Weekend update

This was a busy, bike riding weekend. But first an update in general. We still haven't sold the house, but we've had more lookers since we lowered the price just before we went to Paris. Still hoping something will happen real soon. In the meantime, we've been packing like fiends. Rich got rid of a ton of stuff from the basement and garage. Most of it was outside, piled up to go out with the trash in a few days. I caught the neighbor twins (boys age 15) and a friend rooting through it. I told them to help themselves, as long as they didn't make a mess. Turns out they've been taking other stuff from the piles we've put out every week.

So Friday night was the University of Detroit Mercy midnight Detroit ride. This is our 3rd year doing this. It's poorly organized, but once it get going (usually around midnight) it's a lot of fun. This year we started at 11:30pm, rode to City Airport, then to American Coney Island, then back to UDM by 4:30a.m. for a total of 30 miles. After crashing out, we got up around 11a.m. on Saturday and got the moho ready to go for the Apple Cider Century () ride in Three Oaks, which is the very southwest corner of Mich. We parked in a field with about 15 other RV's and slept there the night before. After a big pancake & sausage breakfast we headed off. It was looking seriously like rain the whole time, but held off until we had abour 13 miles to go of our 53 mile ride. We went slow and stopped a lot because my feet kept hurting, but we finally finished around 1:30pm.

Now we're home and packing more. We've also made a list of things to do before we leave. We've also made the decision that we need new front shocks to help smooth out the ride and new tires before we have a major blowout. RV tires don't need to be replaced because the tread wears out, but they get old, cracked and rot, causing blowouts and major undercarriage dameage. With 6 new tires to buy, it's going to be a major expense, but since tires need to be replaced every 5-6 years, and ours are at least 6 years old, it's a good precaution.

I was going to post some pics from the night ride, but none of them turned out. We didn't take the camera on the Sunday ride because of the fear of rain..and we just plain forgot. :-)

Another showing

We had a showing on our house between 2-3 pm. today. Probably won't hear anything until tomorrow at best. Seeing as how we'd only been home for 3 days, our house was trashed. It wasn't dirty, (because we have't been home) but there was stuff everywhere. We got the call about the showing around 12:30, so we ran around like crazy cleaning up. Left the house w/10 minutes to spare and went to Chili's for a drink ('cause we can!), then picked up a few things at Wal-mart and headed home. Cross your fingers for us.

We won't be updating the blog as much until we leave....unless something happens (like the house selling) because there probably won't be much going on except packing.

Back home....again

So after an almost 9 hour plane ride, we got home. Rich's mom & uncle picked us up, since our car was stored in the parking lot of her condo, thus saving us a bit of money while we were gone. We were so tired, even though we'd spent the day sitting on our butts. By the time we got to our car, it was 8pm. or 2 a.m. Paris time. We sailed through customs. I have to say...we went through major security before getting on the plane in Paris. I must have shown my boarding pass and/or passport 10 times, a lot less than before we got on a plane in Detroit. We got home, played with Snuggles a bit, read, and went to bed. We managed to stay up until almost 10pm. I struggled to "sleep in" until 6 a.m. today. Rich couldn't sleep past 5 a.m. Tonight we had some wine, so he should sleep longer....hopefully. We were going to have popcorn made on the stove tonight, but I'm starting to feel really sleepy. He's out getting groceries and I'm getting sleepier and sleepier.

Monet's Gardens

Yesterday we went with a tour group (English speaking…..beaucoup americans!) to do a bike tour of Monet's Gardens. We took a train to Vernon. As soon as we pulled out of the train station it started pouring. Fortunately we'd thought to bring rain jackets. It stopped when we got to Vernon, so we walked to the opan air market, which was closing up, to get lunch. Instead we got baguette sandwiches at a local shop. After that we got outfitted with bikes. You can see a pic of me modeling the cruiser bike we used above.

Once we got our bikes, we headed out of town. Right away someone crashed that hadn’t been on a bike in years. After we got everyone on bikes we headed to our picnic spot, a park down by the Seine river. Unfortunately it was still very wet, so we sat on our rainjackets and dined on sandwiches. There’s a pic above of the “ugly duckling” that was begging everyone for food. He wouldn’t take it out of your hand, but would walk right up to people and stare at them until they gave up some bread. Just about the time we were finishing up, it started to pour. We took cover under a bridge for about 20 minutes until it let up a bit. Once it slowed to a drizzle we rode back over the bridge and out of town along a bike path. We rode for about 20 minutes, covering a whopping 3 miles, up a small climb to Giverny, where Monet’s grave and gardens are. After a quick peek at the grave we went to the gardens. They are all on the property where his house is. Apparently Monet was one of the few artists that managed to get rich while he was still alive. The first garden we saw was the water garden that’s the site of many of his paintings. Took a lot of close-up pictures of flowers there. Mind you, we had no idea what kind of flowers 95% of what we saw were, but they made for great pics. After the water garden, we headed over to the regular garden and took more pics. We saw a bunch of people going into the house, and discovered our tickets covered there as well, but it was hot and really crowded in there, so we got out quick. After that we tried to exit, but couldn’t find it. I kept following the exit signs only to get to a dead end, I thought. I asked a guard at the entrance where the exit was and was told to go through the souvenir store. I was quite pleased with myself that I was able to do all that in French. Those times are few and far between, considering that last time I had a French IV class was 18 years ago. By the way…..the English word “souvenir” is the same spelling as the French verb for “to remember”. Interesting, eh?

Ok….so after we finally figured out how to get out, we stopped in the café for a cappuccino for me and a kir (white wine & raspberry liquor) for Rich. My cap. was excellent because it was topped with a big dollop of Chantilly, the best whip cream you’ll ever have! Once we were warmed by caffeine and liquor it was time to get back on the bikes, onto the train, and home. Oh….and as soon as we got on the bikes for the ride home the sun came out. Even though it was a cloudy day, at least the rain had stopped once we got out from under the bridge.

When we got back to the apartment mom had appetizers of sausage & cheese. She said that was enough food for her, but Rich & I wanted more. We went to a seafood restaurant that had earlier looked promising, but after seeing stuff like “mackerel with sauerkraut” on the menu, we moved on. We wound up at a Japanese restaurant where we had an excellent dinner, while being entertained by an American bum across the street who yelled profanities at everyone….in engish. LOL! After dinner we walked over to the courtyard of Notre Dame, where there’s always something going on, especially on Saturday nights. On this night there was some sort of performer but all his talking was in French. We understood enough of what was going on, but not enough to keep us there for long. We got home around 11pm. and hit the sack. Whew!

Sargent Recruiter's

I don't have a lot of time this morning because we have to leave in 15 minutes for a bike tour of Monet's Gardens, which is in some city about an hour's train ride away. Last night some friend's of my mom's from Florida came over for drinks then we went to a place called Sargent Recruiter's for dinner. This restaurant was a hoot! For 38 euros (about $50) you get all the appetizers (salad, bread, sausages, & soup) you can eat, a main course of choice, a cheese plate, dessert and all the beer & wine you can drink. We first heard about it from the college students at the Segway tour. Of course college students love all you can drink! It was a great dinner with some very nice people, Jerry & Bruce.

Yesterday during the day we went to the Bon Marche (fabulous grocery store) to get stuff for appetizers to go with drinks and some lunch to take to the park. When we got back we had lunch in a nearby park, along with a bottle of champagne. Wish we could do that in the U.S.!

Ok...gotta go upload a pic. I'd have more, but mom forgot the cord to her camera, so all we have is the picture I took of mom in the apartment.

Mom arrives!

Mom arrived today. I was expecting her around 12:30. I waited while Rich went on a long walk to the Arc de Triomphe and back. Around 1:30, mom still wasn’t here and I was hungry, so I set out on my own. I was cruising around the island, looking for some lunch when I ran into Rich, also looking for lunch. So, after a great crepe lunch, we headed back to the apt. to see mom. She’d arrived and was tired but determined to stay up. First she had to go around the apartment showing us where everything was and re-arranging (nesting) things to her taste. Once she’d settled in and made some phone calls, we went for a walk and for dinner at Chinese restaurant. On the way back we got a short tour of the “best” places for cheese, meat, bread, flowers, etc. We also stopped for a bouquet of gladiola and dahlias. Now mom it’s almost 8:30 and mom’s struggling to stay awake. Me, I’ll be wide awake at 10-11pm….and struggling to sleep at 1:30 a.m. It’s a bummer that I’ve had such a struggle adjusting to the time this year, but that will also make it easier to adjust when we get back. At least this time I won’t have to get back and go right to work. Last year was a struggle because at 4pm. I’d be at work wanting to go to bed for the night!

Finally bikes...and a ticket :-(

AAuuugghh!!! I just spent 20 minutes creating a post only to have it disappear when I previewed the page. From now on, I’m going to create posts in Word, then copy paste, then and only then, delete the post from Word.

So anyway…we’re been busy and HOT. Yesterday it was 88 degrees here. We went over the courtyard in front of Notre Dame last night because we were wide awake at 10pm and remembered there’s often performers over there. There was a wonderful string quartet on the bridge between the 2 islands (Ile Ste. Louis (where we are) and Ile de la Cite). In the courtyard was some young people spinning some balls of fire. It was pretty amazing. At one point, they lit a stick, twirled it while it shot out sparks and popped.

Sunday morning we went to a bird mart that we’d read about. It was mostly stacks and stacks of small birds….budgies, finches, etc. There was a series of 3 cages, holding about 9 african grays and another couple of cages with bare-eyed cockatoos. None of them seemed too happy or social. Rich noticed the bands on their legs probably meant that they are wild-caught. It’s been illegal to import birds into the U.S. since 1989, but probably not in France. We didn’t so much else exept wander around the neighborhood and have a nice dinner on the island yesterday. It was just too hot.

Today we finally found a place that rents bikes!! We each rented a 24-speed Peugot mountain bike. We rode them over to the fat-bike tour place to RSVP for a bike tour of Monet’s gardens. The Wednesday ride was full, so we had to book for Saturday. After lunch, we rode over to Napoleon’s Tomb. Rich wanted to see it, but after learning that it’d cost 15 euros ($18) for us to see it, we decided not to. Turns out we’d need that money later. We headed back and were almost home when we got stopped by the police. Turns out we’d ridden through a red light w/out realizing it!!! First they yelled at us for not having our passports on us. Rich has his license on him, so they yelled at me for not having any ID and were going to take me to the police station to verify my ID. They also wanted to charge us 90 euros ($120) EACH for a fine!!! The two police started talking amongst themselves and then decided they’d let us go if we could cough up just 90 euros. They copied stuff from his license while he went to an ATM to get 90 euros. Ouch! That one hurt! 

Finally in Paris!

Greetings from Paris! We arrived yesterday morning after spending the night on the plane. We tried to sleep, but it was too uncomfortable. I started to sleep, but woke up about 1 hour into the flight and got sick. Bleh! Rich said he didn't sleep much either. One nice thing about the new Northwest 330 airbus planes is the entertainment center on a screen on the back of the seat in front of you. There's a selection of music, movies, games, and a trivia game you can plan against others on the plane. That really helps pass the time. It'll help even more on the way back when you need to stay awake because it's a day flight. Last year I watched 3 movies on the way back.

Yesterday we crashed and took hard naps when we got to the apartment, which I've included pictures of above. After that we went out for a wonderful french lunch of crepes. For 9 euross each (about $12) we each had an entree crepe (I had egg/cheese/ham), and a dessert crepe (chocolate of course!) and a glass of pop. Later in the evening, around 9pm. we stopped at a local bar, sat outside and had a glass of wine with a basket of bread and cheese. The temperature dropped a lot, so it was very pleasant outside.

Today we got up around 9:30, and had breakfast of croissants and fresh pressed OJ from local stores. We got some extra croissants to freeze for tomorrow. Later we went to the Gallarie Layfayette's home store top store, which is like a big Pappa Joe's grocery store. For almost $100 we stocked up on some food....but not much for the price. After lunch of "jambon sandwiches" (their ham is our prosciutto) and Coca-cola light w/out caffeine. Their diet coke tastes more like coke, but it's not bad, and certainly nice to have something other than water, which I'm drinking a lot of. I seem to be very thirsty here. In fact, after a few samples in the store, I was very thirsty, so I opened a bottle of something that I think was a combination of O.J. and raspberry juice. It was quite good. After lunch it was time for more napping. Now we're going to go check out the price of renting bikes, or even possibly buying some for an evening bike ride.