Shopping: Brossac Village, Chalais and Barbezieux Brossac village is about a mile from La Giraudiere and offered basic amenities including two boulangeries and a butcher. There are two restaurants, Mamie Bulles and Saint Bernard that served traditional French cuisine and had bars. A third restaurant, Quaid Sud, is just outside of the village across from Brossac Lake. It is a Cuban-themed setting with a bar that served cucarachas, a flaming alcoholic drink. There was a small outdoor market on Saturday mornings with local products and fish brought in from the seacoast. Brossac also had [View Full Entry]

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Versailles Now with more Hedgie by request! Today Hedgie and I got up bright and early to have breakfast and to get to the palace of Versailles around 9 a.m. when it opened. This involved two short métro trips followed by a 30-minute RER-train ride to Versailles on the outskirts of Paris. The palace is about 5 minutes from the train station, and most of that time is spent walking through Louis XIV's front yard, which is now a parking lot for charter buses. The gentlemen who sell figurines of the Eiffel Tower and flapping plastic birds must be required to [View Full Entry]

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Friday Night Football Dinner The first weekend was the end-of-the-season football tournament and celebration. Paul was part of the football club and our group was helping with preparation and clean up for the events. There was a kick-off dinner on Friday evening after the football game and the tournament and celebratory dinner and dance filled the next three days and nights. Friday’s dinner at Mamie Bulles, a short walk from the pitch, began around 10pm, and we filled a long table set for 50 to 60 people. With 25 or so people on each side of the table, we were stacked [View Full Entry]

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Paris, Paris, Paris!! Hello all! Im sorry that I have not been as faithful in updating the blog, it seems that Paris does not have internet cafes? It is very strange! haha right now we are actually in Munich, but Ill tell you about gay Paris first! The chunnel trip was great, so quick and comfortable! I didnt even notice when we went under water! When we arrived in Paris on Wednesday around noon, Michael and I set out to find our hostel in the 4th arr. (abbreviation for french word for district) We arrived at our metro stop, Hotel [View Full Entry]

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So on Thursday we ventured out to the Normandy region to tour the DDay beaches. Once we arrived at the Caen train station we had planned on simply hopping on a bus out to the beaches and doing a tour ourselves, but that was not what happened at all... I heard a man talking to two American boys about a tour to the beaches and how he would drive them and simultaneously give them a history of the area and invasion. They noticed Michael and I listening in so invited us to join them on their tour, lowering the cost for [View Full Entry]

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its funny how when things go wrong, they just seem to work out right So on Friday, we woke up and had our final delicious breakfast at the hostel (oh how i love baguettes and beurre! and pain au chocolat!). then we set off to drop our luggage off at Gare L'Est and headed off to Montmarte. We were following a Paris walks guide my parents gave me around Montmarte to Sacre Couer. For those who dont know, Montmarte is a region in Paris that basically is a hill and on the top is a basilica called Sacre Couer. We [View Full Entry]

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Here are the pics from our first time in France (Paris down through the Loir Valley and Cacassone down to Spain). [View Full Entry]

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Today was another travel day for me. I woke up early with Flore and her mother around 8 o clock in the morning and got my things ready to leave. Flore and her mother were making there way to the north of France to meet Flore’s father where he was working for the week. They were taking the car and so they dropped me off at the train station so that I could catch my train at 11:52 am. I sat and waited in a special waiting area inside the Dijon train station and read a lot of A Clockwork [View Full Entry]

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Pics from our second time into France (South of France)... [View Full Entry]

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And the third and last time in France (only a few days), from Switzerland up to Calais. [View Full Entry]

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