Just a bunch of bullets

I thought I’d take a moment and give you my impressions of Paris, the ones that you can’t see in the pictures.

Just some stuff

• Interestingly I have now navigated my way through the subways of New York, London, Paris, Boston, and Baltimore. I like the subway, but there is no room for loiterers or much time for learning on the subway. I paused to look at a map in Paris and a soccer mom grabbed me by the shoulder and tossed me aside. I didn’t even have time to react and she was gone.

• I didn’t find the Parisians to be as rude as they are rumored to be. I did, however, find them amused at us. When it became apparent that we were Americans or outsiders, they got this little smirk on their faces and I think they slipped us different menus. We had two completely different experiences dining in Paris. We had two meals that were wonderful, fun, interesting and had none of the brusque manner I expected. The rest of the meals were either not very good or were served with a smirk and enough service to get you fed and out. I will let Jen blog about the two great meals. These types of experiences are better served by her writing style.

• I think you would need to dedicate about two weeks time to properly experience Paris and that is just to get a well rounded experience. To REALLY experience it I think you might have to live there and I don’t think I could afford it.

• We really should look into the situation in Sri Lanka. I only mention this because the protest that went on outside our hotel every night makes me wish there wasn’t a situation in Sri Lanka.

Funny things that happened

• I almost drove us on to the tram tracks in Brussels. Sorry Piet, but your car almost became part of the Brussels public transportation system.

• I watched the most inept fire juggler in the world. I only watched him for as long as I did because he had a huge dreadlock hairdo and I was convinced that he was going to turn into the best fire dancer in the world at any minute.

• Curiously I only came up with 2 funny things.

Here are a couple of random photos from the trip. The rest are going on to shutterfly today for your complete perusal.

To the Tower!!

It’s unfortunate that blogs read the way they do. To get the whole Paris experience you should probably scroll down and start from the beginning.

We decided that the best way to see as much of Paris as possible in the limited time we had was to take the infamous open top bus tour. For those of you that read our London exploits you will know that this is Sam’s favorite way to get about town. He actually sits there with 20 cent headphones plugged into their jack and most of the time listens to the guide in the proper language. I can’t be sure he is paying attention, but maybe if even a little bit gets in there by osmosis we are ahead of the game. Since we are on the topic of Sam, you might also know that Sam has created a “list of things to do before I get too old to do them” list. On that list was to visit the Eiffel tower in Paris. He might now be the only child I know to not only have a “list”, but to also have crossed off a major milestone on that list. Once again Mr. “I’m too tired” knocked us on our heels and proceeded to tromp up the stairs of the Eiffel tower like a champ. Apparently there are roughly 1700 steps to the top, top, top of the tower. I think we managed to do half of them before rain cut our trip short. Here are a pile of shots from our Eiffel experience.

2 days in Paris

I will have to stretch this post out for a while as it will encompass so much information I will get lost. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

I am a math person. I’m not sure how this happened and I’m sure Mrs. Bielema won’t believe it, but it’s true. I’ll help you follow along. A train leaves Brussels at 10:30. A car leaves Gapinge at 7:30. The trip takes approximately 90 minutes. Will they make it? If you are also a math person you answer, “Of course! How could they not?” If you were travelling with us this weekend you answer is, of course, “NO – Screw the Belgians and their lack of signs!” Armed with a GPS and plenty of time, we didn’t allow for a variable. A bank holiday. For those of you that aren’t versed in the bank holiday, it is a random day off that occurs quite frequently in Europe for little or no real reason. Bottom line is that we missed the train. Once Jen pulled some “I speak French, so I must not be too bad” trick, the guy behind the counter booked us on the next train an hour later.

At this point I will spare you some details and let you know that we arrived in Paris about 90 minutes later, made it to our hotel safely, and set out to see what we could see. We had plans to meet some friends of Jen’s sister for dinner. This is also another story for another time. Here are a couple of pictures of our activity for the first afternoon and some proof that we did, indeed, make it to Paris.

Paris – The Return

We are back from Paris and as expected there are many stories to tell. We had a great time and a great Mother’s day. I owe my mom a big Mother’s day now since she didn’t join us in Paris. I will make it up to her. She is a great mom. It must be true if I typed it here. Love you mom.

Thanks Shane for throwing a story or two in here to keep it lively. I have to scream PHOTOSHOP to my people though. Some of them haven’t seen me in a while and they might think that is actually me. I will have proof tomorrow….although I haven’t looked at the pictures very closely, I might actually look like that. Nice job ShaneCal.

More soon everyone. Larry is still doing well in Orion, no news. Ron Farwell is being looked after in Iowa and being treated. I’ve decided that all that means is that he is getting better and that’s good enough for me.

Paris

We are off to Paris for the weekend and are hoping the weather give us a chance to experience the city the right way. We are meeting some friends for dinner on Friday night and then who knows what’s in store for the rest of the weekend.

I have asked a friend of mine to keep you entertained while I’m away. His name is Shane and he has a similar sense of humor and style, so I thought he would be a good guest blogger while I was out gathering pictures and stories from France. Feel free to harass him by commenting on his stuff or if you really want to bother him I’ll give you his phone number.

On a similar note….if any of you have info. that you would like to share with the other readers of the blog, please let me know and I can give you a link to publish your own entries and updates. It’s called “We Love Larry”, but there is room for anyone. Send me an e-mail if you want to participate or share some of your own writing here. joncarroll01@gmail.com or jcarroll01@verizon.net.

Au revoir!