October: Paris et al
A couple of Mondays have passed with no blog. It’s been the usual combination of laziness & alcohol I’m afraid but with so much coming up it’s necessary to catch up.
I left you on 6 October with stories of wedding & Concorde, the next day was Karen’s birthday and I surprised her with a trip to Paris, just there and back in a day on Easyjet but it’s somewhere I’d always fancied and it was a fairly safe bet that Pezza would enjoy it besides, it’s cheaper and quicker to get to Paris than it is to get to London.
Our day began early getting to Liverpool airport in time for our 7.50am flight. We didn’t need to get there too early as we had no bags to check in and could make our way straight to security. As we flew a budget airline, nothing went wrong (it tends to be national carriers who screw me over the most). We landed and got the train to Paris for around 10am and headed straight for the touristy things such as Notre Dame & the Louvre (home to the Mona Lisa for those who haven’t read/seen the Da Vinci Code). We didn’t go into the Louvre, I’m not a very museumy kind of chap and we already know what the Mona Lisa looks like so we didn’t go into the Louvre and instead continued walking through the gardens towards the Champs Elysee for some lunch.
We then continued our Paris Day with a trip up the Eiffel Tower and a boat ride along the Seine. We had an hour or so to kill but we couldn’t find a Starbucks anywhere so we had to settle for a stunning 19th century tea room called Laduree where we ordered (accidentally) the sweetest chocolate chaud you could wish for and a pain au chocolat each. It’s places like this that highlight what’s wrong with chains such as Starbucks and Caffe Nero – we need more independent places (like Coffee Revolution in Sheffield, home of the legendary gentleman’s coffee mornings!).
We made our way to the airport shortly after rush hour traffic and were home by 11.00pm. I did weigh up the pros and cons of staying the night in Paris and all we would have benefited from a good night on the tube but it was quite rewarding simply popping to Paris and back in a day and I would certainly recommend it.
Aside from that we’ve had the girls’ first snowboarding lesson this Monday and they have two more booked for the next couple of Mondays and we’re narrowing down our selection of boards to buy for the winter. We were originally planning on choosing our stuff in the UK and then buying it when we’re in Chicago but at the rate the pound is falling we’ll soon be seeing Yanks coming here to go shopping!
Between now and our relocation to Tignes we’ve got a very busy schedule with a weekend in London this weekend for the NFL and Vegas/Chicago is less than three weeks away. Before all that though we have the latest in the series of Foden Leaving Dos as they are moving to Dubai on Monday to earn billions of Dirhams for couple of years to set them up in life, it’s Walkabout on Friday then!
For those who don’t know what the Mona Lisa looks like, here is the lady in her Halloween costume:
Loads more MonaLisa-isms here.
A blog this Monday may be optimistic – we’re travelling back up from London on the train and will be in a state from a good three day session so it may be Tues/Weds.
Andy.
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