Some Americans in Paris

At the end of July my dear friend S and her daughter A came to visit for almost two weeks. We met them in London on Friday and took the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris for two days. Then we came back to our place for another week and a half. It was fun to share our English life with our American friends, and we were sad to drop them off at the airport bus on Monday afternoon. 

We started out our adventures on the train to Paris. Justin was very happy to be on the train. Rebecca was less enthusiastic about the train, but kept entertained with her iPad. I have more pictures, but they include our friends, which I don't want to post, so you'll have to be satisfied with some less-than-ideal pics of my kiddos. We shared a lunch that I packed at home on the train, and after a somewhat harrowing trip through customs, had a blessedly un-harrowing trip on the train. We later learned that many of the Eurostar trains that day experienced delays of four hours and more because of the extreme heat (and consequent malfunctioning of air conditioning). We are so grateful our train arrived only a half hour late, because otherwise we would have missed most of our first day in Paris! (Not to mention the fact that we would have been waiting for four extra hours with already-tired kids...)

We booked a hotel in Paris months in advance, and it was really nice. Very close to both the Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower (our two planned stops). Also, our room had a big red hippo painting on the wall. What more could you ask for?

The view from our hotel: a French flag and some pretty Parisian buildings.

After we checked in we headed out almost immediately to see some sights, as we only had that afternoon and the following day to explore before heading back to London (and then Naunton). I felt victorious that I successfully navigated us (in French) in the taxi and through the hotel check-in process. My French was definitely rusty, but people understood me enough to get the job done!