Exploring Angouleme and saying goodbye

We had all day yesterday to explore Angouleme on our own, and we had a great time. The started rather chilly, so we headed over to the covered market and got some fresh beignets for breakfast. We took our time (what choice do you have traveling with 2 little kids?) as we walked around exploring the streets of the old city full of shops, restaurants and some beautiful churches.

Pictures of one of the churches...

The building behind Evan is where one of our hosts' office was...can you imagine going to work in a castle everyday?

There was also a nice little museum there (and it was free!). It had some artifacts from the region as well as some wonderful paintings.

This statue had lost it's head, so we decided to give it a new one...

We also visited another castle (doesn't everyone grow up around tons of castles?). We had a great time exploring the grounds, snapping photos, and playing soccer until the 2 big dogs that live inside decided to pay us a visit! We decided then it was time to go.

Tonight we had our last dinner here, so in honor of us, we all made hamburgers. But there was a French twist...the kids had regular ground beef burgers, but ours were duck! They were very good. Matilde was going to make crepes for dessert, but I offered to make American style pancakes which she thought was a wonderful idea...I just had to try to explain what baking soda was to them and then try to find it at the local market. Once we were all sufficiently stuffed, we began our goodbyes knowing that we would all be in a hurry to leave in the morning. 

A castle in Angouleme

We are getting settled in with our new hosts in Angouleme (actually we're out in the country outside of Angouleme). They have been very welcoming and although their two boys do not speak English, our kids are having fun playing with them. We just have to keep reminding Evan that they can't understand her when she continues to ask them questions in English (getting louder each time as if they can't hear well).

The highlight of Elliot's day was getting to visit a real French fire station! Dimitri, with whom we are staying, is a fireman, and he was kind enough to give us all a tour of the station. Elliot loved seeing all the different trucks and he even got to sit up in one of them!

We visited a thousand year old castle yesterday! It was not open to tour inside, but we were able to walk around and take a good look outside.

 Below is a picture of what used to be the gate to the castle's gardens...after many battles and time, the wall broke down between the castle and the gate, and now the gate belongs to a private residence.

Then we walked down the hill to a beautiful little church...

Goodbyes & Bonjours

Well we left Paris early this morning to continue on our trip. It was sad to leave - they had been so kind and we had some wonderful late night chats after the kids were in bed. Maria told us that we were welcome to come back during our stay and they would be happy to see us again. Evan did not want to leave her new friends...I told her we would be meeting more people today and in the coming weeks. Her response..."but I won't like them as much".

We did venture into the city one day in Paris, but with it being so cold and damp that day, we did not stay for long. However, we did manage to see Notre Dame...

Here are Evan and her new friend, Simone, at a beautiful park in Paris where we could just barely see the Eiffel Tower through the fog.

It is now late and the kids are crabby, so I guess it's time to go to bed for tonight.

We made it!

Well, it took FOREVER, but we made it! Wow, it really didn't seem like it was going to be that long of a trip before we left, but I definitely would not want to do that again....3 planes, metro, chunnel to paris, metro, metro and then finally we got there. The funny thing was while we were riding the last metro Evan looks at us and says "I'm enjoying our big trip"...just at the point that we were totally fed up with our travels and she's having fun. It didn't help that we kind of got lost at the station in Paris and 3 different people were telling us 3 different ways to get where we were going. So when we finally arrived at the house we were staying, we were all exhausted. The kids and I went to bed about 7:30pm (Paris time), but then they woke up around midnight and didn't go back to sleep until about 3:00am! Hopefully tonight will be better.

We took a walk through a lovely park and you can see Elliot below with his new friend, Eva. The people we are staying with have 3 lovely daughters and the kids love having other kids to play with.

Then we went to a cute little children's cafe with a large area upstairs for all the kids to play. They have a middle eastern dance class on Thursdays and although it's apparently geared towards the moms, Evan jumped right in and actually did really well!

A few more days to enjoy Paris and then we're off to Angouleme to another couchsurfing family that has welcomed us into their home.

Is it really less than a week?

Wow! How did this happen? We leave in just 5 days - FIVE DAYS!! But I'm actually starting to feel a little better about that. At least I feel better than I did a week ago...

So we thought we were set up with places to stay for at least the first 6 weeks or so, but then we get an email for the host we found for our first 2 weeks...all their water pipes were frozen, they have no water and didn't know when it would be restored! So with just a little over a week before we were set to leave, we were suddenly stuck with no place to stay when we got there! Yes, we were a bit stressed (actually we were already stressed with getting everything done around here, but this just added to the pile). I started emailing a few hosts each day hoping to get a good response from someone - anyone. After getting several "no's" back, we had finally started looking at renting an apartment near Paris as a last resort. We found a good deal on one, but it was still going to take a chunk out of our budget.  But God has provided...first, we got a response from another Helpx host in France saying we could come there on March 1st which would leave us with just a week to have to rent a place.  Then I got a response from a family in Paris on Couchsurfing.org (pretty cool site - check it out!) saying that we were welcome to stay with them from the time we fly in until the 29th! So at this point we just have 3 days up in the air instead of 2 weeks - cool, eh?

Seeing things actually work out for a change is really helping to make me feel more relaxed about leaving and I think I'm actually more excited than stressed at this point. It also helps that we just had a nice couple come by tonight to sign the lease to rent our house while we're gone!

So what's left?

• finish the shower redo
• a bit of painting
• move some more to storage
• pack
• find a home for a few more items that we don't want to store and didn't want to give away
• say goodbye to everyone :(
• get bills paid up and everything setup on autopay
• everything else that we are going to forget to do until the day before we leave
• oh, gotta take our little girl for her first trip to the hair salon!

 Not too bad, eh? I think it's doable.

Welcome home & goodbye

Well, we got our dog back! He was coming back to our friend's house, but wouldn't come close enough for them to grab him. Then the other night, they heard him out on their back deck and were able to catch him and crate him.

So we got him back home, gave him a good bath and he seemed to be much relieved...and then tonight we had to say good bye. We had run out of options for people to watch him, so I had emailed some of the local rescue groups. One of them forwarded our info to the Golden Retriever Rescue out of Memphis and they said they would take him. We met with them last night, and they said they could pick him up tonight to take him to Memphis. I didn't think I was going to be that upset. I thought surely my little drama queen would be the one to get all emotional about it, but nope...as soon as I went to say goodbye to him for the last time, the waterworks started. I'm glad that they took him though. They are very picky about who they allow to adopt their dogs, and he'll be in a nice foster home until they find someone good enough for him.

I realized this afternoon that somehow I lost a whole week. I could have swore that we had almost 4 weeks left. But it was brought to my attention that it's less than 3. Holy cow! How did this happen? We are not even close to being ready.

Things we still have to do:

• finish putting up the baseboards (from when DH replaced the floors 3 years ago)
• redo the shower in the master bath
• paint bedrooms and baseboards
• replace the sink and stove in the kitchen
• clean the whole house really really well
• get all that we have left in storage
• finish selling of the things we don't want to store or give them away
• get a renter for our house (we do have prospective renters but we can't show it until we (i.e. DH)finishes the bathroom and baseboards
• pack

How are we possibly going to get this done in LESS THAN 3 WEEKS???