We check out of our bungalow, sadly, and are on our way for Paris - or so we thought. The past few days, we had bought bus tickets, and nobody ever checked them. You're supposed to swipe them at the machines, but if you don't, there is nobody on the bus checking. We figured we'd bought enough tickets and nobody checked them, we'll just scam the system this last time on our way to the airport. Wrong Idea. We get on the bus and pretend to swipe our cards. We thought everything was fine and dandy, until we turn around and there are three, THREE security guys on this bus. One walks up to us and tries to swipe our cards again, "finished" he tells us. We all look like "confused Americans" but it doesn't work. He ends up writing us all a fine and instead of paying €1.30 we have to pay €2.50. So, yes, it's true, Karma is a b****.

Anyway, we get on our way and off the airplane in Paris - "that s*** cray." We're now in Charles de Gaulle airport and looking to either catch the RER or the train into the city center. We really do not know what we're doing, and nobody around us speaks English. We try to follow people and see what they do, but they're all experts. Finally, we do some asking around and figure out that the ticket machines are coin only. We get to the machine and there are two options, one is only about 2 euro, the other about 10. Knowing us, of course we pick the cheapest. We go to get onto the train and it won't accept our tickets. (SERIOUSLY!?!) So we go ask at the information desk, and she tells us we need the expensive ticket - go figure. Back to the ticket machine we go. This time, we meet a lovely old man. haha, I wish. This old, dirty, about 4 foot tall homeless man walks up to us. He's holding a 2 euro coin and shouting at us. At first we were polite and told him no thank you, but he didn't understand English. He then pinches Kelsie and Louise - hard! Kelsie jumps and is now pissed at this point. We keep telling him to go away and leave us alone, but he starts yelling at us in French. He's holding a cane and starts pointing it at us. At this point, everybody is looking at us, and we start cracking up. We have absolutely no clue what he is yelling at us. He finally starts to walk away, still yelling, pointing his cane and flipping us off. We're laughing because we don't care, and the fact that we can't figure out how in the daylights to get out of this airport makes it even worse. After this scene we've created dies down, we get our tickets and hit the road, more like hit the tracks.

We get into Paris, find our hotel quite easily and have to wait. Kelsie tries to check us in, but the man tells her she's only booked one room for two people. We all start to panic, and she shows him the receipt and he apologizes as he misread our booking - few. Anyway, they only had one room for us, so they squeeze two more beds in it and we all get to stay together. The place was really nice and clean, and the people were lovely. We arrived on Easter Sunday, so we spent our Easter cuddled all together, watching French TV and eating Pizza Hut.

The next day we set off to see Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame, and The Louvre. I left my camera battery on the charger in the room, so I had to steal photos from this day. We sat in the garden of Centre Pompidou for a while just people watching. Louise and Kelsey thought it would be humorous to circle me with bread crumbs and watch the birds attack - I HATE BIRDS! I had no clue they were doing this as well, so it scared the crap out of me. We then met up with Kelsey's parents and spent the rest of our time with them. That night we went to a nice restaurant, and us girls were starving so we ordered cheeseburgers and chips. The waitress said, "and you'll need extra ketchup too, Americans." haha. Go us.

On Tuesday we visited the Arc de Triomphe and went up it. Us girls passed for under 18 years old - free entry! It was really rainy and gross. But, the view over Paris was still amazing. We then walked to Galeries Lafayette. It's this huge shopping building, way over decorated and over priced. We walked around a bit to stay in from the rain. Our favorite part of this day was the Eiffel Tour. We saw it in the evening, at sunset, and in the dark - so pretty! We ended up waiting in line to go up in the elevator. Again, Lynette was attacked by two birds. The first one about took off my head, and I was screaming - it gave everybody in line some entertainment. Then, the second one flew right in front of me. Like seriously you stupid pigeons - I hate you! The wait was about two hours, and as soon as we got in line, these two little colored girls tried cutting us. We thought they were catching up with their parents, until we saw their dad come and give them money! I'm sorry, you don't do that, especially with us, we'll let you know to get back. And that's exactly what we all did. The people behind us whom them also cut in front of were not very happy either. So, we all ended up getting back in front of them and told the girls how cool they were. More cheap entertainment to help pass the time. Once we got to the top, everything else was just speechless. The view was incredible! We watched the sunset from up there, and there was a bit of history on the walls. We were also up there when the light show was going on. It was amazing to say the least. Then, the best part, I was standing along the side just looking out and this guy beside me starts calling someone. I didn't figure he spoke English, so I just went about my business. But then I could understand him! He goes, "grandma it's me, this will cost a lot so I'm going to make it quick, I'm on top of the Eiffel Tower looking out towards home and seeing you, I miss you and will be home soon, I love you."

The next day, Louise and I went to Moulin Rouge whilst the Kelsey's and her parents went through the Louvre. It was a bright and sunny day! We had way too much fun up there. We went into all the little souvenir shops and if you know what Moulin Rouge is about, we went into those shops as well. We agreed that we wouldn't go in any though that had a curtain and you couldn't see in through the windows - haha. It was such a nice day and we just walked around enjoying ourselves. We go back to the Metro and try to purchase a ticket. The machine would take our money, but it wouldn't give us a ticket. We tried and tried, we even watched another man get a ticket. We thought seriously, what is going on. Finally, we put it in and at the bottom is this word that looks similar to "validate" in English, so I push it. IT WORKS! That's all you had to do, now everything is open, it will accept the money and give us a ticket. It's crazy how things work, ya know. So we meet back up with everyone and do a bit of shopping - failure. We didn't find a purse, like we were looking for, we didn't get snacks for the train, and we wasted about an hour.

Finally, we can head back to England and get home. We'd never been so excited about coming home to Pittville, but after about two weeks of traveling and living out of a suitcase, it gets a bit tiring and frustrating. We're at the train station waiting to ride the Eurostar, ya know, the one that goes through water! Well, our train is delayed due to an emergency involving a person on the tracks. Seriously people! We finally get on our way and back to Cheltenham.

This spring break was filled with all sorts of emotions. We definitely made many memories and had tons of laughs. It's difficult though when you don't speak the same language as the place that you're in, but we made it work. We lived on loads of baguettes, pastas, and pizzas. We got whistled at on many occasions, and for some reason, most of those times we were stuffing our faces - it's when we look the best. (ha). We saw plenty of hobos, and people trying to sing or play an instrument for money. We "minded the gap" on all of our Metro rides, and that became our saying. We enjoyed singing "Paris" by Kayne and Jay-Z. Everything that could have gone wrong, did; and whenever we were frustrated or aggravated, something funny always happened.

The best spring break ever: Jersey, Rome, Venice and Paris.

xxxx