Paris in Pictures...

Well, I have managed to pack up some things, but I still have a long way to go... but hey, why not reward myself with a little avoidance? I was looking, and I don't have any pictures from Nice... I think that i was traumatized by the scary waiter there... so we are moving on to Paris... which is another place i could definitely live... at least for a little while.

Another HUGE castle... this trip has really confirmed that I suite a castle!

I really enjoyed the Louvre, but I really liked the Muse d'Orsay as well.. I'm an impressionist kind of girl.

I actually like the glass pyramid.. it is so very distinct!

It really wouldn't be Paris without a few landmarks... L'arch de triumph... beautiful!

We went back at night to get it lit up. We were followed off the metro by some scary guy that you can't see. He was trying desperately to get our attention by jumping in front of my camera.


Sacre Coeur... another big beautiful church...

Notre Dame ...Another beautiful church... there were so many.. elaborate churches and castles, i really enjoyed them!
AND OF COURSE......

The Eiffel Tower... It sparkles for 10 minutes every hour.. (maybe only at night) but regardless it was pretty. Funny, when the french man at the hotel said tour d'eiffel, we had no idea what he was talking about... ugh.. only the most memorable monument in Paris.. which incidentally was almost taken down... thankfully the french people reconsidered...otherwise i wouldn't have this great picture!

I think that is a pretty good overview.. did I mention I loved France?

Can you tell i don't want to pack?

Two posts in one day... actually this one is really mostly pictures...
This is the square in Tours -- isn't it cute.. this is where we watched the world cup final -- France versus Italy.. and also where we met the strange man that I mentioned in an earlier post.
We visited the Chateaux of the Loire Valley while in Tours (if i were british i could have used whilst there!) I think that i could live in a chateau, you know if given the chance!
Hilary and I completed the maze with ease.. sadly this is the only maze we got to try...
and you can see we could even see over the hedges so.. not all that intimidating... very little chance of disorientation that way! I think that I am up for the corn maze (the maize maze!) challenge this fall though!

Finally.. this is the double staircase that Divinci designed in one of the chateaux -- Hil and I took opposite paths.. and never crossed.. amazing...
Check back in... there is plenty of packing to be put off so I will most likely post again...

a lesson in details

For those of you that really know me, you are well aware of my inattention to details... i have always been a big picture kind of of person. This is usually doesn't cause me too many problems, because this is offset by the many detail oriented people in my life-- we all have our roles... i'll dream big.. you figure out how to make it happen.... anyway.. i say it usually doesn't cause problems, but in the first moments of our trip to france, i thought i was going to lose Hilary due to this... Now, I need to say.. i worked really hard (even amongst the chaos of finishing school) to plan more than i usually would so that Hilary and i had a better chance of being successful travel partners... she likes a plan, i figure things loosely put together usually work out in the end... so I booked hotels... good of me right? Anyway... i researched to find places that were convenient to the train station and the the towns... and actually all of our accommodations turned out to be great... anyway.. i booked the Hotel Mondial, which was a lovely little place in a little square not far from the busier square in Tours, France. Anyway.. i sent hilary the confirmation emails to print out because i don't have access to a printer... All seemingly good, except that the email i sent her about the hotel mondial was actually a pre-confirmation email... and i failed to open the actual confirmation email... anyway we showed up at the hotel and when we tried to open the door it was locked. Can you believe a hotel locked on a sunday afternoon? Well, we waited for a few minutes.. i am sure looking quite silly with our giant pack-backs,...(which by the way if you need to pack a backpack i will be happy to sneak things OUT of your bag for you). After about 30 minutes i decided that i would go to the restaurant next door and look for some guidance. I met a very nice waiter Nicholas... who asked me if I had the code to get in the door...CODE??? No I have no code... so we showed him our reservation, and he shook his head.. no code... i had already told him that... He went inside to phone the hotel for us... but returned with the news that it was only a message... it is actually closed. We decided to find an internet cafe -- Nicholas pointed us in the right direction...and he tried the phone again... probably needless to say, but nicholas thankfully spoke English very well! And he told us that his restaurant would be closing but would reopen in 2 hours .. so we waddled off to the cafe to see if my error was correctable. We got to the cafe, and when I opened the actual confirmation email I found a message telling me to call a number for the code to door. Great! So we went to find a pay phone to call for the code... which in theory is great, but they don't take coins in pay phones.. you need a calling card... so there was another hurdle to cross. By this time we were starving and so we sat down to have a bit of lunch/dinner... and across the street was a little place to buy phone cards... so we bought a phone card and made our way back to the pay phone. Feeling like we were really making progress Hil and I called the number to get the code... when we finally figured out how to use the card... we were greeted by a very quick french recording... which at the end switched to english and then cut out... we tried three times and then realized that we were going to have to beg Nicholas for help again...we trekked back to the hotel/restaurant, and they had just reopened... he tried to call the number for us, and again told us it was just a recording... apologizing to us.. right, we should have been apologizing for harassment! He offered to call around and find us a hotel... which he did, but he booked us into a 3 star hotel... big money... and i was sure i was still going to have to pay for the first night anyway... so even bigger money. But at least we had a place to stay, and i still had someone to travel with for the rest of the trip... Hil and i started for the new hotel, but decided that we would check all of the one star hotels we could find on the way,... which we did... but they were all complet! Finally i started talking to a lady in the street near a hotel, which she actually ran, and i told her of our problem... she pointed us to a hotel that was actually owned by our hotel and she thought they may be able to help us out... but it was closed... we had just come from that hotel! She told us that hotels sometime open after 6 on sundays,... so we should try back... so we occupied ourselves until 6 and miraculously it was OPEN! Yeah... we are saved from the overpriced 3 star hotel...The girls were so very helpful! It was wonderful. The called around to find our code... and we stopped by the 3 star to tell them thank you but we were sorted.. and we went back to unload our ridiculous bags... Nicholas and the girls set the tone for the entire trip... who says the french are not kind and helpful...and I from now on, will read all confirmation emails... before the trip!

When is a line not a line?

... when you are in france! Now I am not getting all philosophical on you, during our travels,Hilary and I found that the concept of line is clearly not universal! i am only going to site one of the thousand examples that demonstrates this due to time (my plane should be boarding soon,but I have not seen the gate posted yet, so why not blog!) So, I am not sure if i mentioned it,but it was unbearable hot most of our trip... in the 90s/30s depending on your location... and so we decided to walk from the louvre to the l'arch de triumph(you are so jealous right now aren't you randy?)which on the map doesn't seem daunting... but the map doesn't take into account the heat... so we stopped for ice cream on the way... and they have these little fire hydrant like stops that you can pump to get water and rinse the pools of sweat off your body... so Hilary and I took full advantage of these. Anyway, there was a man in front of us, so we were waiting patiently, the man, me, Hilary and another man behind her. So the man in front of me finished and all of a sudden this new man swoops in front of me and the people behind me... he starts to get water and then 12 members of his family crowd in as well... it was truly like when a vulture finds a carcass and the rest of the vutlures swoop in.. Hil and i were baffled... and the guy behind us was extremely annoyed as well... the funny part is that continually we were surprise by this, in the Louvre to see the mona lisa, in the line for the eiffel tower (which I might blog about later.. it made me laugh), in the bathroom at mc donalds... actually any place that we stood in line we probably have a story about this... yet every time... surprised! Anyway.. i will post pictures when i returnn to belfast... We had an amazing time, and I will try my best to post some about where we were... the scary guys, and stupid things that i did that you will probably find commical... Sadly i leave Germany on Monday to return to Belfast.. for a short week, adn then back home... crazy.

an autre jour

Randy, I hope that your reading my blog because I have thought of you a lot lately... mostly about dead ducks and cats on fire, but regardless thinking of you and our french class escapades. France is fantastic! I think that a small french town may become my residence next summer. I managed to have a lengthy conversation with a couple tonight, and i have been able to got most of my needs met here, and so far all of the stereotypes of the french not speaking to us in english (when we need it)have been untrue... except for a man that was trying for an invite to our room... i think that he thought we understood a lot ,ore than we did... and he kept saying you understand, you are in france speak in french; He told me I was a beautiful woman with beautiful eggs... i told him in french that it was time for us to go... Really i am continually amazed in every country that I go to, how freindly the people are to us. It really is fantastic, I do hope that the rest of france is as kind! Heidi, i am returning to the states on August 1st,which day are we scheduled for the fair?

a quick note

this will be a quick note with limited punctuation because typing on this keyboard it Très difficil! interestingly enough.... the fullstop or period depending on which side of the ocean you reside, is a key that you have to hold down the shift key to use! the exclamation point -- always available! are the french an excitable breed? question mark -- also a shift character. Anyway... We watched the match last night... after we finally go to our hotel. thankfully we met several really nice people that helped us most of the day; i didn't check my email properly from belfast so i didn't call to get the code we needed for our room, and when we tried to call from here...it was closed...oops! so eventually we connected with some helpful people and we had a roof over our heads again, the day was much more interesting than that; but this keyboard is so limiting, it is going to have to do; i will try and zrite a bit here and there, but i may have to fill the holes in from an english typing keyboard!