France, Part 5, Paris

Today's agenda: Pack up the car and drive to Paris for a quick trip and a way to break up the long drive home. The morning was pretty uneventful, by now we knew how to get to the main motorway and once there we just had to follow the signs to Paris. The only issue is that since Jillian got car sick, she won't let Noelle sit in the back with her, so I have to. On a side note-the French motorways are a bit nicer to drive on than the English roads. The smooth roads however come at a price, in the form of tolls, we have probably spent a couple hundred total. France also has more roadside amenities as well...free air pressure checks (with an attendant who will add more air as needed), petrol stations and eateries.

We stopped for lunch at one of these roadside eateries. Quite a few families were stopped as well, returning from their August sojourn, eating fresh baguettes. We got the kids a hot dog meal-which of course they hated and only ate the french fries and ice cream. I admit I tasted it and the texture was just yucky so I can't blame them. After lunch Noelle and I tried to pull a switch on Jillian so that I could better navigate once we got near Paris-no go.

Jason and I have been to Paris twice now, but only by train and taxi. As we approached the city, I located the hotel on the map and tried to guess which road we were entering Paris on (think wagon wheel with lots of spokes) and Jason put the address into the Treo (just a bit of power left). It was actually not too bad-although we had a few rude drivers. We stood out with the steering wheel on the wrong side and the French hate the Brits (who don't they hate?). We found the hotel, found street parking 2 blocks away and still have power left on the Treo! I read on the meter that parking was free for the month of August (everyone is on vacation), but Jason didn't trust my translation abilities and had to check with the hotel to make sure. I was right.

After a quick unpack, we decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower. There was a bit of a rain shower and we only had 1 umbrella and no raincoats (must learn to pack the right things), luckily the hotel had a few spare. As we approached the Tower, the rain stopped and we saw a rainbow. We let the kids blow off some steam at the park and returned to the hotel area for dinner. We were staying at the same hotel as last time and remembered some Chinese take-away place the kids liked and a grocer for drinks. We had left over milk from camping that we froze the night before and paper plates as well.

After getting everyone ready for bed, we left the kids with Noelle and went out for a bite to eat by ourselves. We ended up at the same place we ate last time--only this time as I struggled to order in French the waiter asked if we spoke English and I breathed a sigh of relief. Since it was a nice night we opted to eat outside under the awnings which was fine until about half way through dinner it started to rain and my wine glass caught a few drips of water.

Big cities amaze me-here it is 10 at night and people are still sitting down to dinner and walking about. After dinner I woke up Noelle to take her to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. I didn't have the camera set up correctly, so you will just have to visualize it. The park around the tower was buzzing with tourists and the tower itself was glowing from top to bottom with golden light. My surprise for Noelle however was that on the hour the lights change to twinkle lights for about 10 minutes. It was great to see the excitement in her as the lights changed over. Off to bed.