Haven't written anything until now as have been jet lagged. At the Charles de Gaulle airport it was chaos and found the taxi rank. Next think, this dark skinned person comes up saying 'taxi? Taxi?' I said yes and he says, 'this way, this way' so we start to follow and it just got weird. Then Connor goes charging ahead, Max following me yelling stop and Liam trying to get them to stop. We got back to our starting point (but on the outside) and then he takes us inside and wants us to get into the elevator. I caught up and said to Max that I didn't like it, there were people inside who had special vests that said 'Taxi Information' so I said 'I have to go to the toilet' and walked off. The others followed and I found someone and they took us to where we started. If we had looked right, we would have seen through a corridor the taxis lined up. Turns out these are the 'official' taxis. Got to our room, then went downstairs and had lunch and Liam had his first beer (being legal for him to have wine or beer in France).

The boys were b*****ed so chose to go back to their room and we went into the Place la Defense. Huge (massive) mall with beautiful avenues of trees, different seating areas, fountains, metro station entry points, sculptures and massive (huge) shopping centre. We walked around there for a few hours then headed back. Stopped at a little place in the plaza called La Station and had a much needed Coke and water. It is fresh and brisk outside but they really crank up the heat inside!!

This morning we had breakfast and then went down for a walk to show the boys the view from the plaza down towards the Arche de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. Then we headed down along the Champs Ellysee towards the Arche de Triomphe to have a look and see what was around. Found a lovely looking cobble stone road the split in two and had fantastic old buildings, flower pots, typical old French looking area. Wandered down and next think, looked inside a roller door and there was fruit and veg shop, then inside a bit further I could see a supermarket. Was like a Tardis. Went in and first thing we see are the aisles with beer, wine, champagne. Was amazing. Then we bought some milk, instant coffee (yes, instant coffee - didn't want to have to buy a French press and carry around with us!), water and biscuits. Great place. Then we headed back to the hotel.

Made a much needed coffee (they really don't make great coffee here, not so far anyway).

Took the boys out for lunch at La Station and crashed after that.

Well, it is currently 10:35pm and Max and I just went and had dinner at a place called Le Bistro. Had a fantastic meal - grilled cheese and ham sandwich with chips and salad. Salad is not like the mainky stuff we get at home. Was beautiful and fresh (I guess the Parisians eat their salad) and the sandwich was huge, with massive piece of Gruyere cheese melted on top. Boys weren't hungry so stayed in their room. Now they are fast asleep.

Max is down taking night time photos of the Arche de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. He is still trying to work out how to send the photos on his SLR camera up to the cloud, so will upload asap.

Am using some French, badly, but still giving it a go. Slowly the jet lag is going so by the time we join the tour tomorrow night (meet and greet dinner) we should be right.

Might venture on to the Metro tomorrow and get up close to the Eiffel Tower.

Goodnight.