Day 9

Today we woke up to beautiful warm weather and calm wind. People started taking their boats out on the water, and it made me wish we didn't have to wait a few more days before we can take our boat out.





Malorie had a relaxing day on the boat while Linds and I explored the town a little.



Our main objectives for the day were just to acomplish a few simple tasks (find wi-fi so that Linds could start working on a website deadline, get power working on the boat, exchange some money, groceries, etc). These simple things took most of the day. Sometimes on days like this Lindsay and I pretend that we are training for The Amazing Race.









The weather and the sunshine made everything so perfect and lovely. Except when Mal locked us out and Lindsay had to climb through the window.

Day 8

We finally made it to the boat! This little beauty, the Lagoon 380 is where we will reside for the next few months. The captionairre at the port helped us get our things on board. For the time being (until Alan arrives) getting on and off the boat requires hopping from the dock to the boat next to us and then over to our boat.





This wind is still strong today, so part of the strategy to getting on board is waiting for the right wind to blow the boats close to one another to hop over. We'll take you on a little tour of the place. This is the Salon.



This is bedroom #1 to the right.



Bedroom #2 to the left.



Bedroom#3 to the left.



There is a bathroom with a full sized shower and a smaller bathroom with no shower on the other side. It's nice and new. We spent a little time moving ourselves in and then headed out to have a little lunch to celebrate how far we've come.



This is the pier where the boat lives.



There are a lot of good restaruants along the pier. Especially good seafood. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in our new home. We watched Marie Antoinette on the laptop for fun since we just went to Versaille.

Day 7

Au Revoir Paris!!

We packed up our bags again and headed for the train station. We left Paris at 11:50 for a 3 hour train ride to Toulon. It was fun to see some of the country side.









We shared a seat with some 12 year old soccer players that thought it was pretty funny that we didn't speak French.

We made it to Toulon



and when when we walked out of the train station we were blasted with wind. There is some sort of wind storm for the next 3 days but it was sunny and pretty warm.



We dragged all our luggage down to the ocean in search of the port where the boat is docked. I seem to recall my dad saying "it's basically just across the street from the train station" however it was more like a mile from the train station. Thanks Dad. Once we got to the water Mal and Juls waited with all our luggage while I went to find the Capianairre.



I finally found the office at the very end of the pier only to find that they had closed early at 4:00pm because of the French holiday. It was 4:20pm. We decided we better find a hotel. Luckily it was the end of the 3 day weekend and we found a really cheap hotel with free wi-fi! We got caught up on our blog a little and wrote some emails. It was also right next door to this huge mall where they have a sore like Target Greatland so we stocked up on a few things. Toulon is a great little beach town. It will be our home for the next week.

Day 6

Last full day in Paris! And boy oh boy did we pack it in! First stop was the Louvre, which I had been looking forward to since we got to Paris. And it WAS AWESOME! We saw the Mona Lisa, mummy tombs, and Napolean's apartments but there was no way we could see it all in such a short time. That place is huge, over 35,000 works of art.










It used to be a palace before Versaille was built, which was our next stop of the day. But before we got to Versaille, we had a quick delicious French lunch.



There was a huge line outside, so we had to wait in the rain for about a half hour, but Versaille was so worth it. We took the audio tour of the main house,



saw the famous Hall of Mirrors, the Kings bedroom, and the Queens, and then explored the gardens.







We found a little hidden Brasserie in the gardens where we ordered chocolate crepes, and they were delicious! Then we took our own little tour of Marie Antoinette's private estates. It must have been closed, because there weren't many people around. While looking for a bathroom, we "accidently" stumbled upon an entrance to what looked like the stable of the Petite Triannon, and looked through some windows to see inside the house. That was exciting! Then we realized how late it was, and headed back on our way to our last stop, Notre Dame.



We didn't make it in time for the tour, but the lighting was just perfect for pictures. By now we had walked a million miles, and taken a trillion subways, so we headed home for some rest. Tomorrow... TOULON!!

Day 5

First stop today was at the Catacombs in the underground tunnels of Paris. The Catacombs were creepy but also intriguing the way the bones are arranged in such an orderly and decorative fashion. I don't think I've ever really been around human bones before...and it wasn't that relaxing. The history of these tunnels is so interesting. A lot of the bones belonged to people who were involved in an important time in French history.





Afterwards, we decided to walk around above ground through the surrounding neighborhood. We came across an outdoor street market with a lot of good food (fancy cheese, produce, etc.). We got a few things and walked to the park to eat. A nice homeless woman talked to us for a while in French. My French is limited but I'm pretty sure she said that her brother is a pilot at the White House.



Next stop after lunch was the Champs-Elysee. It's near the Arc De Triumph, but we didn't really get to see it much the day before because of the rain. We had fun shopping here but didn't make a lot of purchases since we still have a long trip ahead of us that we are budgeting for.





After the Champs-Elysee we walked to the Golden Spike and then down along the Siene River for quite a ways. I love walking along the river!





While we were strolling along I happened to catch Lindsay making this pose while she was snapping a photo:





It inspired this body of work that I will be adding to throughout the trip:









Also along the river we came across this Segway tour which made me kind of jealous:



Then we crossed over to the gardens and started a little walking tour that a Frenchman (who is the husband of a friend of a roomate) gave us. It walked us through a beautiful part of Paris called the Tulleries. All of the buildings in this part of Paris are beautiful and the stores are really fancy and expensive. Most of them were closed by this time of day but we did some window shopping, and enjoyed seeing the Opera house, etc.









We finally made it to the Eiffel tower around 10:00. It's easy to stay out all night in Paris in the Spring because even at 10:00 at night it is still isn't fully dark outside. In the evenings there is a light show at the Eiffel Tower every hour.





We watched the lights and then Lindsay and I walked up the stairs to the second platform of the Eiffel Tower. We would have probably preferred the elevators, but the line was really really long. Malorie couldn't fathom walking up that many stairs after a long day of walking and so she waited for us at the bottom.



It was a lot of stairs but it really wasn't that bad. Maybe I'm just getting used to walking for 10 hours a day.



This is the view from the top: We've been told that the best view of the Eiffel Tower is actually from the Trocadero so we walked over to it to check out the view from there.