London! Finally. Ok, so I started writing a new post as soon as we got back from Versailles a few days ago now, but I got sidetracked when we went to dinner so now it's been a while... Sorry :) Now to remember what I was actually writing about: Versailles. Actually, there's time in between then and when I left off in the one before, so I think I have to start right when we got back to Paris from Belgium. We arrived in plenty of time to find Remy (our friendly connection) and get some keys and the apartment back. Unfortunately he wasn't quite friendly enough as to help us lug the bags up the stairs, but we managed all right just the same. The rest of that day was pretty much squandered away wandering around the area and watching 17 Again, which I must say was pretty awful but worth watching just for Zac Efron. How sad it is that I must say that. But, I admit, he is adorable. And he acts pretty well I think. Anyway, the next day was even less fruitful, as half was spent lazing around watching movies and the other lazing around outside looking at overpriced French clothes meant to look like cheap American clothes. Tragic. So we didn't buy anything there. The next day we finally got something done and visited the Louvre, which was amazing, though we only visited a small section because we were thinking we would go back, which was never to happen. Oh well. That's what the rest of my life is for. So after our museum day we wanted something slightly more upbeat... Some of you may be able to guess where we hit next? ....... Of course, Disneyland. Because once a trip isn't enough :) Actually, my story is that I was conducting and anthropological experiment concerning the differences in fun-having habits of the French versus the rest of the world. Because despite what they might tell you, there are 95% French people there. As it turned out, I prefer our [Americans] habits to theirs, because anymore they don't include excessive smoking, drinking (remember this is Disneyland), and yelling in French. I admit that that is because most of us don't speak French at all, let alone well enough to shout happily in it. Oh, and the other thing they do there :line cutting, or queue-jumping, as the Brits call it. We stood in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean (ours is better) for about 45 minutes, and the whole time we were fighting to keep a group of boys (not all of them were little) behind us, rather than edging around either side, pushing on our backs, and generally misbehaving. Ugh. I wanted to slap them, which I realize would not have been a particularly good idea, but they were touching me and yelling and pushing and farting and and and. But whatever. We had a good time overall, and discovered that while their Space Mountain is much more exciting than ours (they have a a 360 loop), the original Disneyland is just much better, maintenance, cleaning, and crowd control included. And ours is bigger. So there, Paris. 

So after coming down off of our Disney-induced high the Louvre just didn't seem like that much fun for another day, and we set out for the fabled palace of Versailles. For all of you that have see the movie Marie Antoinette and actually care about silly things like movies, they were able to film almost the entire movie in the real rooms, including the Hall of Mirrors, which was in person even better, and, I believe, the bedrooms. For me the best part of our visit was not, however, the actual Chateau, but the grounds surrounding. Absoballylutely gorgeous. Ahem. We took the somewhat lazy route and rented a golf cart programmed with radio-activated commentary that also had the unique ability to stop us from going forward if we somehow managed to get off of their vague and poorly designed (theirs, not the original) trail, so that we managed to trample several nice plants trying to back our way out of a few tricky spots. Hmph. But that was fun anyway, and the weather managed to be wonderful when I took my pictures, so you'll all be treated to some beautiful shots when we get home. I'm not even going to bother trying to post them because of the amount of time it takes to load each one, and then the poor quality when they do show up. If you want to see my pictures, you can watch the slideshow, in about 10 days when we get home. (!!!) Ok, so from Versailles we had another shopping/Notre Dame (amazing) day, and then we boarded our excessively-priced train to London. Of course the really nice weather didn't arrive in Paris until we were leaving, but it made the train ride awfully nice to be able to see the French countryside bathed in sunlight for once. The highlight of the trip, however, was not what we could see, but what we couldn't, when we went through the Chunnel. For approximately 20 minutes the windows were completely dark, which for me was exhilarating but I think might have been a little constraining for mom, of you know what I mean. So now we're in London, and have been for about two and a half days now. The first day we got here, we wandered around until we found the nearest supermarket, which happened to be the Food Hall of Selfridges. Look it up. So we got some heat-at-home chicken and mushroom pies and cereal, ooh, and a delicious red velvet cupcake, and had yet another relaxed evening at 'home'. The next day we went for a more extensive wander, and ended up in Picadilly Circus, which I in my naivety pictured as being a roundabout kind of thing with a park in the middle (no, I didn't think it would be a circus with clowns, etc., I'm not that ignorant) but turned out to be just a big intersection that vaguely resembles Times Square. Anyway, from there we found our way to Leicester Square and the West End theater district, where we got days worths of theater tickets, including most prominently, Jersey Boys, which we went to that evening an were lucky enough to have great seats to. It featured the rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and even I knew most of the songs. The music was amazing and the atmosphere was almost even better. We took a taxi home, the first thing I've ridden in featuring suicide doors, after eating Moroccan food, which I had thought would be really exotic but turned out to be things I'd already had, like hummus or falafel. I guess that's exotic, but you know... So today we took a bus again and took a long walk, past the longtime residence of Lawrence of Arabia, to Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and St. James Park, where we lolled in the sun reading for an hour. Then we hit up the Apollo cinemas in Picadilly, where we watched Ghost of Girlfriends Past. Don't watch it. Matthew McConaughey is obnoxious and his teeth are unnaturally white. Ugh. We only went because Young Victoria isn't on until Tuesday, and the other movies they were showing were part of a Sci-Fi fest that they were hosting. So there were a bunch of weird-ish people around getting interviewed playing video games and stuff. Whatever.