Saraphina!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a bit. I've been busy being lazy. I will catch up I promise. (I tried a bit today and then it got erased before it posted. Bloody blackberry!) Sorry dad no pics as I still haven't found wifi. Monday we went to market Tuesday we stayed home (well half of us did) the others went to Nice and Monico. Wed we went to market again but in La Garde Freiner this time and met a lovely women over olives. She promptly invited us on a tour of the town and her friends "typical french house" and we took her home for dinner and pool time. She then took us to this lookout above the village to watch the sunset and have "sun downs" basically a night cap. Its been lovely, relaxing and down right unbelievable. How can I ever go back to normal life after this! Tomorrow we are headed to the sea. Then Friday staying home and horse back riding. Saturday we have to check out early and head to St. Remy. I will be sad to leave this place. You should have seen Coleen Tawni Mom and Brenna biking through the vinyards this evening. Surreal!

Catching up by the pool in Provance

Okay so the night before we left Paris we arrived home to find mom and nana just arriving. (They hadn't made it to the church) They had closed the Louvre at 9 only to find that the metro station had closed too. They spent 3 hours walking home!

The next morning we were up, packed and checked out by 830am. Good timing we thought! We had rented a shuttle to get all of our bags and nana, barbie, mom kara and evie to the train station and we took the metro. Splitting up for coffee and other purchases we lost a little time. Arriving at the station there were 15 mins to spare but we couldn't find the shuttle. Then the machines would only stamp half our vouchers. A man handling our luggage stuffed it in a side door and told us to get on the train before it left us. Mom almost didn't make it trying to give him a tip. He was very helpful (and very cute) and didn't really speak english. Luckily the train left 5 mins late. We sat down harried high strung and ready for the 4 hour ride. I had bought bread and fruit so at least we had food! There was a very nice gentleman in our car who decided to play tour guide host and coleen became an inquisitor. We learned a ton of stuff about the train how to get around what to avoid etc. The land started to change from flat and green to hilly and green. Then we crossed a river and everything turned yellow and dry. Then we saw the sea! This is what I have always dreamed of...vineyards and red roofed, white washed houses with green shutters and flowering vines next to the sea. All was well till it was our stop. We got off and realized our bags were in a locked room behind our car. The train whistled its warning and Mom and Beth opened the engine compartment in a desperate attempt to look for our bags which promptly got the attention of the non existent coach men who yelled for them to stop. If this had not happened the train would have left us standing empty handed. Relieved we packed our stuff to the car rental agency only to find that (two drivers down) everything was going to be more expensive then we thought. A lovely women who knew as much english as I knew french tried to help us understand that we had to insure the cars. Either decline their insurance and reserve 50,000 Euro on your credit card OR "la petite" insurance for 14 Euro a day plus reserve 1600 Euro on your credit card (who has that kind of limit?) An hour and a half later we had 4 cars, 4 drivers and a car seat. Now if you think, whew its finally over you are regrettably wrong. Who knows where the map went that the helpful man gave us while teaching us how to drive our Euro cars. Try 4 american drivers trying to find each other on tiny streets, lots of traffic and pedestrians and bicycles and motor cycles splitting lanes and all the cars look the same! We finally put the bright yellow safely vests in our back windows and drove around and around the round abouts till we were all together and the lead car would figure out where we wanted to go. My car was me and mom. We basically just giggled the whole time. Lu's car had music pumped up real loud. Tawni had Barbie and Nana I guess there's had a bit of gasping with each entrance and exit of round abouts and splitting hairs with cyclists. Coleen and beths car was the lead car...so you can imagine how relieved we were when 2 hours after we left the rental car garage we finally left the little town of St Raphael! We followed the sea to St Maximes and headed inland. Here is were Beth slowed down and we caused a traffic jam. Imagine one lane divided into two with a steep cliff on one side and rocks and trees on the other as curvey as you can possibly imagine climbing up up up! We passed thru a beautiful town of La Garde F...something at sunset and we feel in love with Provance even after its not so welcome welcome. Arriving at our house we were welcomed with the customary bread wine meat and cheese platter which made us all melt onto the patio over looking the vineyard cheering and laughing about the entire escapade! Then we all changed into swim wear and jumped in the pool. I am still fighting a sinus headache so I went to bed after that.

Goodbye Paris!

I'm a little behind so I'll combine yesterday and today in one blog. Yesterday was pretty darn sweet. Besides the fact that I finally had my own clothes to change into, we all over slept and spread out doing different stuff. Brenna and Coleen went to the Champse le Sey to go shopping, my sisters and I went to the Arc de Triumph, Barbie Nana Beth and mom got on a "hop on hop off" tour bus that drove them around town to different sights and museums. We all met on Pier 7 for a lunch cruise on the Sein. I think that was a high light for all of us. Ill write more later...need some sleep. More about funky round abouts! Stay tuned

I am sorry. I had a really bad head ache andI fell asleep last night in the middle of blogging, woke up and realized I hadn't posted it. SO! Lunch tour was awesome, we all dressed up, ate fancy food, I played historian since we couldn't understand the tour guide over the pa system, there was a lovely violinist and piano player playing live music. It was awesome! Then we split up again with the intention of meeting together just after 9 at the highest point in Paris, Sacre Coure. Morris girls went back to Arc de Triumph to climb to the top (very breezy, awesome views, evie needed a nap) then we went back to the hotel. Mom, Nana, and Beth continued to do the hop on hop off tours. Tawni, Coleen, and Brenna continued to shop. Everyone but mom and nana ended up at the hotel before leaving for "soccer cracker". Barbie wanted to stay home and keep Evie. Mom and Nana had decided to hit the Louvre one more time 6-9 and meet is at the church. Coleen bought cheese and baggets. I bought wine tomatoes and straw berries and the rest of us set off for the Bastille. There are many stairs to get to the top! It was fun and felt never ending but the top was amazing and the view was surreal. There was a consert going on outside and they were holding a mass inside so we sat on the steps eating our dinner while partaking in both worlds. It was beautiful. On the way back we had planned on stopping to see Moulan Rouge but in the subway this guy tried to take my phone out of my hand and then proceeded to kick a vending machine till it gave up all its euro. Everyone in the station was nervous and upset. We left for home instead. Margaret and I broke off from the group to watch the Eiffle tower sparkle. That was worth coming to Paris for. Then we walked home and had an Irish Coffee before going up to bed. It was fun to watch the little restaurant next door close up shop. They have 7-9 people close. Everything, tables chairs and benches get stuffed inside the little shop and then they sweep the street! They are so efficiant and so fast. I had already packed so I was ready for the next mornings departure...I'm going to take a nap and then I will tell you more ;-)

Giverny and Versialles

What an overwhelming day. I'm exhausted. Its midnight AGAIN and I can hardly process all the stuff I saw and the stories I heard. I learned more about Monet than I have ever learned in an art history class room. (Probably a good thing. I didn't need any more amo to use against my teachers) Dude! He painted pure colors. He didn't mix them on his pallet. He also didn't care to learn the names of his flowers. All he cared about was their color. They were his pallet! There is 7 minutes between changes in light so working fast and on many paintings at once is a good thing. His water lily pond series numbered in the 200's! Oh and he loved cooking. What is not to like about a painter who loves to garden and cook! There is something to say about immersion being the best way to learn something. Actually experiencing the places he saw and painted...awe inspiring! Oh! And our tour guide was exceptional and hilarious! And our skillful driver scared the living day lights out of the Austrailian couple as he weaved our double decker bus in and out of these tiny 1/2 lane wide villages chasing their little cars onto sidewalks or to stop dead in their tracks only to reverse all the way thru town to the nearest side street! There were houses built into the smooth white stone cliffs because originally if you didn't have a man made roof in France then you didn't have to pay taxes. The Sein Vally was beautiful and the poppies and bachelor buttons were in full bloom. Then to top it off the Palace of Versialles! It only took 49 years to build it but it made me feel so small and insignificant! Louis XIV aka the sun king definitely had an appreciation for Roman mythology, Etiquette, and of course himself. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer! Amazing! That alone was enough to give a person a month to study and explore to scratch the surface and we only had 3 hours! We didn't even hardly touch the 2000 acres of gardens, lakes, and Marie Anntionetts little village! It was grand and my feet were sore. Upon returning to the hotel aunt Coleen realized someone had swiped the wallet from her zipped purse and re zipped it! Money, cards, drivers license gone. Not only are we two drivers down now (since I left mine at home not thinking correctly) we were hungry tired and pissed. We went to the corner cafe and had dinner. That definitely helped. A little wine, bread and cheese and good food including creme brule and the best Irish coffee I have EVER had served by the cutest french guy I have seen so far. Kara says I can't take him home cause he makes this annoying rooster sound. Back at the hotel my bag still had not arrived. We went up to our room to get ready to head to the Eiffle Tower to see it sparkle in the hour and our phone rang. My bag had FINALLY arrived! I was so excited tired and decided to stay home with Evie and go to bed. I had planned on going to Sacur Coure early tomorrow before the sun rose but I think I will let Paris wake me up instead (or Evie which ever comes first!) Maybe the next morning right before we leave...

We made it to Paris!

That's the gist of it. All of us are here and I'm the only one who's bag got lost. Hopefully it will show up tomorrow evening. For now I'm borrowing clothes. The gentleman who helped me process my lost luggage has met Larry Kroon at a convention. I must say this world gets smaller and smaller. All day I kept looking around expecting to see someone I knew after that! Margaret and I went on quite the adventure while most everybody took a nap. We walked non stop for hours! Saw the outside of almost every museum/monument and had crepes with nutella and our first cafe and bought 2 paintings from this guy who was painting near the Sein and learned the metro system in 7 hours. My feet were bleeding by the time we rejoined the group under the Eiffle tower for wine and pizza. (My walking shoes and everything else is in the lost bag) now its late. My roommates Evie and Kara are crashed out as I should be. Early morning to Guverny and Versilles! (Please ignore misspelled words) Good night!