parles vous frances

It seems the train to Barcelona is a place for catching up on this thing, eh. Anyway- the big news this time is I have a definite return date now, August 11th. I arrive into SFO at 6:40PM on United Flight 8883 from Munich. What I will be doing after July 26th is kinda up in the air, although partying in Madrid is definitely in the list from August 3rd through 11th. IF you’re there, give me a ring as the last of my English-speaking buddies will have split the country by then.

Right now I’m heading south from Paris on a sleeper train back to Spain. I seriously can’t leave that country for very long. It’s been a week since I caught a plane for Brussels with the last of my stuff from Madrid. Now its all packed up neatly ina backpack ready for the ‘end of my trip.’ I suppose you could say I’m heading home, slowly. So the week in review:

Brussels. Nice city, good waffles and great to be on the parents dime. Its amazing to not have to worry about the incredible shrinking wallet.

Brugges. After making it safely out of Brussels with Eileen at the navigator seat, we found our tiny hotel in Brugges. Toured a brewery, met a crazy Australian rocker, saw some swans (who then got me sick, no joke, still getting over the sniffles now), saw some nuns and ate some Belgian chocolate.family

devil swans

australian

Concale. Glen, a friend and former colleague of my father and soon to be an ex-patriot, just bought an old house in the small town near Mont. St. Micheal and invited us to stay with him a couple days. We spent 4th of July with 6 french people eating burgers off of gold plated china with fancy silver flatware around a large antique oak table.


MSM. Wow. Tobriner was right, thanks 170. The cathedral was absolutely amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that there are patches of quicksand all around the cathedral.

Chartre. Stayed there a night. Saw the cathedral in the morning (more 170 action, remember the cathedral with one Romanesque tower and one gothic one?) and then drove out to Disneyland Paris. After the family was safely inside the Sequoia Lodge, I navigated my dad into Paris to drop off the car and take the RER back.

Disneyland. Brad, Disneyland California is better. Much better. That said, Paris Disney did have a few interesting things. The rocking rollercoaster is pretty nice even though you have to listen to aerosmith through the whole ride. And space mountain 2 is enjoyable once you get through the bumping of your head. And hey, Mickey speaks French .

Paris- would have been a lot better without the family. But I did manage to escape this morning and was asked for directions twice within an hour and as I walked past the university, was stopped to complete a survey and join a couple student groups. And I managed to get to the Eiffel Tower at night and pay a visit to the Mona Lisa.