Hotel Sovereign Saint Ouen

... I even heard them speak a little French. There was this one little girl who was a major wild child though. I'd say she was about 3 years old. She took her mom's purse and went running out of the playground area. I saw her bite a little boy who was playing with the kids. And DS said later that she had bitten him too! She had tried to take another little boy's soccer ball, picked up an empty soda can off the ground and tried to drink from it, and then ...

... privacy! More Shopping and then out to dinner! Had a great dinner of seafood pizza which was really good. (Thanks a lot Matt of picking up the bill) Went back to the hostel and all my roomates were sitting there waiting for me to take me out for my birthday which I didnt expect them to do. We hit the local bar and when that closed we hit the local grocery store and then the local park. Up too late and too much beer, over all a great birthday in Paris!!!

... near the Australian Embassy and the Eiffel Tower. The queues for the latter were ginormous so we were glad we had "been there, done that" before this week. The musée was really interesting. Lots of indigenous art from all over the world, beautifully displayed and included masks, costumes, musical instruments, medical instruments...and in realia, film, sound. I thoroughly enjoyed what we saw and Brian was very patient. After lunch we did a tour of the ...

... Sometime latter we were comfortably full having immensely enjoyed our baguettes and particularly our tarts. We continued down the Champs Elysee eventually coming to the Grand and Petite Palaces. We turned right, towards the Seine, taking in the Palaces and also the Pont Alexandre III. We then followed the Seine heading towards the Jardin des Tuileries. As we were walking along, a woman coming in the opposite direction appeared to point at something on the path beside us and ...

OK I've resigned myself that travelling with my wife and two daughters is going to have to involve some shopping but in the give and take approach - culture and exploring comes before shopping. Not sure how I discoverd the link to the Bike About Tours but am I ever glad I did. Damian and Paul are a displaced American and New Zealander who met in school while on an exchange and decided to get a bike tour ...

... his life without restrictions, without selling out to what he believed was a corrupt system, and being independent minded. So many of the "liberal" beliefs that I and others would spend an afternoon talking about in a café were the exact same as this man's. The difference is that he had had enough of just talking about the problems while living in the system that created them, so he just left. It's a shame that our world, our political, economical, and moral world ...

... all had to come to an end¡K.afar off we saw rain coming towards us so we hurriedly (to say the least) got back to the RER/subway and back to our Hostel, got the key for the other room, took shower¡¦s in our Sink (because we didn¡¦t want to pay the 2 Euros), washed close and Audrye and I in our room watched some movies on Dad¡¦s computer then went to bed!!!!! Shhhhhh¡K..Shh¡K..zzzzzzzz¡K..Shhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhh¡K¡Kzzzzzzzzzzz¡K¡KShh¡K

... and friends... 2006 is a big year for getting married... who's next? Sun 15: Back to London, for the very last preparation, packing (actually undoing the backpacks and considerably reducing the load...), enjoying nice wine and whiskies at Rebecca and Kolja's (thank you so much guys...), we are now ready to embark on the journey - tonight at 10pm our flight to Bangkok takes off! YEEEEAAAAAH!