Inter Hotel Wilson St-Denis

... we were struggling with our French from high school and our French phrase book. And we could tell she was frustrated with us. But the food was amazing, and it was the cheapest place we could find, so it was worth it.
On our way home, we knew we would want some snacks later, so again, we went into some stores but there was just no microwave popcorn anywhere!! (And for those of you wondering, I will not be getting off the subject of ...

... next stop and take a look at the sign on the train to make sure it was the right one -so here are Oli and I ON the train and Brian OFF the train - well say no more you can imagine what happened next - the train doors begin to close with Brian still on the platform, the train pulling out and Brian standing with his mouth open waving us goodbye - it all happened in slow motion! Poor Oli nearly had a kitten but all I could think of was thank goodness is wasn't Oliver standing on the ...

... of those. That place is a gem. DD wants to go to the Sorbonne (aka Universite de Paris) so she wanted to see it, naturally. So we headed over there. There's a nice little plaza, with a cool water feature and bistros where we stopped later in the day for a refreshment break. We were serenaded by a not-so-great singer with an unreliable sound system. Our journey also took us to the Pantheon. DH and I had walked by it on one of our ...

... out which kept her immobile for the morning (and was, frustratingly, and issue for the next four days). We took it slow that day. In the afternoon we strolled through our neighborhood to the Centre Pompidou - the crazy inside-out modern art building and enjoyed the scene. Then we continued on to walk around the trendy and cute Marais shopping area where we stopped for a little pre-dinner cocktail at a classic sidewalk cafe. On Saturday we were dutiful tourists and ...

... and the kids really enjoyed it given that they have been studying war at school. Disneyland Paris was a huge hit! We got there early and went straight for the most popular thrill ride, Space Mountain 2. After being thrown around and upside down in the dark from all angles for a few minutes all of us boys came off feeling thrashed but keen for more! And so it continued...ride after ride on things such as Buzz Lightyear, Thunder ...

The weekend after that I went to France. It was very nice. The Cab ride there was awesome. We had this Crazy driver who like got in a fight with a woman who would not let him into the turning lane. We didn't miss our turn we just had two cars in one lane. And swears are kind universal, so are hand signals. Ill just leave it at that. The flight up there was very very bumpy, and it was delayed. So after we landed we had to find a away to get into the city, we probably ...

... goods and another for whatever else is left over and you have some idea what Lafayettes is like. We arrived at the Metro level bargain basement store and Sydney and Jordan had a blast. It was like Winners but four times as big. So they rummaged thru that for a while and we joined the queue to pay. Seems like the credit card system had gone down so it was back to manual imprinting. Oh well. We went upstairs and enjoyed walking through the perfume section, the escalator rides to ...

... for us, it was scary but exciting. Ricki our driver (i have since renamed my kangaroo) really proved himself. We ended up coming off the roundabout scratch free and driving down the avenue des Champs Elysees. WOW! After that we went back to the hotel and had a le parti on de la balcony! (it wasn't really a balcony, it was a ledge we managed to get to through our windows, and we got in trouble from management ...

... french. We walked past his bakery one night at like 4am to find him kneading away and paid him our daily visit about 6 hours later. He was great!!! 2. French hip-hop -- As most of us know and believe, music is truly universal and is one of our strongest intercultural ties. We were walking in the eclectic Montmartre area of the city and passed a basketball court where there were couple of teenaged boys hanging out listening to their mp3 ...

... had. Sorry Houlihans. Well, thanks to Denmark, I am not going to travel to the Middle East next (someone evidently made a joke about Muhammed setting off riots in Beirut and across the Middle East). That and it is way too expensive to go, so as any smart person would do in the middle of winter in Europe, I am heading North! To London, then Bruges, then Amsterdam and maybe to Copenhagen. Maybe I will be the ONLY person traveling! Until merry ol' Enland.... Josh