dawesberry adventures my view of the big family adventure.

Paris We drove the van back to Liseux and parked it at the train station for the trip to Paris. We had a few hours before the departure so we explored the nearby cathedral in honour of St. Therese of Lisieux. It was beautiful. We were enjoying ourselves and this time together. Paris was only 2 or 3 hours away. We stumbled around with our French, Steve being very brave, Megan a close second. He did all the ticket purchasing and we figured the snobbiness of the French was all depending on whether you attempted French on first contact. Without fail, the people that we tried English on right off, scoffed at us, while if we attempted French, they were always quite kind. It was kind of exciting mixed with trying, getting to our hostel. Once we got there, we found that they’d given our room up when we didn’t show up. So we found one in a hotel closeby, and switched back to 2 available rooms in the hostel for the second night. And guess what country ended up in the final for the World Cup? That’s right, we were in france to watch the french play in the final. That was the main attraction for that day. It was a sunday, and Megan and I were looking at all the shops that would be open the next day, anticipating a day of shopping! My hopes were high, too, that I would have ample opportunity to have a decent croissant while here! The Cup match with thought we’d like to watch with lots of French people. Steve was hoping for a large outdoor screen, but we didn’t really get dinner in time to make it to that, so we had to choose from the local brassieries (spelling?). As it turned out, we stepped into a packed bar/restaurant/disco and enjoyed an exciting first half hour with excited fans. The french had their most rewarding plays in this period and it was so fun to be in the crowd. The dj was poised to pump out the right song at the right moment, and we found ourselves in a sea of jubulant singing fans. However, the smoke was too much, cigarettes everywhere, and I was the first out, given the condition of my throat (this night set my recovery way back). Megan’s high heels were too much for her to stand around in much longer, so she and i opted to go back to the hotel room and watch the game there. Steve chucked a tantrum/guilt trip, but in the end we all enjoyed watching the game from our room. The game was a big controversy with the star French player doing something outrageous in the end. They lost. We spent the next few days until we got to the land of English, to get the scoop, as we couldn’t understand the french tv or papers. Zizou! Why did you do it?? So, I forced everyone to get up early for sightseeing (I’m the only early bird of the lot of us) and enjoying the city before the heat really picked up. So the 4 of us enjoyed early pastries (ah! The french!) and metro (oh, what a transport system!) our walk to Notre Dame on which we passed a movie being shot, a tv episode being shot, and a fashion photo thingy being shot. Picturesque. Megan tried to maim Marley for life by doing the old see saw dump at Notre Dame, we have it on video. Actually, after her shock (and laughter) I realized that she’d grown up without getting to learn the basics of see saw etiquette. Our American and Aussie kids are deprived of the basics in playground equipment because of greedy lawsuit hungry capitalists. Anyway, he wasn’t too injured, just surprised. Notre Dame, Picasso museum. Well, I wasn’t interested in the Louvre because I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to really enjoy very much of it, and I wanted to spend some time with Megan where she’s happiest – shopping! Steve and Marley were very keen to do the Louvre, as they’d both just read The DaVinci Code, which is packed with references about the Louvre. So, we split up. I had a delightful day with Megs, mostly window shopping and enjoying Paris. I loved it there, except for the huge amount of cigarette butts going into the drains, it was good fun. That night, our last in France/Paris, we decided to have wine and cheese and bread at the eiffel tower. We had to buy every part of that, the glasses, the bottle opener, the knife. It was a brilliant decision. roves of people decided to do the same thing, including locals, the grass was soft, the weather perfect for night time hanging out. We’d leave the next day back to Lisieux and onto the ferry to England.