Meeting David's Family

When we left Paris, we took a train to a small town called Thoiry about a half hour north of the city. We were met at the station by David's second cousin, Mark. He and his wife, Leslie, had generously agreed to put us up for a few nights while we explored the surrounding area. That night, we met their children - Jamie, Lauren, and Hannah - and found out that Leslie was a fantastic cook (dinner included salmon quiche, which I loved). We also did laundry, which was a relief since I had run out of clean clothes the day before! 

In the morning we took a walk down to a nearby safari park. This was almost impossible, though, as we were quite unable to get out of the house. Try as we might, the front door would not unlock. On the verge of climbing up to the roof from the back courtyard, I finally realized that the door was probably warped and suggested lifting the door while turning the handle. It would've been ironic if two Olin kids had been unable to open a door :|

So we finally got down to the safari park. It was a dreary day, but that worked to our advantage since we were basically the only ones there. We saw all the normal animals: various small animals, reptiles, ducks that made a noise like a vibrating wail. I can't describe it any better than that but I'll put up a video of it at some point. 

We saw both the wolves and tigers being fed. The tigers were especially cool since there was a clear tunnel running through their enclosure that you could walk in. They were being fed beef hearts, and the trainers made are to throw them right on top of the tunnel so that the tigers would bound over, or stand on top of, the glass tunnel to eat the hearts. 

There were ostriches in the safari park. Unfortunately, there were WAY too many ostriches...and the brochure said there would only be a few ostriches! This is a terrible vacation!

Obscure joke. If you didn't get it, you should probably just move along. 

The animals weren't the main attraction at the park for me though. What I enjoyed even more was the labyrinth that we found. It was a giant hedge maze, with wooden bridges interspersed within the trails to make it more confusing. Since nobody else was around, we had a grand time playing tag and Marco polo in the labyrinth. We got very muddy, since it was hard to run around the tight turns in the mud without falling. Oh well. ^_^ we just did an extra load of laundry when we got back. 

That evening, I was introduced to the TV show Dr. Who by the kids. I know my sister likes the show, but I had never watched it myself. I did enjoy the episode we saw though. (Note: I justify including this in the blog by saying that Dr. Who is a British show.)

We left Thoiry and continued on to Buc, just outside of Versailles. Helen, another of David's relatives, picked us up and drove us to her house where we would be staying for a few days. Her house was unlike any I'd ever seen - the front gate was set into one of the walls surrounding a main courtyard. Two of the walls were actually the house itself, and the last wall had a path that led to a greenhouse and a small yard. All in all, it would be one of my top picks for an ideal house design - just below that cool house with turrets and such on Maple Drive. It's really a very nice place!

We ate dinner with Helen and her two children, and she proved to be a fantastic cook as well by making Moroccan chicken. We never eat as well as when we're with David's family I guess XD

We slept reeeaaaally late that morning. I guess it was good for us to sleep in, since we needed a little extra rest. Once we finally dragged ourselves out of bed, we took a bus into Versailles to see the chateau.

The palace itself was very impressive - ornate and generally fit for a king. *shot*. Unfortunately it was ruined by the addition of some obnoxiously colorful and cheery Japanese statues. Seriously, they were worthless pieces if junk. I was like "I didn't pay 15 Euros to come see rainbow sunflower faces smile at me." Oh well, I guess. I hear the exhibit is controversial so you can probably find some pics online, and I'll upload some pics to my Facebook soon. 

The gardens were HUGE! We could've spent all day wandering around in them. All I have to say is that I'm glad I'm not the head gardener XD the huge hedge patterns must take forever and a half to prune. 

After some croissants, we headed back home to Helen's house, and that's where we are now. 

Phew! We're finally up to date on our blog. Sorry about the gap in the updates - we hit a small section where it was hard to get wifi and it set us back a bit. We'll try to keep the blog current from here on out. 

Oh, I forgot one important bit of information! We received a package containing the SPOT when we got to Helen's house. That's the GPS tracker that we were supposed to have from the beginning. Now, you'll be able to follow us in real time when we're traveling on an interactive map. I'll post the link to the map in the next update. But it's good that we have this since it'll make our parents less worried...especially with the recent terrorist arrests and such in France and Germany. Everyone's a little uptight....but I'm sure we'll be fine. 

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