Juin 10 Travel Update

We were hoping to be out of France by now, but that seems to be harder than we thought.

Right now we are in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast. There is a scheduled train strike today, and only for today, that cancelled our way into Italy. The strike will be over and we will catch a 7am train to the border. I don't understand how they can schedule a one day train strike. I was at the station today and they were like "yeah, we've known about it for a couple of months..." Weird.

Two days ago (Saturday) we were in Blois, France. We rented bikes and rode a total of 60 long kilometers from Blois to Chambord, Chambord to Cheverny and Cheverny back to Blois. Chambord and Cheverny are amazing Chateaus and any Google Image Search will show you some of their grandeur. While riding we saw a ton of cute countryside houses, all with fancy landscaping and flower boxes filled to the brim. We felt like we were biking through a dreamland, except our butts really hurt after about 20km!

We saw the chateau at Blois on Sunday. There was no way we could see all three in one day while bicycling. Reagan really enjoyed the architecture. She studied these styles/places in her Arch History classes at KU.

After the last chateau, we took the train to Avignon and stayed in our first camping. Everything worked out well. Spending only 11,60€ for a night was great, too. However, I woke up from a dead sleep in the morning to realize that I had forgotten our camera (Nikon D70s) on the train. We got up and headed to the station, they referred us to Marseille's Lost and Found (the end of the line), to file a report. We took the 30 min train ride there and filed a report. We were distraught that we won't see our pictures that we took. We are coming to the realization that our camera won't come back to us.

We didn't stay in Marseilles, it looked really dirty. So, we jumped on the next train and got off here, in Nice. Nice is a great city, right on the coast. There is a great beach (pebbles, not sand), ice cream shops, a board walk and everything a coast town should have (including KFC, which we won't try. We are staying in a comfort inn, because there is no camping here).

Last night we went to the beach and watched the sea and sky turn black. When we got there, the sky and the sea were the same color of blue. We bought ice cream waffle cones and ate them while walking the board walk. Last night was really relaxing.

The weather outside is great. None of the places we've stayed have needed AC. The sun is out, and cool breezes flow easily into the houses by open windows.

We just finished playing some cards and are going to the beach to hang out for the afternoon. We are taking the day to relax and get over the loss of our camera.

During this trip we have kept track of who has won at each card game. Here are the current wins and losses:

13s: Jere 5 to Reagan 2 (Jere is grand champion of the Ultra-Verse)
Go Fish: Jere 5 to Reagan 2
Crazy 8s: Reagan 4 to Jere 3
Speed: Reagan 4 to Jere 2

13s gives the champion the title of "Grand Champion of the Ultra-Verse" (said through a megaphone). The word "universe" is too small for this title, therefore moving it up to the "Ultra-Verse".

BTW, I want to make a title belt for this. If one of you guys could get started on that, that would be great. I'm sure that there is a Butterick pattern for it somewhere. Think wrestling or boxing title belt, and you've got it.

That's it for now. Tomorrow, the scheduled strike will be over and we will be in Italy.

Last Night in Paris

...has consisted so far of laundry, grocery shopping, packing and napping. We shouldn't have napped but oh well. Later we might take a walk to the Eiffel tower one more time. We have hotel reservations in Blois...pronounced Blah (like count blah. uh a ha ha)

Is it bad that we are sitting here laughing at that??

Tommorow the plan is to take the train at seven (or eight or nine or ten...today we slept in on accident) for a two hour train ride, leave our bags at our hotel, rent bicycles and visit some chateaus. (Chambord, Cheverny and a few others)

So far we have visited the Eiffel tower several times. It is really that amazing. Visited the Arc de Triumph, Arc de la Defense, the Louvre museum, Basilica de Sacre Couer, Notre Dame, Rue Cler market (actually very close to our hotel), taken a day trip to Versailles, walked the river Siene and taken pictures of amazing little details of Paris.

We feel ready to move on, especially now that we have our bags!

Here is a sample of some of the cool things french keyboards can do.

§çµé£€

OKAY somehow I just magically switched the keyboard so that it is typing normally (I just can't look at the keys, which I don't look at anyways)

OKAY Jere is complaining about how random my post is probably because he wants to check his email. Good bye and farewell until next time.