(Michelle) After some communication with Nadirah and Nathan (Nadirah is a former co-worker of mine, we were planning to visit her and her husband in Amsterdam where they now live), we are extending our time in France to join up with their 2 week vacation here. ROAD TRIP. We are going to start off with them in Bayeux. They will not get there until Thursday though, so we found a few things to do in the mean time. On Tuesday, we went to Versailles. I guess you 
should see the most extravagant chateau in the country when you are in the neighborhood. Three king Louis’ ruled from there and it is quite a sight… although much of it does appear to be undergoing renovation right now. King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette are probably still lingering around there somewhere… Marie A had several extra houses built on the crazy big pool, fountain and statue filled grounds. There are some 2,000 fountains on the grounds. We probably saw like 30 of them, maybe, and we were walking on the grounds outside for at least an hour. This is a true sign of what you can obtain with a insane amount of money in the 17th and 18th centuries. Then we headed on the train to Rouen, which is about halfway between Paris and Bayeux. Up until now, we have enjoyed relative success with just speaking in English, in Paris. In Paris, people were very pleasant about speaking to us in English. I witnessed several people from other countries (China, Germany and others – I sat in the lobby to use to wi-fi for a while) just assume the front desk guy spoke English and started speaking to him in that instead of their own language or French. Rouen is a different story. We have started to pull out the Lingo now. We went in search for dinner, but all the restaurants we passed were closed except of course… McDonalds. We were really not trying to go to McDs, but it was the only place open at 8pm on a Tuesday night in our area. We did try the grocery first, but they didn’t have hot food and we are not in a hostel, so nowhere to cook anything. We did pick up a bottle of wine at the grocery before we headed to McDs. A local fellow about our age saw us collecting our McDs with our bottle of wine and he had a good chuckle at the thought of a Big Mac with wine. We laughed with him, because it is pretty funny. This time, when TJ ordered, he used the word ‘non’ in front of Mayo, so he successfully got no Mayo, instead of double mayo like the last time when he just said no Mayo. Thanks Lingo.
should see the most extravagant chateau in the country when you are in the neighborhood. Three king Louis’ ruled from there and it is quite a sight… although much of it does appear to be undergoing renovation right now. King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette are probably still lingering around there somewhere… Marie A had several extra houses built on the crazy big pool, fountain and statue filled grounds. There are some 2,000 fountains on the grounds. We probably saw like 30 of them, maybe, and we were walking on the grounds outside for at least an hour. This is a true sign of what you can obtain with a insane amount of money in the 17th and 18th centuries. Then we headed on the train to Rouen, which is about halfway between Paris and Bayeux. Up until now, we have enjoyed relative success with just speaking in English, in Paris. In Paris, people were very pleasant about speaking to us in English. I witnessed several people from other countries (China, Germany and others – I sat in the lobby to use to wi-fi for a while) just assume the front desk guy spoke English and started speaking to him in that instead of their own language or French. Rouen is a different story. We have started to pull out the Lingo now. We went in search for dinner, but all the restaurants we passed were closed except of course… McDonalds. We were really not trying to go to McDs, but it was the only place open at 8pm on a Tuesday night in our area. We did try the grocery first, but they didn’t have hot food and we are not in a hostel, so nowhere to cook anything. We did pick up a bottle of wine at the grocery before we headed to McDs. A local fellow about our age saw us collecting our McDs with our bottle of wine and he had a good chuckle at the thought of a Big Mac with wine. We laughed with him, because it is pretty funny. This time, when TJ ordered, he used the word ‘non’ in front of Mayo, so he successfully got no Mayo, instead of double mayo like the last time when he just said no Mayo. Thanks Lingo. (TJ) Versailles was about what I expected it to be. The palace was heavily gilded with stone wood and gold leaf. The gardens also seemed to be pretty immense with many statues and fountains and maze like shrubbery. The part that I was not expecting was the vast paintings that are on the ceilings of just about all of the rooms that we saw. The only other thing that I have seen like it is the Sistine chapel. I thought the best room was the hall of mirrors where the king used to receive dignitaries and also where the Versailles treaty that officially ended WW1was signed. This place was packed and there were so many people that it was hard to get around some of the smaller rooms. I felt attached at multiple locations where I was surrounded by school children suddenly or Italian tourists. The royal stuff is nice to see but it also would have been nice to see some of the servants quarters, kitchens etc. and hear about how the place was actually run on a day to day basis.
I had my first Royal with cheese last night with deluxe potatoes and will say that is was delicious. I was shocked at how busy the McD’s was, but then I thought about our food court experience and realized that “cheap” and “ok” fast food can be a little hard to come by here, hence the success of McD’s, KFC, Subway, etc. I also do not recommend wine with McDonalds.
I had my first Royal with cheese last night with deluxe potatoes and will say that is was delicious. I was shocked at how busy the McD’s was, but then I thought about our food court experience and realized that “cheap” and “ok” fast food can be a little hard to come by here, hence the success of McD’s, KFC, Subway, etc. I also do not recommend wine with McDonalds.
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