Where's Waldo?

Ok, 5 min left on my time at this cafe and this bloody keyboard is driving me nuts. All the keys are not where they used to be. So...

- after Orleans went to Pascal's grandmother's place
- then to Tours
- then to Normandy...stayed in Dieppe
- in Saint Vaast du Hogue tonight
- St Malo tomorrow

until next time....

Je cherche pour une aussi comme ca

Ok salesgirl at Bestbuy in Ottawa...you get the last laugh. I guess I should have paid the 79 dollars for the extra battery for my camera. I have been looking for one around here but they have to be ordered in. Oh well, no big deal. I will just charge my battery every night and try to convince myself that I do not have to take 100 photos of every castle. :-)

House Hunting

I have spent a couple of days looking at some of the chateaus around the Loire valley and they are amazing. I have decided that I need a moat for my house. Pictures to follow when I get home...

What is p2?

Most people know that Pascal and I work on the Eclipse p2 project. What does p2 stand for? Could it be Party Pascal? We went to a club on our last night in Orleans and man does he like to dance! It was pretty dead when we first got there but we were early...12:45. ha! I guess that is how they like to do it in France!

Sorry Kim....no photos. :-)

4

4. It is the number of seasons in the year. The number of quarters in a football game. And now the number of police vans I cut off in a round-about. I do not know who they were chasing but he probably got away. I have never seen a policeman stick his head out the window and shake his fist at someone... until now. Hey, was that the middle finger? Needless to say, I did not spend much time in Roen...

Je ne sais quoi...

Ah, my French teachers from high school would be proud. Or not. Either way things are slowly coming back to me. I have a basic vocabulary but it takes me a while to put together sentences and sometimes I forget key words. But I'll get by.

I just realized that I haven't really written much about "touristy" things so here you go. Yesterday I arrived and after I got cleaned up Pascal and I hoped in the car and went to the park and ride and grabbed the Tram downtown. Then we made a beeline for the nearest cafe patio. haha Phew, wasn't sure if I would be able to get to a cafe before I left so it was good to get it over with on the first day. ;-)

After a cool refreshing beverage we walked around the streets and looked into a few shops. We walked down to the waterfront and then up to a cool cathedral. Then we sat on benches in the sun by a fountain. And decided we better hit another cafe and grab some ice cream before we fell asleep. hehe

I tell you, these vacations are pretty hard on me. But you will be happy to know that I had a good 2 hour nap today. Tomorrow we leave Orleans for his grandmother's place about 50km away. This also means from now on I will only have internet access when I stop by an internet cafe. OMG... no internet? How will I survive? Hopefully the naps will make up for it...

Accepted!

Visa... accepted at millions of locations around the world. Well, except for the train station in Orleans, France apparently. And just my Visa. But it is fine now. I guess there must have been something wrong with their machines or something but it looks like everything is ok with the credit card situation. Pascal and I went to the bank this morning and talked to the guy there and he suggested that I put the card in the ATM to see if it would be recognized and it was all good. Then later on we went to a store and I used it to buy something and it worked, so I can breathe easy again.... I don't have to live off the handleful of Euros I grabbed from the bank before I left Canada.

Speaking of stores, we went to Auchan this morning. Wow. It is like Loblaw's plus Wal-Mart and throw in a little Future Shop there too. Pretty crazy. I've got a couple of photos of the cheese and yogurt aisles. Yes, that is "aisles".... plural.

And now to continue with perhaps the most important aspect of all my vacations... an afternoon nap. :-)