SA 2007 Part 1
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We left Seattle on the morning of the 5th of December. The first flight
(to Paris) was fine, though Josie slept only about 3 hours and Maddie
only 2 at the most. They were REALLY good. We took the train into
Paris, but Maddie was not feeling well and she got motion sickness and
threw up (impressively). Luckily we had a lot of tissues and a friendly
man gave us more, and I had extra clothes so we changed at Notre Dame.
Notre Dame of course amazing and beautiful, but here our second bit of
bad luck struck: the weather got really awful with driving rain and
cold wind. So we decided to get on a red tourbus and try to at least
get a passing look at the city. The kids were on the bus for about 1
minute then they were both asleep. And they slept for about 2 and a
half hours on the bus. Warm and dry at least. They were so tired and we
were worried about Maddie, and the rain continued, so Chris and I ended
up at least seeing many of the beautiful landmarks from the bus
(sometimes just the bottoms of them though!). We could not get out at
the eiffel tower because of the kids, but saw it close up. Such a
beautiful beautiful city !!! We will have to be back...We made it back
to the station and now none of our credit cards wanted to work to buy
tickets back to the airport, but yet again a very friendly parisian
used his credit card and we paid him cash back. In fact, the whole day
people had been extremely kind and nice to us, contrary to the
reputation that they are not kind to foreignors. Unfotunately the train
made maddie sick again. We spent 6 more hours at the airport, and the
next flight down to SA for to say the least gruelling. But the kids
were troopers and we made it... they only had 5 hours of sleep, yet it
was so fun to arrive at Oom Boy and Tannie Karen's lovely house in
Johannesburg, that the kids made it until 7 before passing out ! They
swam and we also took a walk in the lovely park. We're spending a few
days here in Johannesburg. It's been a huge treat getting to know
little Suzi, who just turned two. The weather was a little cold
initially with rain, but today was lovely and we had our first braai.
Leaving on Wednesday for the coast.
