Have an Eiffel of Paris

Trip Start Apr 08, 2007
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Trip End Dec 22, 2007


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Friday, June 8, 2007

Our drive down to Paris went well, thanks to Tim, the GPS Steve had borrowed from his work. Mandy and I both fell asleep on the way down so Steve grabbed his camera and took some flattering photos of us. We decided we were going to stay just to the north of the metro area in a place called Chantilly. Unfortunately, Chantilly was hosting a major horse racing carnival that weekend so was totally booked out. Karin speaks a little French, more than us with our 7 word vocabulary, which helped us find somewhere to stay eventually about 20 minutes away. We checked in and went out for pizza. The pizza was takeaway only so we walked up the hill and ate in the little village on some stairs beneath a church.

The next morning we shopped at a local patisserie and supermarket and found a shady place in the forest and had a picnic breakfast. Delicious fresh pastries with jam, strawberries, cheeses and juice. We spent the afternoon shopping for camping products for the road trip. Tim, the GPS, guided us through the traffic and dodgy French road signs to the city where we had another hilarious dinner of laughing and fun, culminating with Steve seductively feeding us all chocolate pancakes, which we dubbed "Pancake Porn". I also had a couple of Karin's snails and ordered the duck as my main.... The duck was great, the snails, so so.

The restaurant was just around the corner from the Eiffel Tower. We didn't go up as the queues were long and we were all full. So we cruised around taking photos from a few different angles, including Karin's Marilyn impersonation over a grate in front of hundreds amused onlookers, until it got dark when we found a grassy spot in an adjoining park to watch the lights come on. Very romantic with just the four of us. We took another 500 photos of ourselves pulling faces and laughed ourselves stupid again.

Monday morning we picked up our new home on wheels for the next four months, a brand new Citroen C8 minivan that we have leased. It's hard to name a brand new car because they lack a bit of character, so this guys name is just the "Citi". He's a six speed diesel with cruise control, a/c, electric sliding side doors on both sides, the front seats swivel 180 degrees and many more features, except GPS, something we would miss dearly on day one of our road trip, but more of that next time...

Steve and Karin had just enough time for a picnic and a game of Frisbee before they had to leave for home. And just enough time for another chapter to be written in the last few days laugh fest. Mandy's technique is, shall we say, still developing with the Frisbee. After a couple of throws she totally shanked one into the lake just out of reach of the longest stick available. Enter Steve, the man of action. He wasn't going to muck around with sticks, he pulled ashore an abandoned foam pontoon that was covered in duck poo, laid down some plastic bags to protect his clothes, and confidently paddled the makeshift Frisbee retriever out onto the lake. Onya Steve!!! The Frisbeeing will continue thanks to your bravery.

Next, the big drive south...
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