Larryvinson

Day Eight…Having fun in Paris Today was packed with surprises…Did you know that they run the French Peachtree Road Race? Well, we saw it today. Of course, it is run along the Seine River. It appeared to be as large as the Peachtree. The amazing part was that there were bands set up along the Seine. We took pictures of two of them. One band was playing “Mustang Sally” and the other was playing “Take me to the River.” Both in English….Amazing! Can you imagine bands at the Peachtree Road Race playing French songs? I don’t think that is going to happen. We toured the Orsay Museum. It was fantastic… Saw lots of women’s breast… We also visited Notre Dame and stood on the geographic center of Paris. There is a plague where which all distances ... read more

Day Six….A day of Chateaus We were able to see three great Chateaus today and all were totally different. Gail of course had some tense moments while I was driving through the country side and small towns. The first of the trio was Chateau de Chenonceau, which is right next door to our hotel. It is fantastic and was built around the 16th century and filled with many fantastic works of art. We really enjoyed the Chateau, but will not bore you with details (see the pix). The second was the Estate of Chambord. The Chateau was begun in 1515 and finally finished in the 1700’s. It is one of the largest in France and the one thought I brought away was “If one is concerned about the completion of things one will never begin”. The ... read more

Day four: Going to Beaune Today started early. Our room in our charming little hotel faced the street. They started emptying garbage cans around 5:00 AM. Of course, we both woke up and started the day. The best way I can describe the bathing situation is to say that it was a tub/shower. There was a tub, and a hand held shower nozzle, but there was no shower curtain. The best we could do was to squat in the tub, and spray our bodies. Larry had to help me rinse my hair, which was hysterical. I washed my hair before I realize that the blow-dryer was really a vacuum cleaner hose (see pix). (I forgot to mention that the first day in Stuttgart I turned my hair dryer on and it immediately burned out). We ... read more

Day two… October 5, 2009…The Day of the Car We left Stuttgart after breakfast and headed to Sindelfingen to pick up the car. The whole day consisted of setting up paper work, an informational presentation about the history of the Mercedes (more on this later), a factory tour, and finally getting the car. We imagine that the presentation was extremely informative; however, somehow we ended up in the German presentation. We were a little confused as to why they did not do one in English, but we just set there through the whole thing not understanding anything, but Tuscaloosa, Alabama (they made reference to their other facilities). Before the tour was to board the buses for the factory, they handed out headsets. At this point, we asked for headsets in English, the Mercedes presenter said, “You ... read more