May 1

One last breakfast before we go-same place. This time we order croissants for the kids-after all their belly aching they decide all is good.

We check out of the hotel and to save money on taxi fare, Jason and Kaitlyn take the Metro to the train station while the rest of us take a taxi. Jason predicts he will arrive first. Our taxi driver is a grumpy man who scolds Jillian for playing with the window switch. Although his sour demeanor is off putting-he's good driver and with the lack of traffic we beat Jason and Kaitlyn to the train station. We have plenty of time before our train leaves, so Diane & I watch the luggage while the rest hunt down a picnic lunch for the train. We make it out of Paris without a hitch.

Once in London-Jason buys tickets for the train ride back to Whittlesford. While Jason & I knew the trains would be less frequent because its a bank holiday-we didn't predict they would be almost nonexistent. We found 1 train that was heading to Liverpool Station-once off the train, they closed the gates behind us and closed the line for some reason. I looked at the train departures and notice there are no trains going to Whittlesford. In fact there is a notice saying we have to take a train to Bishops Stortford and then get on a bus. Jason talk to an attendant who tells us to take the Stansted Express and we can catch a bus at the airport. So we hop on the train to the airport. Once at the airport we trek our way to the buses-where the attendant tells us we should've taken the train that went to Bishops Stortford not the one we took. Now we have to take a bus to Audley End and then take another one to our village train station-where we will then still have to call a taxi to get us to our house. Great.

The bus arrives and we hop on-its hot on the bus and the windows don't open, and it isn't driving on the motorway but on the smaller roads. We all feel a bit sick. After over 30 minutes we make it to Audley End. No other buses are there, but there are 2 taxis. We opt for the taxis instead of waiting for the bus. Good thing-the driver told us there was a couple at the train station that had been waiting for over 1.5 hours for a bus. What a way to end a weekend.