Dolce Hotel Chantilly

How about spending your entire Saturday going through chateaus and hearing all of the interesting facts about them? Ha...I would have had a better time if I weren't sick...Yes it's that time of the trip, shortly after arriving and settling in, that I get sick, how lovely! Don't you just love it when you change locations and your body is still trying to get used to the new environment, therefore, your body is technically susceptible to incoming colds? It's normal...new places, new ...

... nearby. The crowd could have mobbed them easily... But other than standing there in awe and snapping pictures, the crowd maintained great respect. I yelled out, "Good job, Cadel!", and he turned and looked straight at me with a look that said, "Yeah right... Are you making fun of me...?" I certainly wasn't! I took a couple of pictures - decent close ups, actually. And then, they too, pedaled off across the Place and quickly vanished down the street. I still couldn't believe that ...

... extremely funny and that quickly degraded the little self-esteem I had in speaking French. But since I consistently sound like a deaf-mute while speaking to my boss and the director of the museum where I work, somehow it didn't really matter what Jérémie thought this time around. We had a very morbidly entertaining Saturday, full of dead people and their various remains. We started out with the catacombs early in the morning after a cup of espresso (which I am quickly ...

Bonjour from Paris!! Our trip to Paris was a real marathon, having flied via the States on a round the world ticket, and sadly missing our connecting flight in Frankfurt. After waiting for 50 mins to disembark in Frankfurt, we had 10mins to get to our next flight. What we didn't know at that stage was that we had to go through passport control, security and then get to our ...

... of the Eiffel tower was pretty gross though, especially for those unlucky enough to be on the lower observation towers. <Lang's Extended Version> We woke up quite early this morning with the intention of going to Euro Disney, but when we looked out the window it was gray and wet.. Gruncle and Grauntie convinced us not to go since they close some of the rides in wet weather, so we were kind of at a loss on what to do today since ...

... me feel like I'm drowning in words I don't comprehend. After realizing that I shouldn't feel sorry for myself I promptly got lost and felt even more unfortunate. I found a place near my host family's house on Avenue Victor Hugo and felt it a fitting place to put to the page my insecurities. Maybe it was the caffeine in the cafe au lait, maybe they were special champignons in my queche--I don't know. Something in that lunch gave me ...

... walked back over the shorter line, handed them our tickets, got our audio guides (in English), and we were good to go! Jose is the best!!! He's saved us at least 24 hours in waiting time total on this trip - how he does it, I don't know, but I'm so glad to have him!!! Anyway, once inside Versailles, I was amazed! I've seen many castles in Germany (many, many, many castles, thank you mom), but none have been THIS ornate. I could probably do a Jose-special 10 page ...

... Yum!!! Mike was also telling us stories about the fires that have happened in the tunnel...he worked as an engineer there for 3 years....that was comforting!! At 7.30 we had to leave for the drive to the tunnel...so it was sad to say goodbye to these guys as they are so much fun and have been so kind to us...but we will see them again when we cross back over to the UK in a couple of weeks. No problems going through the tunnel. We kill ourselves laughing at French customs as it is so ...

... tell us how wonderful it is to be Australian then lead us into the National Anthem. With gusto the whole crowd will shout out the first verse and for the 90% of Aussies who don't know the second verse, the red bouncing ball will follow the words on the big screen Karaoke style. Then the laser light show and fireworks will scare all the kids and dogs for 20 minutes and then, knowing that if we attempted to get on the bus or train we would only have to wait an hour, we ...

... 6 others to some bars in Paris and stayed out until about 3:15am. The next day, Thursday, I work up late and met up with a Parisian friend I met whilst overseas in 1994. He was studying so I went on my own to the Eiffell Tower, which was fantastic of course. It was a bright sunny day, the only one I think, and the view was incredible. In the evening, my friend and I went another museum and then he took me on a tour of Paris by night on foot which while tiring, was ...