The places we've been, The things we've seen, The Bathrooms we've stopped at

So a couple of days ago (I forget since it’s been so long since my last blog post) we went to a little place called Orange. It actually isn’t that little because it gets its own arch de triomphe and it has a really old and really big stadium/opera house. We parked and went into their little market (there is one in a different city each day) It was a really big market. We looked around not buying anything when we came across a really old church. We went inside and the sign said 1208-2008. It was 800(and 2) years old and the first thing we thought when we got in there was Grammie would be so proud of us. We continued and decided to find some lunch. My dad got (another) sandwich, my mom got (another) sandwich, my sister got a chocolate croissant and I found a nice little place in the market that had chicken wings (or what I hoped were chicken...yikes) and some (French) fries which most of you probably haven’t had in France.(haha) Then as usual we had to find a bathroom for my mom. This would seem easy in a place like Canada where there are either heavily wooded areas or fast food places around. Here the stores and restaurants just pretend like they don’t have any. So my mom ended up having to pay 0.5 euros to take a tinkle. We then got are cheese and left.
In the past week there have been some days were we haven’t done anything (interesting) but I will try to remember the days that we did do some stuff. So one day it was suppose to be a nothing day but my mother and I changed that and decided to go for a little car drive. We started by going to Cairanne. We never stopped but I will count it in the places I’ve been category. Then we continued on to saint Cecil de Vignes. Again we did not stop but we did later on (which I will get to). We kept going and went to a place called Bollène. We drove around till we found this huge grocery store called E.LECLERC. We bought our delicious strawberries and left. We went back home and did nothing. After another nothing day we had another but there was some drama at the end of that day. My dad went out for run. This is usually only takes 45 minutes but an hour and a half later my mom was getting worried as it was getting dark. She got in the car and started looking for him. She came back a half hour later to see if he still wasn’t home. So she went down to Armondo’s house to ask for help. 10 minutes later my dad walks in the door. He goes down to Armondo’s house and brings my mom back. Turns out she was crying on there front porch. When we found out he was fine we started joking around saying he’s got good Health Insurance and what would we have eaten for supper.
The next day we got up early (8:00 a.m. is early for us now) and headed out to Marseille. We stopped in the earlier mention Saint Cecile de Vignes because the market was there that day. We got some stuff for our lunch the next day with Armondo and his family. We continued on to Marseille. We got there and drove around for awhile and everything was fine until...my mom had to pee. We were secretly in panic mode inside. No one was saying anything to provoke or to anger IT. After almost hitting another car and some funny one liners (like ‘’this isn’t even funny I am going to pee my pants’’ and ‘’Just so you guys know, I am peeing my pants right now’’) we then found a toilet and a parking spot. After that ordeal We found another nice restaurant to eat at. It was right next to a place called buffalo grill with really Canadian bison burgers...because that’s what really Canadians eat. Again I will list what we ate...because I can. My dad had some pasta, my mom and my sister had cheese pizzas and I had a chicken leg platter but without the chicken leg because they were out. It was another fries and baguette lunch for me. We then walked down the port. It was really cool. Then we saw another really old church. I think Grammie raised her son pretty well because again my dad wanted to go inside. So we looked around a bit in the Cathedral de Major then walked back to the car. On the way back there was a guy selling candy and we decided to get some. It was pretty expensive (2,00 euro per 100 grams) but we were on vacation after getting a little bag each(just me and Chelsea) The man weighed them on an old scale. He did a very poor job. He also seemed stupid and I don’t think knew how to do math (or use a simple scale). My mom then gave him a twenty (euro) and he gave back (after a couple seconds of thinking) 4,00 (euro) which was way to much. My mom questioned him but there wasn’t much we could do. We paid 24 dollars Canadian for very little candy. I felt bad for a couple minutes but we were able to laugh it off. We went home and me and my mother tried to watch Juno unsuccessfully but then decided to watch an episode of Modern Family instead. If you haven’t seen this show you probably should, it is hilarious. Anybody related to me or has a sense of humour will love it. If that doesn’t convince you, my dad said it is his new favorite show.
The next day could be called a nothing day because we didn’t go anywhere but we were having Armondo and the family over for lunch. My dad made some pasta to start, then we had chicken cordon bleu with potatos and some salads. We also had dessert which was a (French) apple pie and some little tarts we got at a bakery. We sat around and chatted for a bit. After they left we didn’t do much of anything. I watched some family guy on my ipod then I got to see the Houlahans. We skyped them and I (and the family) got to talk to my cousins, ants, uncles, and Grammie and Jack. We had fun and did a lot of laughing. I miss you guys:(. Well now I am about to start to watch the Canada vs USA game online. Cross your fingers.

Baguettes, Croisants and....Lasagna

Sorry I didn’t post an entry yesterday. I was a bit busy. But I will start with that day before that. I woke up to see snow. I was very happy about that because getting down those narrow streets in snow would be a nightmare and that means we wouldn’t be going on a little road trip. We sat around all day doing nothing and then I listen to the Sens game (I think... I forget which day it was) and went to bed around 3:00 a.m. but The game wasn’t over yet.
When I got up I was happy to hear the Sens had won. After that it was time to plan our day. We decided we would go to Avignon. After driving about an hour we arrived in Avignon finding some good parking then going out for lunch. We fund a nice (cheap) place and decided to eat there. My sister got a cheese pizza as did my mother. My dad got a three course meal with onion soup, lasagne (which he did care for too much) and crème caramel (I don’t know the English translation). I had a plate of fries (I haven’t found much appetizing at restaurants in France...except that fry sub that was awesome) after that we didn’t spend much time there. We hoped back in the car and drove by Le Pont d’Avignon (No, We didn’t dance on it nor did anybody else we saw). We then went home taking the scenic route (My mom’s idea) and we stopped in a little place like 2 minutes from where we lived called Tulette. The bakery there makes the best baguettes and croissants. So we got 2 baguettes and some croissants and we were on our way. We went and I was very happy to finally find something to put my peanut butter on. It’s nice because we have been using the oven to heat the house so I can just throw in a couple slices of baguette and then in a couple minutes they’re nice and crispy. It’s wonderful. That was when it kinda settled down and me and my mom decide to watch a show called Destination Truth (about searching for myths like mermaids but the guy is hilarious and he has a good point of view) Then it was bed time(for them) I stayed up till about 2:00 a.m.(I am bit use to staying up for hockey games). Luckily I have been sleeping in and I have been getting 8:00 hours of sleep every night (I actually wake up right when Its been 8 hours).
So this morning, you guessed it, I woke up at 10:00 a.m. and had a little breaky then me and my mother (it’s becoming a bit repetitive) decided to check out Vaison de la Romain again. First we stopped at the Tulette bakery and got some more baguettes. We got 3 this time because, well, we need them. They were right from the oven so we had to eat some. 15 minutes later and 1 baguette eaten we arrived at Vaison de la Romain. Right when we got there it was 12:00 and as a tradition all the stores close for lunch (except restaurants of course). We walked around a bit but decided to go to Bazarland (see earlier reference) When we got there we realized they were closed(mostly because there was a huge metal gate pulled down in front of the store like it was in downtown New York). We kept driving and found an open grocery store. It was kinda like a mini Wal-mart because it had some non food stuff in it too. We killed some time there (and bought some stuff) then left the store just as quick as we had come in. We went by a car wash and saw they had a vacuum car cleaner. So we stopped and got all the baguette crumbs out of the car from when we ate it like savaged beasts. After that we went to Bazarland which was now open. We farted around in there (as my mom calls it) then left. We decided to go home because we were a bit tired (of shopping). When we got home we just sat around and I ate some baguette and talked to some friends on the computer. Now I am typing this and about to watch another episode of Destination Truth with my mother. You’ve been a great audience. Thank you , Good night

Are we there yet, Are we there yet, Are we there yet....

Yesterday, at around 2:30, we decided we would take a trip to Vaison La Romain. Chelsea decided not come as she had just woken up a half hour earlier (That would be an hour before school would END if we had school). The drive only took 10 or 15 minutes (it was just down the road). We first stopped at a store called Bizareland (European Giant Tiger) we looked around a bit and found something that Giant Tiger doesn’t have. If you have been to the Rideau center (Ottawa) you will have seen a store called Happy Days (the IT store) at the back of this store it is just all joke sex stuff. This store had the same thing in its store too (I know, it’s all sex in France). We parked in there down town area and walked around a bit. We got some croissants and baguettes (When in Rome) and we were on our way back home again. Last night I planned to listen to the Sens game online. I got all set up in bed with my laptop and headphones and I heard them announce the starting line-up then the starting goalies, then nothing. I had fallen asleep without even hearing the puck drop.
In the morning I was able to go online to see the scores. Ottawa won. We started planning another trip today. Planning always starts with estimating what time we are going to leave then waking Chelsea up an hour and a half before. We decided to go to a town called Nyon. We left at 1:00 pm and were planning on eating lunch there. We got there in only 20 minutes (about as far from the airport to Disney...hahaha) we looked for a couple places to eat and decided on a take-out sandwich place. My dad got a weird egg plant sandwich (he even thought it was weird), my sister caught some chocolate croissants, my mom got a little quiche and I got a sandwich with my name all over it. It was called a poulet frites. It was half a huge baguette with delicious chicken, lettuce and topped with French Fries (surprisingly that’s not what they call them here). It was so good. I am thinking of selling the idea to Subway. We decided to keep going down the road and it took us thru these huge mountains (or so I thought) It turns out they are just the foot hills of the Alps. They were pretty amazing and I got some great pictures. We turned around and went back down the winding road. We stopped at the grocery store and I was standing in the candy aisle looking at the price and it was amazing. Chocolate bars are so cheap, a pack of twenty Twix bars is only 5 Euros (7,50 $) and 4 big white chocolate bars was only 1,50 Euros (2,75 $). We got back home and I decide to go for a run (Gym class). It was pretty fun and I got see some of St. Roman De Malegare that I haven’t seen. When I got home I was pooped and I decided to take a nap. I sit here at 11:00 o’clock writing this and listening to the Team 1200 on the radio and now I think I will go to bed, Good night.

Our own little piece of paradise

We arrived in our new house 2 days ago. We drove up our road, which seemingly got smaller as we went up. After some tense couple second and scrapping the mirrors a couple of times, we were at the house. We unloaded our stuff into the house and got back in the car to go grocery shopping. When we got to the grocery store we found there was a McDonald’s there, and like true Canadians, we stop and a had a little bight to eat...again. When we went into the grocery store we grabbed a cart, but these carts were the ones were you put in a quarter (or a euro in our case) to get the cart then when you put it back you get a quarter(euro) back. When we got into the store it seemed pretty normal...until we realize we were in the import section. We continued on to find in the might section whole Rabbits (without the lucky feet), pigeons and cow tongues. We got all the grocery’s we needed and when to the checkout. The difference with these checkouts and Canada’s is that the cashiers were sitting down in really comfy chairs (they must have a really good union). We back to the car ad me and my sister fought over who got to go bring the cart back. She brought it back bought I was quick and got the thingy to get the euro.
We drove back home and took a wrong turn only once, It was a record. I was very proud of my mom. We got home and the rest of the night we just hung out as a family. That was when our French speaking neighbour came by, after talking for a bit he invited us for lunch the next day at 1:00. They were going to make lasagne. I started fasting right away (I don’t like lasagne but I will be more incline to eat it if I am really hungry)I went to bed around 10:00 but heard my mom playing Moulin rouge in her bed room. My sister and I went to see if it actually was. We were right. It became a family movie night all squished in the bed watching Moulin rouge on a laptop. I didn’t realize how young I was last time I saw it because I understood it much better this time (wink wink nudge nudge). After that it was about 12:30 am and I decided to listen to the Sens game on the team 1200 online with my daddy. I stayed up till about halfway thru the first period, Answering to my dad every couple minutes ‘’I am not sleeping I am visualizing’’ After a couple minutes my dad says ’’now I know you were sleeping...Toronto just scored’’ I decided to go to bed.

I woke up and immediately wondered what the score was of the game. I went online to find out that.....the internet was broken. This made it much harder to fast for lunch because I had nothing keeping it off my mind (except reading of course). I ended up having a bowl of corn flakes. At 1:00 Armando (the neighbour) came over to walk us over to his house(pretty much right beside ours). He brought his 17 year old son with him, Leonardo (You could probably imagine what my sister thought of him) We went over to there house and had OJ and pineapple jus Then it came time for the lasagne. I was expecting the worst, but to be honest it was horrible. It’s not like I liked it but I would eat if I had to, and that’s what I did. We sat there talking for a long time but I was really tired. I almost fell asleep at the table. When we got home it was about 4:30. We decided not to have supper as we had just eaten. Me and my mother decided to go get some clothes pins and little things like that but the store was closed as it was Sunday. On the way back we decided to go see a different town just down the road. It turns out it was over a mountain. We weaved our way up the mountain and then back down again till we came upon a little town called Cairanne. We just turned around and came back. At around 8:00 later that night my dad cooked my some toast (no toaster) and I had some of my (transition) peanut butter on it. It tasted like home. We sat around for a couple hours then went to bed.

In the morning I got up around 8:00 snuggled with my dad, had a shower and went back to bed. I woke up later at 12:00 to catch my parents just before going for a walk. I got dressed super fast ad wet for a walk with them. It was so beautiful. It was pretty much a lazy day for the rest of the time. Now I am here on the computer typing this.

On the Road Again

We left Paris Yesterday, on our way to our new house. On the way we decided to stop in a beautiful town called Lyon for the night. We found a nice hotel and put our stuff in the room and decided to go for a walk and look for a nice place to eat supper. As we were walking we found a HUGE Ferris wheel, it had a lot of lights and was breath taking. We were going to ride it, but 6 Euros seemed a bit much for a ghetto family. We walked around and looked at a lot of menus (every restaurant has them outside) partly for what kind of food they had but mostly looking at prices (ghetto family). We ended up finding a nice Indian restaurant. It was actually really delicious. We had tandori chicken and tikka masala and all that kinda stuff. It was really good. After that he went back to the hotel. There I had a bath, but not just a regular bath. This bathtub had jets and buttons kinda like a message chair. It was awesome. After that I chatted with some friends online then went to bed.

In the morning we got up at 8 and I immediately grabbed my computer to see what the scores of last night’s games were. When I went to see there was a big headline saying ’’Son of Brian Burke dies in car accident’’ This is especially sad because he was gay and he was going to change the world of hockey for all gay people. Know the guy that was going to break the ice isn’t dead. Someone else has to know do it and who knows how long that will take. Other than that everything else was good. I took a shower than we went to a place called Brioche Doreé for breakfast. It is kinda like the Tim Horton’s of France (It’s everywhere!!!!)We walked around Lyon a bit and look at all the really old architecture then went back to the hotel and packed all our stuff up and put it in the car. We drove up to the top and a little mountain and got really nice pictures of the city of Lyon. It was a beautiful view. After that it was off to our new home in Saint-Roman-de-Malegare, population 257....now 261.

Were not in Kansas anymore

We began our trip in the airport, where we happily discovered wireless. This were I got to Skype some friends and chat with them (even though I hadn't even left the city). We boarded our plane an hour and a half after arriving. This flight wasn't a long trip as it was only to Montreal but are next flight was 6 hours to Paris. When we arrived in Montreal it was a stressful run to the gate were we luckily made it in time. We were on a plane with a TV. right in front of the seat and I was able to choose what movie I wanted to watch. I decided to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (even though I've already seen it). To be honest I thought it was hilarious (even the second time). In the middle of the movie I decided to pause it because I was tired. When I woke up it felt like it had only been like 30 minutes, so I finished my movie and heard of the intercom say we will be landing in 20 minutes. It turns out I had slept for like 2 or 3 hours, it felt great.


We rented our car (It's called a Citroen, Berlingo) which to our surprise fit our entire luggage (it's pretty much a van). We got directions to our Disney hotel and were on our way. The man had said it is only 20 minutes away. 3 hours later and 5 stops for directions we arrive at our hotel. The hotel was amazing obviously because it is a Disney Hotel. It has this amazing pool with 3 water slides, 1 of which is huge and super fun(I must have gone close to 65 times so far. It is awesome). It also has a play pirate ship in the pool that has a bunch of water turrets and water spray thingys, it is so cool.


The next day we woke up and bought our tickets to DISNEYLAND!!!!! We took a shuttle over and were walking in and all of a sudden we see these army guys. In Canada this isn't scary at all, but in France they carry HUGE guns. I picked up my speed and got through the gates of Disney as fast as I could. Inside the gates everything was happy-go-lucky. It was pretty much empty and all the signs above the rides only said like 5 or 10 minute waits it was awesome. We only went on 2 rides twice and they were my favorites. The best was"Space Mountain mission 2"the other not as good but still awesome was Indian Jones:and the (Something) of peril. We left at 4:00 pm and thankfully found a Mcdonalds. It was a little different but felt like home. We went back to the hotel and went to bed as we had a big day ahead of us. We were going to downtown Paris to see the Eifel tower and company.


In the morning we bought all day tickets to the Metro (Train) and just hoped on the train to Paris. We got off the metro and went up and the first thing we saw was not the Eifel tower. It was a guy selling Eifel tower souvenirs. That was okay but as soon as we turned the corner to go see the Eifel tower they were .everywhere. Selling the same thing but all of them would come up ask if you wanted to by any and they were very persistent. After getting some close up pictures of the Eifel tower between saying "non, Merci"'s to all the scammers/venders. We then walked up to a further vantage point to get the classic holding up the Eifel tower picture. This is when the funniest thing of the day happened. One of the scammers came up and ask my dad" do you wanna buy any (Eifel tower keychains)?" My dad replies "no, Thank you" in which the scammer says" Nobody wants any" As my dad was laughing He says "I'll give you 3 for 1 euro" then"4 for one euro" then "5 for one euro" To which my dad says while laughing " you don't know how much I don't want any" The vender then says "It feels really nice to give gifts to people". It was so funny.
We continued our walk down Kleber ave. To the Arc de Triomphe were we met some scammers but this time real scammers. A man walks up to us and pretends to find a ring on the ground and asks if it's ours to which we say no, he then tries to give to us. The point of this scam I am not sure but he did it many many times to a lot of different people and not only that, we saw 2 other women doing the same thing. After that we walked down Le Champs d’Elysse looking at stores, taking pictures and being very touristy.


We then hoped on the metro again. When we got off we saw a homeless man asking for money, but he had a dog, and not only that the dog had babies, 5 of them. They were so cute but I felt bad for them because he couldn't feed them. We continued on and came up the stairs to see the Moulin rouge. Which is famous for its “shows” if you catch my drift? We continued down the street to find our first Subway (sandwich shop) in Europe but not only that. It was surrounded by strip clubs and dirty stores and erotic cinemas. It was hilarious.


We got on the metro again and went to the Louvre. Which is situated at the other side of Le champs d’elysse(You can walk from Le Arc de Triomphe to the the Louvre) . This is the famous art theatre with the really Mona Lisa painting inside. We also got to see the really cool glass pyramid outside. We then went back up and continued walking down Le Champs d’Elysse to get to a restaurant to eat. We found a nice Italian restaurant (ironic). The food was good, but by that time we were all pooped.
So we went back to the hotel. Before going to bed my sister and I decided to go for a swim. We had gone down the slide many times obviously breaking all the rules, but then I went down the slide and the kid that had gone before me wasn’t fast enough and I clocked in the head. Don’t worry the kid was fine. It may have been karma because I went back up and the water slides were off. When I came back down the lifeguards were telling everyone to get out of the pool. They said 30 minutes so we stayed to watch and the guy was taking things of the bottom of the pool. I have to say it looked a lot like a big brown stick to me. To back up my theory the Life guards said it was closed for the night.


We went back up to our room and I got on my computer and turned on the Team 1200(Ottawa sports radio station) and listen to the Senators pre-game show and I started writing this. It is at the moment 1:00 am Paris team and I am super tired so I am heading to bed. Good night.