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Published: April 11th 2007
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Friday night I stayed with Eric Fournier at his mom’s house in Chesse, a suberb of Paris. We spent the evening at his friend, Phillipe’s house watching a soccer match between Marseille and Lille. Eric is a Marseille fan. Then we went back to Eric’s house to sleep. I slept in the kids’ playroom on a little mattress in the corner of the room.
The next morning Eric's two kids and their mom arrived. Eric had bought mini-croissants, pain raisins, and pain chocolat at the Boulangerie, so we had our coffee and ate croissants. Then we got in the car and headed for Disney.
The two kids, Candide (3) and Lois (4.5) are really cute. They have lots of energy and they eat at every moment in the day.
Disney here is no different (though a little smaller and less grandiose) than the Disney in the US. We did not actually go into the park, we just explored what is called Disney Village—a strip with restaurants and shops and music playing, Disney characters walking around, and a few rides and activities that you can pay for individually. The kids rode the merry-go-round (as did I), and then
we all rode up in a hot air balloon that gave us a great view of Disney. We ate lunch in the Rainforest Café, a huge restaurant with elephants that move and jungle décor, mood lighting, and every 15 minutes or so there is a simulated thunder storm. It was cool. Our table was right next to the mama elephant—Candide was afraid of her so he sat in the seat furthest away, but was glued on the elephants the whole meal. Later on Lois was running around the restaurant and fell, she slipped and a shard of glass was lodged in her finger. It was a minor emergency, but amazingly she did not cry the whole time.
After Disney we went back to Eric’s mom’s and had cake and coffee and visited with his brother’s wife and kids. Then we went to his aunt’s house to visit his dad and some more relatives on that side of the family.
Besides getting getting to go to Disney and hang out with Eric and his kids, the other reason for staying with Eric in Paris was to pick up the car that Eric had offered to lend to me for
McDisney
A huge McDonald's in Disney Village the rest of my time in France. After our day at Disney and visiting with family, we went to check out the car he was to lend me and to give it a test drive. I turned the key but the car would not start; dead battery.
At about 8 pm, after having made the trip there and back from his aunt’s house to retrieve jumper cables and jump the car, and after a big meal at Eric’s aunt’s house, I hit the road in my new (old) pink Fiat armed with Eric’s GPS system. It felt good to finally be driving, having a bit of independence for a bit.
The coolest thing about GPS is that when you get lost, the GPS system immediately reroutes itself and finds the next-fastest way to get where you are going from your newly found (lost) position. This came in handy in Paris especially, where for about 5 minutes all I did was take wrong turns. More than anything else it helped me keep from getting stressed out by the fact that I had no idea where I was going. In essence, you CAN’T get lost with GPS because it always
knows where you are. What a crazy concept.
I passed two police checkpoints on my way home but was not stopped by either of them.
As I pulled into Le Vaudreul, around 10:15, the battery light illuminated itself on the dashboard. I wouldn’t be surprised if the car does not start when I try it today.
Today I spent about an hour cleaning out my new pink Fiat. Once I was done cleaning it out I checked the glove compartment to make sure I had all the proper papers and certificates for the car. In fact, the car was without papers, something I had not considered the night before when leaving Paris. And the insurance tag on the car is about six months out of date. (Good thing that I was not stopped at the checkpoints the night before).
So, in fact, I have a car, it is clean, but I cannot drive it. A minor setback, but I am sure it will work itself out in the coming days.
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m and l
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hey will, i think lori had a fiat once...altho not hot pink!!