Our Trip To Paris

Where should we begin? First, we had a wonderful time seeing all the sites and learning so much about each one of them. The Eiffel Tower was amazing. The best time to see it is at night when it shines a bright blue color and at the beginning of every hour it sparkles. The Arc De Triomphe was much bigger than I had imagined. When you drive down the street, all you see in the middle is this huge monument. It really makes you say wow. Although be prepared to climb many steps to get to the top. The Notre Dame cathedral was another wow. The stained glass windows and vaulted ceilings took your breath away. The Louvre was fascinating with all its wonderful works of art from famous artists and the outstanding glass pyramids. There were little cafes practically on every corner. The food was good, especially the bread. We also can say that the kids had a lot of fun at Disney. We rode a lot of new rides (compared to Disney in Florida) and had a lot of fun at the Halloween party.



Now that you have heard the good side of our trip let us fill everone in on how the other half of our trip went. It all began when our back pack got stolen. Yes you read right....STOLEN! We were at the Eiffel Tower, Steve was in line getting a snack for the kids. I took the three kids to a bench to sit and to get out the gloves. It was at night and the wind had picked up so it was getting cold. I took off the backpack, got the gloves out and as I reached over to put Kylie's gloves on her someone came by and took the bag. The bag was half on my lap and half on the bench. I stood up and yeld at Steve to come. He came and off I went running to the security. They didn't really seem to want to do anything at that time but escort us over to the police area. We explained to them what happened and they said we needed to go to the police station to file a report. They kindly escorted us in their police cars with the sirens and lights on to the police station. The worst thing that was in the backpack was all 5 of our passports! The rest was silly things like coloring books, crayons, wipes, and my wallet with 60 euros. The joke is on them I guess because the only thing they could have used was the money. Luckily Steve had the bag with the cameras and important stuff. The next day we spent 4 hours at the US Embassy getting emergency passports which are good for one year. We must now take these passports to the U.S. Embassy in London to exchange them for the regular passports we need. You would think that this would be all, right? Oh no, there is more. We then proceed to travel to Disney. Disney in Paris is the most unorganized place I have ever seen! Europeans do not know what it means to wait in line or to wait for their turn. No, they have to push people out of their way to get what they want. There is no standing in line to wait your turn to see a character....it is whoever gets there first and if they don't they will walk right in front of you and get their picture. Very frustrating!! Do remember we really did have a great holiday!



Our next obstacle was getting back home. We arrived at the train station to catch our 1:00 train, but wasn't allowed on the train because we couldn't get through customs. Our temporary passports didn't have that special page that showed we are residents of the UK....our visas. We were taken aside and they told us to wait because they had to do some investigating. Of course we missed our train, but luckily they did switch our tickets to a later train after they found out we were good to go. They also stamped our passports saying we have only 2 months to get this all fixed and if we don't within those two months we won't be allowed back into the country (UK). Now we have to get to London very quickly to exchange our passports and then we will probably have to mail all the passports to get our visas put into them. Since we are leaving in a month we don't have much time. I am being very optimistic that all this will work out and everything will be just fine.