Two in One

Greetings from France! We didn't get to do an entry yesterday so we'll do two days in one.

Thursday, Sept. 13

Sightseeing in Paris: we had a local tour guide point out buildings and give us lots of info about France. Then we did a guided tour through Notre Dame. Every sculpture and painting has a story and a purpose. They depict parts of the Bible and sometimes the sculptor would put little demons coming out from behind Biblical characters to show how humans can be tempted and for humor- they were usually cartoon-like. It's a beautiful building. After some free time walking around, we went up the tour d'eiffel. What a view! Here's where being in a tour group comes in handy. We bypassed a two hour line up and walked right up to the elevator. We didn't get to go right to the top though. That would have been another two hour wait, which we didn't have time for. In the evening went went to a cabaret for dinner and a show.

Friday, Sept. 14 ( I think)

Today we drove to Bordeaux, with a lunch stop in Tours. Tours is a beautiful town and we finally got to enjoy a beautiful cafe!

We are getting to know the people on our tour slowly. There are:
3 Canadians
3 New Zealanders
2 South Africans
37 Australians
But, several of the Australians are immigrants from places like El Salvador, Jordan and the Phillipines. So the culture is very rich!

Our guide is Debra. She was born in Germany, went to school in Canada, where she studied political sciences. She then worked for a federal cabinet minister but when the government changed and she was out of a job, she started doing tours and has been doing them for 25 years. She is great at what she does and has a lot of knowledge, particularly history. On our drive she taught us about France's history. Her stories about Napoleon and King Louis are interesting to listen to. She's a great story teller! She now calls Naples her home and is fluent in English, French, Italian and some German.

Our bus driver is Pepe (Giusepe Angelino) from Italy. He doesn't speak English. He is friendly and an amazing driver. The bus is huge and the city streets are so narrow and FULL of traffic!

All is well.