Thursday 7/4/2008 – Thursday 7/10/2008
We landed in France around 10 a.m. and quickly made our way through customs and collected our baggage. We then attempted to get on a train to Katie’s au pair’s house in the suburbs of France, but there was a mysterious package left unattended near the train station inside the airport…. So, confused we finally understood why there were police and all of the train entrances were closed off. We had to wait 2 hours until we could board our train, fun stuff after an 11 hour flight.
We were very tired by the time we finally arrived at our friend’s house. Once we arrived, we had ‘lunch’ at 3:00pm, consisting of steak fondue which was delicious. Dermot got to meet Isabelle, Muriel’s sister as well, who Katie had the chance to visit with in Australia. She was home in France for the next few months and we were so happy that we got to see her again. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to say goodbye to her, since we went for a ‘nap’ after lunch and didn’t wake again until 1:00am.
Luckily, we then slept until 7:00am, and we woke up to Dermot’s 29th birthday! After eating breakfast and checking his email, we headed into Paris for Dermot’s first time! We did a whirlwind over the next nine hours…from the Norte Dame, to the Louvre, an amusement park, Le Place de Concorde, a stroll on the Champs d’Elysee to the Arc D'Triomphe, and ending at the Eiffel Tower. We headed back to Muriel’s house to find another birthday surprise—Katie’s Mum flew over from NYC! We had a delicious Duck dinner and celebrated both Dermot and Eric (Muriel’s husbands) birthdays with great company and of course, delicious food and wine.
The next few days were very relaxing as Muriel gave us a tour of chateaus and discount shopping malls in her town. Dermot had the opportunity to play golf with some locals, none of which spoke any English—but he enjoyed himself as always. One of the highlights was Dermot’s sudden strength on his second round of 18 where he accidently hit his ball into a group of older French women, and the only French that he could muster together in an apology was “De Rien.” …which means “You’re Welcome.”
We had a fabulous time visiting with Muriel and her family, and we look forward to visiting with them again in 2 months when come back over the ‘pond’ (aka: the Atlantic) for Arie and Stephen’s French Wedding!