Au Revoir to Chez Speedies

I was asked by a friend "So, was it all worth it?" Yes, definitely. Not that we found it easy some of the time but overall we have had more good times than bad and it's been a positive life experience. Missing family and friends was hard but the year went by so amazingly quickly because we kept busy doing things and we tried to make the most of the time we had away.

This will be my last post for Chez Speedies. I've enjoyed keeping a record of our trip over the year and would like to thank my readers. I was quite flattered to receive comments from people who were enjoying reading the blog. THANK YOU readers. Bye for now.

Back in Oz

Ahhhh……………it's bliss to be home. It feels strange to hear Aussies talking. They talk funny. After being in Europe and not understanding what people are saying alot of the time it feels like we’re eavesdropping on people’s conversations because we can understand everything that they're saying.

The Long Road Home

We closed the door on Paris at 8.05 am Thursday morning and walked to the train station, Chatelet Les Halles to catch RER B to Charles de Gaulle airport. Our bags were heavy as hell. We weighed in at 95 kg all up for four checked in bags, one for each of us plus Andrew thinks we would have had at least 30 kg in our carry on bags. Andrew had the laptop in his carryon backpack and the ham and cheese baguettes I prepared for our snack and I had my cabin bag. It took us 20 long minutes to drag our bags to the station. We bought train tickets (€28) and minutes later were heading to the airport.

Everything went smoothly with checkin and we were ready and waiting in the departure lounge a good hour and a half before the flight. Ella and Samuel were both excited to be going home and said it was a good day for them. Flying scares me. When you consider the size of the aircraft and the number of people they carry one wonders how the planes stay up in the air? I try not to think about it…it’s too terrifying. It was a long, long flight. Ella was the only one who managed to get some sleep for a couple of hours from Paris to Singapore. She’s so little. She curled up into a ball in her seat and dozed off and she was quite sprightly when we landed at Singapore. The rest of us were red-eyed and very tired.

We’re all happy to be going home. The last 2 ½ months of on-the-road travelling has really worn us out. The kids have hated it. I love France but I don’t know when we will come back again. We want to visit other countries when we go overseas next time but I doubt we would go overseas for such a long time again.

It’s a real learning experience when you travel. You find out a lot about yourself and also about the practicalities of travel. A big one for us is to take less stuff next time. We carried way too much stuff with us that we didn’t need. It was a nightmare.

Physically Andrew and I feel like wrecks. He has to see a doctor about his shoulder which hasn’t been right since April. He thinks it’s because of all the luggage we’ve been carrying around.

Leaving France

Today we fly home. We had the worst night last night. It was so hot. We both kept waking up sweating. It was 35 degrees in Paris yesterday. According to the CNN weather guy it was 8-10 degrees hotter than normal for this time of year. We had the air conditioner on for some of the time but it was spitting out so much water it had to be turned off.

Don’t you think they should tell you that the apartment you’re paying a squillion dollars for is in the red light district? I’m debating with myself about writing a mean review about this apartment. Either that or send a detailed list of all the plumbing problems with this unit to the owners. Actually I’ll probably do nothing. I don’t think the owners care and when we leave here I’m going to have plenty of other things to think about.

Tuesday 18 August 2009

We’ve been sitting around all day. The kids don’t want to go anywhere. The kids are watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. Andrew found another few hundred tv channels. I wonder how they will feel when we get back to Australia and they realise we won’t be in safe secure Mount Isa anymore. That we’re going to a place where none of us will know anyone and we’ll have to start again from the beginning. They think when we’re back in Australia life will be perfect and they’ll never have a problem again especially since everyone speaks English.

Last Day in France

I liked this statue on the side of the building

We spent our last day in Paris at home in the apartment packing up and working out how we were going to organise ourselves to get to the airport on time tomorrow. The kids refused to go anywhere. They watched cartoons and picked fights with each other. I went out for a couple of hours down to Les Halles to look for some souvenirs and was horrified to see the stuff in the tourist shops there was almost double the price of the souvenirs at the Louvre shops.

Personally we're quite impressed with ourselves that we lasted the distance. Travelling is hard work and travelling with kids, well, I think we expect alot of them, maybe too much, and it causes alot of conflict. It'll be interesting when we get home and hear what the kids have to say to others about their experiences. I'll be keeping my ears open to listen. Who knows what anxieties they have. You can't imagine they would have much to worry about but their day to day behaviour shows up that they get stressed too.

Eiffel Tower Walk - Tuesday 18 August 2009

Looking down Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe

We took the metro to the Eiffel Tower to save our legs and then walked back along the Champs Elysees to the Jardin de Tuilleries with stops along the way to play and to take some photos. It was such a contrast from the cold hardness of winter to the hot sunny brightness of a summer’s day and boy it sure was hot. I remember queuing to go up the Eiffel Tower, toes numb in shoes. The kids remember kicking the slabs of ice along the footpath and walking on the frozen water in the fountains. That tickled their fancy… walking on water. Just past the Louvre Ella started looking in souvenir shops and Andrew and Samuel kept walking home while Ella and I stayed and shopped in peace.

Louvre

We visited the Louvre today. It was chaotic and mostly unenjoyable. The kids hated it. The place is too big and it’s all quite overwhelming. I particularly didn’t like being shoved by people trying to get in to see the Mona Lisa.

Paris Plage

We planned to spend our last few days enjoying Paris, relaxing in our 2 bedroom apartment, doing a little bit of sightseeing, nothing too strenuous. We also needed to spend a bit of time searching the internet for somewhere to live when we get back to Australia seeing as we’re homeless, looking for a school for the kids that teaches French as their lote and a heap of other things which we wanted to organise before we arrived. Having the computer sh*t itself at this time is most inconvenient and has been a real pain. Sadam, our Lebanese computer whizz that we met at the newsstand, loaded a couple of security and cleaning things on our laptop but it hasn’t solved the problem because the computer still randomly switches itself off in the middle of doing stuff.

Also our unit is really noisy and hot at night but we can’t leave the windows open because of the nocturnal goings on in the street outside. I mentioned before I think about the location of our unit in the redlight area of St Denis. We didn’t realise we were in the thick of it when we booked here.

So we’re all worn out and basically fed up and want to go home now. The kids are more excited about going home than they’ve been the whole trip but I live in hope they will have good memories of the trip and forget all the things we’ve complained about.

PARIS PLAGE

We spent our last Sunday in France visiting Paris Plage, which is a section of river embankment along the River Seine which has been turned into a “beach” with umbrellas, deck chairs and spray mist machines. It was a boiling hot day and the chance of a swim was appealing.

I’d have to say the general idea is a success. There was hundreds of people there but it was so hot and I found it pretty grim that there was no where to swim or get relief from the sweltering sun except under the bridge arches along the roadway.

We found a pool for the kids to swim in but it was complet meaning they were full and couldn’t take any more kids in. Only certain ages could swim at certain times and we were told we could come back in an hour. Men aren’t allowed to swim in shorts. They have to wear speedo style togs, and also everyone has to wear a bathing cap. All for hygiene. Andrew and I expected to be able to sit and watch the kids in the pool from the side but that’s not allowed. One parent has to be with the kids in the pool at all times.

Cimetiere - Friday 14 August 2009

Oscar Wilde's lipstick-marked grave

Today I went to visit the Cimetière du Père Lachaise, the world’s most visited graveyard according to the Lonely Planet. It took me 40 minutes to get there from Boulevard St Denis all the way down Avenue de la Republique. It didn’t look that far on the map. The cemetery is huge like a small suburb with roads and street signs. There’s 800 000 people buried here and the conservation office gives out free maps showing the location of some of the famous graves that people want to visit. I saw Oscar Wilde’s and Jim Morrison’s grave. Oscar Wilde’s grave is covered in lipstick kisses.