Tuesday September 30, 2014

We woke up early this morning so that mom and I could go for a long walk along the river this morning.  I actually got up at 3am to see if there were any pictures worth taking…but then I decided I was insane and I went back to sleep.  Then I woke up at 6am to go up to the top deck to see if there were any pictures.  There weren’t.  But anyway.  Kendra was ready to kill me with all of my up and downs, but the walk was excellent.

First thing in the morning we went on a walk around the city.  Some of the things we covered, we had already done on Sunday afternoon before the cruise started.  It was great to get a tour overview of things, however.  Lyon is the second (or third – depending on where you get your info from) biggest city in France, after Paris.  It is where the Saone and the Rhone rivers meet.

I quite like Lyon.  It is a big city, however.  The river banks are lovely with great bike paths, pools, walking paths and little parks.  There is the old part of the city and the new part.  The old part of the city is fun because there are lots of winding streets and great cobblestone.  We saw the St. George quarter where there are theatre puppets called Guignol that a dentist used to perform in order to convince people to come get their teeth pulled. 

We saw a few of the secret tunnels that were used during the silk trade that was big in Lyon.  They were also used during World War II to escape people as the tunnels often lead back to another street entirely.  They were pretty interesting.

One of the squares was cool because there is a big building that is now in the middle of the square now.  It used to be where men sat on benches to exchange money.  It was a bank.  After sitting in the rain, people eventually decided to build a building to cover them from the rain when they were exchange money. 

After our morning tour was over, we went back along the tourist street in the old town to this amazing ice cream shop.  It was an amazing ice cream shop with crazy flavours – mom had lemon-basil ice cream and I had salted caramel.  Kendra and Dad had done boring cherry and strawberry flavours, but they said they were also excellent.

We decided not to kill Kendra with walking today, but never the less, we walked over to the shopping streets to try and do some damage.  Nothing stuck, however, and we went back to the ship for a quick bite to eat before heading out on an 8km bike tour.

It was kind of funny because I saw that we were taking 2 hours to bike only 8km – so I knew that we were not going very far.  The paths are fantastic.  I want to cycle here more.  We went to the zoo. It is in the Parc de la Tete d’Or – where there is a legend of a golden head being buried in the park somewhere.  The park was fantastic – the zoo is even free!  There is a great, huge lake in the middle too.  I was pretty impressed.

Mom and I caused some problems when we got back from the bike tour.  After a small snack we decided that we wanted to take the boat’s bikes out for a little ride (because our other ride was so lame), but they had already put the bikes away!  Oops.  The took 2 of them out for us so that we could go for our ride.  We still had over an hour before we had to leave, so it was a bit premature to put away the bikes, so I am glad that we got to go.  Their bikes are super awesome and really adjustable.  I was really impressed.

Dinner was great, once again.  I am definitely eating and drinking a lot on this little ship!  J

We headed upstairs after dinner to listen to the music and dance a bit.  I had a mudslide (which the bartender knew as a screaming orgasm) and all of us danced a bit.  The singing/piano duo is really quite good and knows lots of songs. Even dad got up to dance a couple of times.  Yeah!

It was an excellent day!

Night,

-AJ

Monday, September 29, 2014

I had a great sleep for the first night on the cruise!  We headed back north over night so that by morning we were sitting outside of a town called Chalon-sur-Saone.  It is a cute little town in Burgundy.  It was slightly chilly this morning, but I was all excited to wear skirts and dresses, so I just plowed ahead.  We took a bus right after getting off the boat to the town of Beaune.  It was kind of sad to not have a chance to see Chalon-sur-Saone at all, but I guess that is how it goes.

We had a great guide for our day today.  She was born and raised in California and came to study in France at age 24 and never left.  She does tours for wineries and city tours and was excellent.

We started off in Beaune walking around the town, through the ramparts, around the market.  Lots of great old stone and brick buildings everywhere.  The highlight was Hotel Dieu/Hospices de Beaune.  This hospital for the sick and poor was built by Nicolas Rolin and his wife Guigone de Salins in 1443.  The hospital was used as such until 1971, which is really crazy to think.  It is beautiful and quite more modern than I was expecting, but it is crazy to think that a medical structure could have been built so long ago and maintained for so many years.

Part of the building is still in use today as a senior’s residence.  It is only the actual hospital part that has been turned into the museum.

The roof is the most spectacular thing about the building.  It is completed in bright yellow and green tile mosaic.  Interestingly enough, the facade of the building is done in plain slate so that people from the street wouldn’t know how rich the hospital was.  At the time and over the years they became quite rich because people would give them large gifts of vineyards and other expensive things in attempt to “buy their way” into heaven.  Because of all the wealth that the Hospice still maintains today, there is a huge charity wine auction that is held here each year where you can buy barrels of the best Burgandy wines.

The town is built right over a river, so that was really interesting as well.  The hospital was built where it was because of the ease of cleaning (into the water) and the access to water.  There is actually a spot where you can see the river running clear under the stone floor.

After the tour we had a couple of hours to visit the rest of the town and eat lunch. We did a bit of shopping (I bought a shirt and a sweater and some leggings because I was cold!) and found a nice park bench to eat lunch.  It was a perfect morning.

In the afternoon we visited the town of Tournus where we visited an old church.  It had a fantastic organ and we were able to climb the narrow stairs up to the top to see the organ billows and the old wooden stairs leading to the church bells.

We sailed early this evening, which was nice as we had time to enjoy our happy hour and our amazing rooms.  The windows go down to ½ way – like a balcony – so it is fun to relax in the rooms as well.

Night, -Allison

Sunday, September 28, 2014

We headed out bright and early for Paris and the train stations.  I feel bad for Sophie and Dani because all of our mornings where we leave their house are really early!  Thank goodness they live close to the train station.

We headed out, back to Paris, on the metro, and over to the train station for Shawn.  We hung out there until he could get on his train to go to Pau.  He is heading down south to visit Clemant, his friend that he used to work with back in Edmonton.  The train was soooo huge, that we practically had to walk a kilometer to the end of the train until there were actually cars that we could get on.  I love trains!

 

Kendra and I took off with my big suitcase to our train station.  We were pretty early, but that is always better than being late.  Our train ride was not that long at all, and I think I actually ended up sleeping for most of it anyway.  I needed to be well rested for the race to get to the boat!

Dad wrote us last night and said that they would be arriving in Lyon at noon.  That was concerning because WE were supposed to be arriving in Lyon at noon!  Train stations are not that big, and we did not want to run into mom and dad at the train station and ruin the surprise.  Thankfully there are two train stations in Lyon.  I figured mom and dad would be getting off at the train station nearest to the boat, so I decided we would have to risk the length of the walk and get off the train at the further train station and run 2.5km to the water.

We got off and pretty much just walked straight ahead until we hit the river.  We were going pretty fast considering I was pulling a suitcase and each of us had backpacks on.  We walked and walked.  Once we hit the river, we turned to walk up the river edge (beautiful pathway). The only part that was kind of frustrating was when we hit a market.  I was practically running people over with my rolling suitcase!  I was on a mission.

We were both beat and sweating like crazy when we made it to the ship.  All of the suitcases were lined up along the shore, so as quickly as I could I explained that they needed to hide our suitcases because my mom would recognize the suitcases if they were sitting there!  Thankfully they did hide them for us (I am sure they thought we were crazy, but what else is new?!).

We went inside and checked in.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a room yet, so we decided to go eat lunch to cool off before walking around outside for a while.  We picked a window table that looked out over the shore.  Literally the minute we sat down, Kendra said “there they are”: mom and dad were just coming down the ramp onto the shore!!!

We each grabbed our purses and stood behind the wall just inside the main entrance.  Dad came in first – and his eyes were wide when he saw us!  Then mom came on the boat and was completely speechless when she saw us!  I said “Funny to see you here!  Happy Birthday”.  It was awesome.  I had tears in my eyes and I think mom and dad did too.  Kendra filmed it on her phone!  It was soo cool!!!

Once we all calmed down, we sat down for lunch in the dining room.  Mom kind of had an idea something was going to happen, but once Christmas, Mother’s Day, and the airport drop off came and went, it sounds like she completely forgot about that idea of us joining her on the trip.  So, it was a great surprise.  I don’t want to have to keep any more secrets for a while.  This one was a lot of work!  But totally worth it.

The food was awesome.  I even had my first France ice cream.  Afterwards, we all headed out to explore a bit more of Lyon.  We walked back towards the markets that both Kendra and I found as well as the one that mom and dad found, but they were packing up for the day.  We walked over to the old quarter and looked around there.  Kendra’s feet were really hurting her, however (oops), so that wasn’t great.  We took the funicular up to the top of the hill to visit the big Cathedral there.  It had an amazing view.  There was some sort of scouting mass happening, so that was neat to see.  There was also this AMAZING roller blading race happening throughout town.  I don’t know a lot about it, but it sounds like it is an annual racing event that happens in Lyon.  And every Friday there is an open fitness group that goes rollerblading!  I want to come back to participate in that!!

Our rooms are fantastic.  They have all these awesome features like USB plug-ins into the wall, Internet that is on the TV, heated floors in the bathroom, and the windows go down ½ way to turn the entire room into a balcony.  It is so cool.

Dinner was in the main room and just typical general seating.  It was great.  We sat with this nice couple from the US.  It is funny because there are so few people on this ship compared to a big ocean cruise.  It will take some getting used to, for sure!

It was an amazing first day of the cruise!  I am so glad that we get to do this as a family and I am so happy that mom was surprised! 

I know I will sleep well tonight.

XOXO

-AJ

Saturday, September 27, 2014

It was a perfect day today.  We were all recovered from lack of sleep.  And we had an awesome French breakfast.

Saturday is market day in Meaux.  It is almost right outside of their door, so we headed right down to take a look.  They have everything from used clothes, to CDs, to food, and craft supplies.  It was great.  I always think markets are so French.  Eek. I am just excited to be here!  It is so much fun walking around with everyone.  Yeah!

After lunch,Sophie, Laure, Kendra, Shawn, and I all packed up our beach stuff and headed down to the river.  It was perfectly warm out and it was not busy.  We laid out our towels and Shawn, Kendra, and I all read in our swim suits.  Sophie ran around after Laure.  No wonder Sophie is looking so skinny, she is just running around after a 1 year old!  Laure is so cute and I took some fun pictures.

Laure was tired out before we were done with the sun, so Sophie and Laure headed back before we did.  When finished with the beach, the three of us walked through town.  We stopped at the milkshake shop and each had an awesome milkshake.  Seems like a luxury here to have milkshakes compared to home (they’d better be a luxury for the price they cost!).

It was a special festival day in town today so there were people singing and small little performers in the streets.  It definitely added to the atmosphere of the town.

It was a perfectly relaxing and beautiful day in France!  Tomorrow we head back to Paris – Shawn is off to Gare Montpernasse and Kendra and I are off to Gare de Lyon!  Busy exciting day tomorrow.  I hope Mom doesn’t know that we are going to be there!  Fingers crossed.

Night!

-AJ

Friday, September 26, 2014

We are in France!  We being Kendra, Shawn and I.  And the best part is that my mom has no idea that we are here.  She thinks we are at home working away.  In two days we are going to surprise her on a river cruise in Lyon.

This morning, however, we arrived in Paris around 9am.  We had one checked bag and our three huge backpacks.  Once we made it to Gare de l’Est, which is where we catch the train to Meaux, we found a huge, awesome storage locker for our bags.  We put everything in storage but our camera and maps and set off.

We started walking towards Montmartre.  It was a beautiful day.  Sunny and warm, a perfect September day.  It was fun to show Shawn Paris and it was fun to see it again with Kendra.  We wandered from Montmartre down all the way to the Eiffel Tour…with a couple of stops at bakeries along the way.  We found some food and sat down near the Champs de l’Elysee to enjoy. 

From the Eiffel tour, we walked all the way back down to Notre Dame.  Unfortunately, by the time we made it to the Cathedral, Kendra was more or less ready to kill me.  I think we had walked over 19km by this point.  Oops.

Around 4pm, we headed back to the train station where our bags were stored and took the train to Meaux to go find Sophie.  She moved since I was here last year, so we had to locate that place this time.  It was definitely much closer to the train station – except for the fact that we passed it by mistake.

It was AWESOME to see Sophie, Dani, and Laure again.  Sophie hasn’t changed at all.  Laure has grown so much in a year!  She is running around all over the place and even says “au-revoir” and waves when she leaves the room.

Their new place is fantastic.  They are on the top floor of a 4-floor walk-up.  The stairs are tiny, tiny, spiral up to the top floor.  It was awful to carry up our suitcase, but that’s what happens when there is a cruise!!  On the main floor there is a family room, kitchen table, kitchen, and the toilet and bathroom.  Upstairs, there are 2 decent size rooms.  They have those cool roof-windows that I love and sloped ceilings.  It is awesome!!!  I am glad that they bought a place.

We had my favourite dinner – bread, cheese, and wine.  Yeah!

I am so glad that I am here!!  Yeah!

I am going to have to let everyone relax tomorrow…so hopefully it is warm out so we can go to the little beach at the park tomorrow.  Yeah.

We will sleep well tonight.

Night.

-Allison