Mutterings have been heard that your correspondent and husband do nothing but involve themselves in worthy pursuits such as taking health-giving walks, festival -reconnoitring, and do-it-yourself projects. We wish to refute this with evidence that this week at least, we have done absolutely nothing but enjoy ourselves. This is partly because of the scorching weather we’ve been having, and partly because all that activity repairing the roof has left Malcolm with an extremely poorly back, which is slowly recovering, with the help of physiotherapy down at the local clinic and an indolent lifestyle. Yesterday for instance, we strolled up to the [View Full Entry]

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once upon a time a young girl returned to her homeland after a long and magical carpet ride around the orient. being home only a short time, she soon found herself once again taking off, this time to a kingdom, a united kingdom, far far away. she was brought there by her fairy god-sister who was living in the kingdom across the water. upon the young girls arrival her fairy god-sister surprised the young girl with a trip to a tiny town in the land of leprechauns. rainbows, green grass and guiness were not the inspiration for the trip. their grandfather [View Full Entry]

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It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that things would be the same as last time. Since I had already spent a year in Bordeaux, France, I felt that I knew pretty well what to expect this time in Paris. I remember that last year, I experienced the “culture shock” quite intensely as I discovered something new every day in France. I was surprised about even the little things, such as drinking water from wine glasses, stores closes on Sundays (and Mondays), having to give a “bisous” (kiss on the cheek) when greeting people… and when to just [View Full Entry]

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From Matt - Hey yall, We are in Paris and on a QWERTY keyboard. Isn't that ironic! We landed tuesday morning from Joburg and hit the ground running. Vance found a laundromat while I took Rush up to Sacre Cour. We are staying in Montmartre. Everything is either up or down. Lots of stairs and our legs are in good shape now. Paris is just as expensive as London so we are looking forward to getting home where prices are much better. Better bring your big cash if you plan on visiting Europe this year. Simple lunch is 12 - 15 [View Full Entry]

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Today I woke up early and went took a walk to the boulangerie, épicerie and patisserie. We needed some bread (I bought a baguette and 2 pains aux raisins...mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMM!), some staples (mainly cheese!) and a pâté de pomme de terre for dinner (on Jean-François's advice! - I had forgotten about it!). I also dropped into the butcher's to say Hi to Chantal and to get a bit of jambon. After a nice breakfast we decided we'd go to Guéret and see if we could catch the market there today and to have lunch at La Belle Epoque. Mom left me some [View Full Entry]

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Well, today was busy, though perhaps not so interesting. I decided before heading out this morning from the hostel that I would get the Nantes 24h pass which allowed free transportation on any of their tram or buslines, and free entry into a bunch of places. For 16 euros, I thought I had better make it worth my while. I wound up going to the castle first, and going through the museum. Not being a big museum person, I was getting bored about halfway through. I had hoped that there would be rooms in the castle set up like they would [View Full Entry]

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It was our last day in Bordeaux and our last day with our amazing and wonderful hosts, Jean-François and Colette. I have no idea how we will ever be able to repay them for their kindnesses and hospitality! We have been STRONGLY suggesting a trip to Calgary to them so we will see :) Being able to spend time with them has been one of the highlights of our trip (mine and mom's and Ken's) and we are so very blessed to know them! We left Bordeaux around 10:45 am after we made a stop at the Europcar office to add [View Full Entry]

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This blog is being posted on Tuesday because when we arrived at our hotel in London, I found we had to pay for the Internet... and being cheap, I am only paying for one 24 hour period. So, the final four blogs will be posted during this 24 hour period. It's 10 pounds for gawd sakes. It’s Good To Be The King… We only have a short stay in Paris, so we are squeezing in as much as possible. Today, Sunday, could be classified as “Seeing Paris in 50 Minutes or Less.” Actually, our day consisted of a bus tour around [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour, Paris was excellent for the most part! We arrived about 10.00am Monday morning, jumped straight on the on & off bus tour (a bus tour which has three different lines that takes you all around Paris and you can get on and off as you please and just wait for the next bus to come along once you have done your tourist thing), so the first place we went was Notre Dame, here I seperated from James, June and the kids to carry on the tour by myself as we wanted to do different things, so I carried on to [View Full Entry]

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Alp D'Huez Wow - I am sitting at the top of Alp D'Huez after riding up this morning. We just met with ·Phil Liggett and got our photo taken with him, he signed our jerseys and we presented him with one of his own! Phil loved it. All having a great time and we will be about 3 kms from the finish at Alp D'Huez yelling like hell for cadel. Heaps of Aussies here and cadel cadel cadel painted all over the road. Its wild up here in the village - thousands of people and a real party atmosphere. The [View Full Entry]

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