Our Day in Llangollen

C: We drove the boat over to Llangollen, and then as soon as we possibly could, we got on the Llangollen railway, and went through a bunch of countryside, and the first long tunnel we went through was extremely unpleasant because there was smoke all over the place. It smelled like sulphur, because it was coal smoke. The train did not look unlike the Hogwarts Express. In fact, the only difference was that it was dark green instead of red, and it said Foxcoat Manor, instead of Hogwarts Castle. The cars inside either had compartments with hallway on the side, or many tables, with the hallway in the middle. We were unable to find an empty compartment, so we took a table. After the ride, we went up into the engine, and saw all of the different instruments and stuff, and it was very hot, and was very hot on my eyes, so we left after a little while. The fire was coal fired and there was a huge tender filled with big old lumps of coal.

Later, we went around town and went to an attic sale and I got a Weet-Bix truck, for 2 GBP. And then, for dinner, after walking around the town, we found a place that served us way too much. I had steak pie, K had chicken nuggets, Mom had Ploughman’s Lunch, and Dad had veggie lasagna.

And this ends our blog.

Sam's Upcoming Blog

Holding a spot here to transcribe an entry from last week.

Welsh Tooth Fairy

C: I lost my tooth in a grocery store, and then in the canal, when we were going in the right direction, I lost the £1 I got from the tooth fairy, when I threw it in accidentally when I was feeding the ducks, and it bounced off a duck's bill.

The tooth fairy here pays £1, which is two dollars in the US!

Mom: Do you think Wales has its own tooth fairy, or is it the same one as at home?

C: Its the same one. he goes around the world, collecting the teeth and builds a castle with the unsatisfactory ones. The ones he likes, he puts on a pedestal on display.

[Note from Mom: We flew from sunny Bordeaux France, into rainy Liverpool, on Ryan Air, which we'll write about later. We stayed at a Premier Inn in Chester, which is much like Motel 6, but the rooms were nice and big--double rooms for families for the same price. We didn't spend too much time in Chester, as it was raining heavily. We picked up our Narrowboat in Trevor at 3pm, and headed over the viaduct. Ooops, after about 3 miles of bouncing off the sides of the canal, as we were learning how to steer a really heavy, long, steel boat. As it started to get dusk, we got out the map, and realized that we went the wrong direction! So we got up this morning, and headed back the correct way to Llangollen. We rode a real welsh steam train, and even got to get up into the engine and see (and feel) the coal compartment! Real coal fired! Wow!. Now we are sending this from a stinky, greasy, fish and chips cafe in Llangollen. No access on the boat for the next week. Everyone is having a nice, calm, boat trip so far. Very slow paced and relaxing.]

Bat-Sur-Mer Fun

Sam: I had three Eureka Moments today, so I am going to write about all of them on this one entry.

First, I would like to write about my jacket. Today I got a brand-new jacket. It is blue and white striped, with a red anchor on it. It also has a zipper and a hood. It is my favorite, because it looks nice, and it has an anchor, because we are going on a boat, and it keeps me warm.

Now I will write about the dogs. A lady was selling some puppies in the market. They were really cute. They were really playful, but they loved to lick. They were black and brown. That is the kind of dog I want to get when I grow up. They are yorkies.

Now, I want to write about the salt flats here. A long time ago, I don't know the exact date, the serfs used to work in the salt fields. They would let the water from the ocean sit for 1 to 1 1/2 years, then it would be dry salt, and they would rake it and sweep it up, and package it and sell it. On our way past there, we passed a roadside salt stand that sold the salt from the salt flats. At the creperie that we went to tonight, I tried some of the salt. It tastes really good.

THHHHE ENNNND

Shells, Shells & More Shells

C: We went to the beach and found a bunch of shells, and then we went to another beach and found a bunch more shells. Some of the shells were clam shells, and some were razor clam shells, and one of my razor clam shells must have been at least 7 inches long.

The beach had a lot of shells, and you couldn't walk around without breaking ten shells at once. Some of the shells were snail shells. One of the snail shells is my favorite, because it is all ridged and white.

We were there at low tide, and not very many people were there, except I saw one man running barefoot over the shells. It was almost nothing like the beaches in California, the only similarity was. . . SAND.

In Massachusetts there are similar beaches, because there are clam shells, AND sand, and there are similar shells. And when it gets to be low tide in Massachussetts, there are huge beaches, a lot like here in France.

The shells are the same here because all of the spores float to the other side of the ocean, I guess.

[Note from Mom: We are staying at a friend's house near Le Croisic, on the south coast of Brittany. It's just north of where the Loire river flows into the Atlantic, and is an area that has been known for its salt harvesting industry for centuries.]

Getting to the Coast- Driving in French

Ok, it might not have been the best idea to pick up the rental car in Paris.

With the maze of one-way streets, and over a half an hour of circling round and round, I finally took the drastic step of driving the wrong way, in order to finally get to our apartment to pick up the rest of the family.

Another 45 minutes or so, we drove around, trying to find our way out of Paris. Our assessment was that there were several things which made driving here more complicated. Obviously, the language, but also the street signs are sometimes covered up by cafe awnings, and they are posted on the buildings, only, not before the intersection. The intersections are often roundabouts (especially where many streets come together at once). Paris is not laid out on a grid, so its easy to lose your sense of direction. In short, it was foreign to us.

Then, another wrong detour to miss the toll road (again) and we ended up driving to Chartes on the rural roads. Which was pleasant, but took longer than we expected.

Chartres is the home of La Maison Picassiette, which is an amazing mosaic house, created by a resident of Chartres over a 30 year period, beginning in 1938. No photos are permitted but you can see more about it here: http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/picassiette/index.shtml This was a pilgramage for my mother, who has wanted to visit for years. This side trip, however, led to more getting lost.

Finally we got on to the tollway. The speed limit is 110. Kilometers per hour, that is. It still seems strange to see that on the dashboard.

Our car is a Citroen Picasso, automatic, diesel, which seats 7. Its smaller than our honda van, which seats 6, so with our luggage its a bit cramped, but still large compared to other cars on the road. It has an onboard navigation system, which clearly didn't help us much, and the manual is all in French.

We arrived on the coast very late, after dark, and spent about another hour trying to find our friend's house, and finally had to call for an escort. It was a long night!

Paris Metro

In Paris, we used the metro to travel around, when we weren't walking. The metro has many, many stops. We bought a pass called the Orange pass, and we had to bring our own pictures to put on it (you could buy them there, but they were 4 Euros each, so printing them out ahead of time saved us a lot of $$).

Sometimes it seemed like you were walking further underground than you would have if you just walked.

The trains came every 2-3 minutes.

The train was like a normal train-like-bus, says C.

The signs were Art Nouveau, cast metal, and were quite beautiful.