homestay, the three of us would each be given a towel.  I had left quite a bit of our stuff we were travelling with back in Germany at Andrew's and I will admit that I only had the one travelling towel with us (left in Germany, of course, as between hotels, family and friends, I never expected to have to use our own (bag-space was at a premium!!!).

On the first night we were there, I asked Leila for a towel before I went in to have my shower.  I'm not sure what happened, but before I realised, Leila had a big cupboard over the washer half unpacked and duly pulled out one towel (I must admit that it was a nice towel), handed it to me and then promptly packed everything back into the cupboard...

I didn't have the heart to ask for towels for the kids.

So, the three of us got to share the one towel for the 4 days we were in Paris.  I know, ewww!  I ended up paying Leila some money on the 3rd day, while we were out at Disneyland, to put a small load through the washer for me.  Unfortunately, the machine I thought was the dryer was not a dryer (still haven't worked out what exactly it was for!) and that third night the three of us got to share a slightly damp single towel off the clothes rack....hmmm

Here are the kids in our room just before we left...

I got to sleep on a trundle bed, which is currently out of shot.

December 29th - Paris Disneyland!!!!!!

On our second full day (29-12-11) in Paris, and we were off to Eurodisney!

Although our homestay family spoke only basic English and my French is pretty limited, one thing that Leila was able to communicate to me was not to book our disneyland tickets before we got to Paris and that she would get us a good deal on the tickets.  Unfortunately, this all fell through for some reason or another at the last minute and I found myself online late the night before we went looking for tickets. Especially after the massive line-up at the Eiffel Tower, I wanted to avoid the entrance line at all costs.  The website instructed me to print out the email tickets, but I was unsuccessful in linking either my iPhone or Laptop to Leila's printer in the morning.  For some reason, my email was receiving my messages, but I had not been able to send any for the past few days. Leila assured me that as the email on my iPhone had a bar-code on it, this would be sufficient proof of purchase.

Whilst we were getting ready to leave, Sequoia was struggling to put on a Paris fob-chain bracelet that she had bought the day before as a souvenir.  My hands were quite full, but she was really struggling trying to do it up with one hand, I tried to assist her.  Unfortunately, I had our GPS (George) in my arms and whilst I was struggling with the bracelet, he tumbled out of my arms and cracked on the floor :-(  Fortunately, Omar had given us really simple instructions on how to get to Disneyland the night before, so I was confident that we would get there without a problem.

So, we excitedly set off to Disneyland, arriving there about 35 minutes after we set out.

Entrance from the car

Well, this is where the fun and games began....
When we got to the gate, I was informed that I needed to have a paper copy of the ticket to be able to use it.  I was told to leave the children at the gate and then escorted to a little office inside.  Firstly, my iphone would not connect to their printer.  Then I tried to gain access to my Bigpond email account.  For some reason, my password would not work. I tried my entire repetoire of passwords with nil success except to find myself locked out of my account.  I then proceeded to the chat area of the bigpond website to request my password to be reset.  I conversed with someone (perhaps in Australia) and they informed me that they could not give me my password on the chat area but it had to be text messaged to me.  I gave them the phone number of the lovely disneyland lady who was doing everything to assist me.  However, our beloved major telecommunications company of Australia was unable to send the text to an international phone number.  I then, in desperation, got them to text it to my friend Steve back at home.  Unfortunately, when I went to phone Steve, his phone was switched off or out of service, so that was a dead end.  I tried to log on to the chat area again to have them resend the password to my parents, who by then I had contacted (on the Disneyland lady's personal mobile phone), but after 10 minutes, I still had not been connected to anyone and abandoned this avenue.
Well, by this stage, I went back out to the kids to let them know what was going on.  Pretty soon, it became obvious that it was all too hard and I really needed to get this sorted immediately.  I decided that the kids had waited for long enough so I would pay the entrance again.  However, we decided to just get the one park ticket and our helpful lady arranged for a special price for us.  (Original tickets for two parks cost $A219 and we paid the second time 90 Euro and I also gave the lady 10 euro for the use of her phone.  The kids by this time were pretty demoralised and quite frankly were asking to go home.  However, I overruled and to sweeten the deal, our helpful lady, Ameli, gave us a special pass to skip the queue for the best ride at Eurodisney, Space Mountain!

The fun finally began!!!! We proceeded to the exit of the ride and, skipping a line that was probably at least and hour and a half long, we got to choose where we sat (Pheonix chose the front of the coaster, of course, with me in the seat next to him and Sequoia rode right behind).  All I can say is WOW.  The ride immediately thrusts you up to the top of the building and then after a very pregnant pause, flew you around with 'outer space' spinning around you through the loop-the-loops and the corkscrews.  It was absolutely amazing!!!! 

We then headed off to explore the rest of the park...

In the whole debacle of the dropped GPS, Pheonix left his coat in the room at the house, so had to spend the day looking like a spaceman in my oversized coat that fortunately had been left in the car

Due to the sheer volume of people at the park that day, and the previous day's hours spent waiting in line, we saw only a few of the rides and attractions, but we all really enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland Curious Labrynth...

After some lunch and a wander, next stop was the train...

We continued to wander and look at some of the exhibits and then watched the parade, which Pheonix particularly enjoyed.  Being so close to Christmas, there were carols playing in the background and bubbles that fell like snowflakes throughout main street....
There were beautiful lights throughout the grounds.

It really was quite a beautiful and magical day, despite the crowds and debacles....

We set off home in all confidence, as we had found our way there with surprising ease.  Unfortunately, when we were very close to home, we somehow took a wrong turn and then proceeded to get more and more lost... without our beloved GPS in hand, we had no way of knowing where we were or where we were going....

Before too long, we really were hopelessly lost and I knew we really were in big trouble when we found ourselves outside the Moulin Rouge (close your eyes, kiddies!!!!)... I was quite terrified that we were going to find ourselves on that 8 lane roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe and I would spend the rest of my natural life going around and around and around, never to be heard of again.....

My mobile phone had not been in service all day, even though I had topped up the credit on the roaming sim the night before.  After driving around forever, I stopped and turned my phone on and off a few times, and as a last minute reprieve, I got signal and was able to call Leila to let her know that we were lost.  I then was able to bring up a map on my phone (data download) and with Sequoia navigating, after perhaps an hour literally creeping along in peak hour Paris traffic (it took us 10 light changes to get through one set of traffic lights and we even witnessed a slow-speed low-impact bingle between a bus and a taxi), we finally found our way home.

It took us 4 hours to get there!!!!!

I almost cried when we trumped up the stairs at our homestay and bless Leila's heart, she stayed up waiting for us and served us our meal at the crazy hour of 10.30 pm.

I really miss George :-(

Paris is a beautiful city, and I am glad that we got to see so much of it, but that was definitely not the best way to visit Disneyland, I'm sure.  Well, it is what it is, and the kids and I really did have fun, so we will just put it all down to part of our adventure!!! :-)

December 27th & 28th - Paris Dreaming

Communication and connectivity have been a bit of a challenge in France so we are finally back in Goetteldorf and I can take the time to update the blog with our exciting adventures.

Paris is a truly beautiful and romantic city.  We managed to obtain way more area knowledge of Paris City and environmens than we probably would ever need - and learnt that Sequoia, Pheonix and I are absolutely terrible navigators (new year's resolution is to enroll the three of us into some sort of course to rectify this before too long).

However, to start at the beginning...

After our night in Luxembourg, we set off for Belgium with the single-minded determination to find...chocolate!!!

We were directed to a little town in southern Belgium, Aarlon, by one of the hotel staff, so we headed off there...

Aarlon is quite a lot like Luxembourg in that it appears OLD and QUAINT.

Belgium Church




A building marked as 1634

 Once we parked our car, we stopped a lady walking past who unfortunately could only speak frence to ask where we could find a chocolate shop.  She pointed past the nearby church and indicated to walk up the hill and then turn to the left.  We locked up the car and started walking. Just when we arrived at a little cobblestoned street, the lady appeared again and took us to a nearby cheese and chocolate shop.  The owner had just arrived who then opened her store up just for us.  The shop itself was quite 'aromatic' but there were some delicious chocolates there that we purchased.

Aromatic Belgium store

 


Kids outside Cheese and Chocolate Shop

 We then continued on to another exclusive shop which was exclusively Belgium Chocolate!

The kids and I had lots of fun in there!!!  Before we headed off for our drive into France, we set off to find a Post Office.  We found an outdoor ice-skating rink instead, which we had a go.  The kids loved it!!!  The Post Office was right across the cobblestone road, so once I had gone around the rink a few times, I left the kids to it and went to get some stamps and postcards.  Alas, no post cards and the line was at least 20 deep.  I abandoned that mission and hurried back to the kids who I had to practically drag off the rink:

Big smiles - iceskating boy!!!!

Much fun - iceskating girl!!!

I'll spare y'all the iceskating lady pic :-)

Once we had had a nice little stop in Belgium, we headed on to France.  Along, the way, we took a bit of a detour off the main autoroute and found ourselves in a gorgeous little town where we enjoyed some lunch from one of the little bakeries.

Our bakery

Lots of treats

Once we had our delicious pastries, we headed off to Paris to meet our homestay family, Leila, Omar and their three children.  We finally arrived at the address I had been given only to find that we went to the wrong Avenue Paul-Vaillent Coutourier (there are apparently three in Paris).  So, braving the Paris peak-hour traffic, we made our way to the correct place and boy, it was great to finally get there.

Our homestay family were very lovely people, but it was a very strange situation - but I guess this is what we had signed up for!  Firstly, their tiny flat is right on the main street of La Courneurve, a suburb of Paris.  You enter through a metal door on the street between a butcher and fruit and vegetable shop.  You make your way down a very dodgy alleyway to another locked metal door, that leads to a little concrete courtyard.  Our host family is in the middle of renovations, so there were a lot of building materials and a concrete mixer in this tiny little area.

When you enter the door (only one entrance), you make your way up two flights of stairs in a very cramped stair-well and straight into the living area.  As you walk up the upper set of stairs, you see a huge picture of an older french man on the wall, which within minutes of meeting our family, we were informed was Omar's father, who passed away last year. 

Leila and her family were very welcoming, although it almost felt as though they were trying to make our experience a bit hotel-like.  We were shown to our room, which was a set of bunks with a trundle bed for the three of us.

I must admit that although I didn't have any specific expectations of our homestay, I was quite surprised to find that we were eating seperately from the family.  I guess logistically, the flat is so tiny there really wasn't the option to all eat together, but now I think about it, my idea of a homestay is to intergrate somewhat with your guests.

Anyhow, dinner was delicious...



First dinner

 After dinner, Leila informed us that it was her daughter's sixth birthday and invited us sing happy birthday with them and share some cake, which was nice.  The cake was this little train that had an awesome sparkler candle (which I admired so much that Leila presented us with some the other day and has just occurred to me would be completely illegal in other countries and in no way will we be able to take back to Australia with us).  I unfortunately did not get a photo of Leila and Omar, but here is one of us with the children.

Early the next morning we set out to explore Paris....first stop the Eiffel Tower!!!!!!

Eiffel Tower!!!!



Near the base of the Eiffel Tower are some gorgeous Christmas Markets complete with outdoor ice-skating rink. 



One thing I will totally recommend with a visit to Eiffel Tower is to definitely book your tickets in advance. Our host, Leila, had said this was not required, but we found ourselves lining up for what was probably two hours.  There were so many people!!!!  And, if you go during the winter, definitely rug up!  Especially when you a queuing to catch the elevator to the next level, the winds up that high are chilling - even with all our thermals, hats, gloves and scarves.

The view from the second level of the tower:

Unfortunately, it was quite an overcast day, so there was reduced visability from the top level of the tower due to fog, but we did make it!!!

View from the top

If you were so inclined, you could purchase (for almost $A20) a glass of champagne:

I did not.

We certainly were a long way from home:

Sydney 16962 klms away...

Right in front of the tower was a man-made snowscape with the chance to snow shoe around a little circuit, which the kids really enjoyed.

Next we took a walk up to the Arc de Triomphe.

After our eventful day, we headed back to the homestay for a delicious meal and sweet dreams....