Off to Paris

We were off earlier today and headed to the channel. An easy drive with our new Sat Nav making light of the directions. Honestly I can't believe we have been doing without it over the past four months. Sue once had to drop off the kids at Northorp Hall before going to work in Saltney. Unfortunately she ended up 15 miles away in Wrexham. 

We had forgot to print the tickets for the channel and stressed as we headed the car queue. Sue popped out to talk to an attendant when Julia spotted our name on the ticket printing machine. Technology, beats us!! The kids were all excited as we drove onto a train headed under the water. It didn't disappoint and we all got out to look at the marine life. OK maybe not, but it didn't take long for Holly to make a new friend and for me to talk to our Dutch neighbour. Holly's great for that type of thing and just assumes every new person is an old friend.

The first impressions of France were fantastic. Where have all the cars gone? The motorway was only two lanes but instead of watching the break light of the car 20m ahead with concern I found myself gazing over the serial countryside. Occasionally we indicated and over took a car but generally cruised along. Things were a little different near Paris however. 

We had arranged to meet our host Christophe at our apartment at 6pm as he had to work. We had plenty of time so even stopped at a park for the kids to ride on a carousel. Our Sat Nat told us we had plenty of time. We entered Paris and the closer we got to our destination the slower we went and the more the arrival time pushed out. Garmin don't seem to take this into account, and you would think we would anticipate peak hour traffic by now.

We arrived at about 6.20pm kind of. There we were in Paris near the destination but not exactly. We couldn't read French and couldn't use our cell phone. We asked a couple of locals (who were all very friendly if not terribly helpful) for help. We drove around a couple of streets and someone offered to ring Christophe's cell phone for us. After what seemed like a lengthy call we were sent up a couple of streets. Luckily a man shortly tapped on our window and announced himself as Christophe. He lead us off in the opposite direction to the apartment.

Its great here. So close to Paris and we are only paying $130 a night. If you ever want a place for a family (2 bedroom) try wimdu or airbnb. This guys like out of the Big Bag Theory. Has three TV's a massive Blueray collection, heaps of figurines of all sorts of tv characters and books for China. Thankfully Holly has been restrained. The apartment is lovely and brightly coloured as only a Frenchman could do.