My next round of adventures took me to where I am now. Can anyone guess? If not I'll give you a clue it has a bit Eiffel Tower in the middle. Got it? Yes Paris. But again as always traveling with Carla always has it's ups and downs. This time not as many downs only ups.

So I'll start with my main down. Somewhere between leaving the sunshine coast and arriving in Annemess I seam to have lost just one pedal, yes of course Murphy's law strikes again.Yes It was my fault I didn't check the box to see where they were before I left I was just far to excited. So of course in transit someone has managed to pick my up left pedal. Lucky them.

But all good now means I get to go on my first shopping trip this afternoon.

Ok so to the name of this blog, "Thank God For Relatives".

So most of you know I am racing this weekend in France, somewhere in the middle wouldn't be able to tell you what it is near but a little town called Autun. But in order for me to get to Autun I was to meet the team manager in Paris, easy enough just catch a train to Paris all be good. Well the only thing was I'm not meeting him until Saturday and because I am hopeless at booking accommodation I had nothing booked from Tuesday until Saturday. Whoops. So Mum all the way from Geelong got onto her cousin who lives in Paris and organized for me to stay with him for the week. So I organized via Skype to catch the train from Annemess to Paris on Tuesday. All was smooth sailing, I packed my bike back in the box (this time putting all lose objects in a bag with no way of escaping) and made my way to the Gare Annemess (Train station Annemesss, my French is getting better?). But not before my morning in Annemess which included me "Ordering Breakfast, but in stead receiving a cup of boiling water and a tea bag". So my excellent French let me down (all the years I did French at school (6months) has been paying off) all I could do was laugh and say "Merci" and pay my 2 Euros. After breakfast I made my way around the local town, it was raining and quite cold, I was sure it was snowing. It just so happened to be the local markets day, so lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, bread and cheese were among the norm in the markets, except the Kebab shop alway a token Kebab shop at the markets. So it was time to check out catch my 3 buses to get the the train station that was a kid you not 1km from my hotel but refused to walk 1)in the rain and 2) with my bike.

So made it to my destination of paris to see my Uncle ( we will call him that but I think it is my second cousin 2X removed or something weird like that). Of course my bike wouldn't fit in the car and Marco had to move hell around to fit this huge box in the car. The bike box called shot gun and got the front seat while myself and my uncles mother sat in the back nursing the behind of the bike box.

So we made it to my uncle's place where he has a wonderful view of the top of the Eiffel Tower. We sat around talking for a few hours and then made our way do my uncle's mother's place for tea where we had traditional Italian food for dinner. A all home made/ hand made Lasagna, the pasta sheets where made by hand and I now think this would have to be on par to Mum's Lasagna.

So of course I can't say no when it comes to nice food and I was "forced" to have seconds, then dessert came out and I was already busting at the seams, and then after dinner chocolates came as well. Fair to say I ate very well last night. We came back via a car tour around the main attractions of Paris. Was very beautiful.

So today while the family have been at work I have done the touristy thing with a twist, I was given a map of Paris and shown how to get to the Eiffel tower, so I put my running shoes on and made my way to the city of love.

And what a day it is today, the sun is shining not to hot and not full of tourists so I didn't have to wait to long to get to the top.

So as you can see I have taken the usual shots of myself in front of the Eiffel tower. But the cool thing I found today was a 400m running track right next to the tower so tomorrow's mission will be to see if I can get in and had a trot.

Tonight we will be going around to do the rest of touristy things, so better go and charge the camera.

hope you enjoy