Paris and Normandy

I've been given the responsibility of writing the last post about Shane being in France while he is in the plane back to his too-far-away country. So many things done in one month! Taking advantage of Céline being away for a week end, we took over her apartment to spend two nice days in Paris. As we had free tickets we decided to go to Disneyland Paris to do something a bit different. We decided to avoid roller coasters after we tried one that Shane didn't really appreciate (would you guess that he can be whiter than usual?!). So we stuck to quiet attractions like Alice in Wonderland's labyrinth (look at the cheshire cat!) or the Phantom Manor. Unfortunately the queue was over an hour to the Peter Pan attraction so we didn't go. And after (only) six hours in the park we got sick of it and decided to go home!

On the following day we chose to do cultural stuff (at least French stuff!). And being very brave we went from Céline's apartement to Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur on foot. But it was actually so close that it only took ten minutes to walk there..!














Then Shane had a very good idea: going on the Eiffel Tower at night time! I kept one main souvenir of this: a cold that is still lasting...yes, it's windy up there! (look at my hair, you'll understand!) And we went back to Paris one last time on Thursday the 1st of March to meet Florent. It was nice and a bit unexpected though he is often in Paris to see his girlfriend! He hasn't finished his thesis yet but is working on it. So we had lunch with him and fika and also went to the big second hand store cd we went to in June, as required by Shane! Better than June, this time we didn't spend one hour but ONLY 45 minutes and I bought one cd!Of course we did lots of other exciting things! We went to Evreux twice, a city existing since the Roman Period. It's thirty minutes away from my home. The first time we went there was to visit. We saw a roman wall still quite high (end of 3rd -beginning of 4th century!) and we went into the 11th century cathedral which was quite impressive! The second time we went there was not for the same reason: my false tooth had broken again and I had to go to the dentist to fix it. Unfortunately it doesn't look good at all now! (If you look at the previous photo closely enough you can see the missing bit!) We also went to Château-Gaillard, a place 20 minutes away from where I live. There are the ruins of a 12th century castle built by Richard the Lionheart. It looks very dramatic, don't you think?

And then, the last but not the least: my valentine's day present for Shane: don't worry, nothing cheeky will be shown here...unless I can find this photo of him in his leather suit... My present for him consisted in a historical and archaeological day trip across Normandy. We stopped at three different places: first we went to Saint-Clair-sur-Epte: there was not much to see there, but I thought that being where the 911 treaty was signed would be fun! After a two hour drive we arrived at the second step, the Jumièges abbey, burnt by the Vikings in 841. It took about one hundred years to start reparing it. Thank you William Longespee (duke of Normandy) but also William the Conqueror who consecrated a church there in 1067.

The third and last step was Caen: a castle and two abbeys! Unfortunately the women's abbey built by Mathilde (William the Conqueror's wife) was closed because we arrived quite late. But we've been able to see the castle which is in the center of the city and also the men's abbey in which William the Conqueror has been buried.

Here is a photo of the stele. Shane bought a postcard of it.

And now, back to the routine for six months. Studies, yes of course! And probably work. And then something even more exciting will happen on the 18th of September: I will fly to Australia! Until then...finishing my thesis...see you soon doudou...