Knights and Bikes

Camino Day 4 – Foncebadon to Ponferrada
Kms 27

The dark morning is cold here in the mountains. Frostiest morning on a more or less hot trip. The downside of our private space in the Yoga studio was that well, there was a Yoga class in our bedroom at 8:00am which meant we had to feed the kids and get them packed and ready to bike by eight. Wow, we’re getting better at this! We had to hurry it out by the light of the moon. I have mentioned of course that the moon is up until 9:00? We then had granola and yogurt with the hippie’s who were listening to Bob Marley of course and then we were off.

Off meant down the most beautiful descent but it was pretty scary. It felt like we were going down the incline of a black-diamond ski-hill only we had to stop often to cool our breaks. It was literally like descending the alps. Steep, waterfalls, tiny mountain roads and very intense while Kathryn was having the time of her life. There was literally 2 hours with no pedaling.

Lunch was by the river in Maconda where my children tried to swim in the freezing ice-water of the mountain stream. We arrived in Ponferrada to a very welcoming auberge and a great town. They have a castle from the era of the Templar Knights and we had an excellent dinner in the plaza overlooking the town and then the kids climbed olive trees until and then we watched a make-shift theatre production in by the Castle that never started until 9:00 pm so whe had to leave for the kids bed-time.

We put the kids to bed and then I went downstairs and shared a snack with Ruth and Jules, Miriam and her friend. Jules is from Britain and has to have a surgery in a few months on his back and they told him he had to get his body-weight down for the surgery so he decided to walk the Camino to accomplish this. The dedication of those that walk the camino is unbelievable. Miriam is from Belgium and in her early thirties. Her husband could not get the time off work so she is walking the Camino alone. She’s kind and takes an interest in the kids. Ruth and I went back upstairs and passed the chart showing the inclines of the the days ahead. We gulped, shook our heads and went to bed with visions of mountain passes in our heads.

Ponferrada has a great hostel and is a definite stop to see the sites in this medieval town. The books all warn you about directions and well….they are all true. Be prepared to ask for directions on the way in and out of town.

DONATING

People have been asking how to donate to us. Here is a detailed pictoral help guide and description. Sorry this is so confusing. It would be easier if someone wanted to set up a charity for us :). As it is we are using 3 or 4 organizations to get donations. The good thing is that once you donate 100% of the funds are going to the projects you donate to.

100% of your donation

goes to the project.

Here is how to donate:

1. go to http://www.loadsoflove.ca/

2. select on the left hand side the icon for 'canada helps'. this organization allows you to donate to charities online

3. the page should look something like the image below.

4. then on the canada helps page there are 4 things to do.

fill in your donation amount

select john and ruth kerr zambia as the missionaries

then add a note saying what the donation is for.

if the donation is for rob and kate 'community developmnet/rob and kate

if it is for one of our projects select 'community development/trees or playground

always it should say community development if it is for us.

A photo journal of life in Zambia

We thought the best way to show you what life was like was in pictures. Here is some photos of what life is like.

Camino Day 3 hippie goat town

Astorga to Foncebadon
Sept. 2010
Kms 26

We woke at 7:30 in the Spanish dark. It really doesn't get light here till after 9am-very weird. Breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate and then we gather the kids and gear and are out the door by 9:00am. Travel is not easy. Ruth took the bikes to the bike store to get our tires pumped up and I went to the grocery store that smelled like octopus and bought a new stash of diapers and wipes- wince -it would be a few more days before we enter civilization once more.

Today was INTENSE!!! The first half was fine making it to the village Rob thought we would be at our final destination for the day by lunch time. Pride cometh before the fall. We ate outside a tienda with local Grandma’s and the owner gave Sim and Kathryn some banana’s. Afternoon was climbing a mountain. Did I say mountain? Yes. A mountain with Kathryn & I on the trail-a-bike, Rob with the chariot LOADED DOWN with gear and Ruth carrying tents and panniers full of stuff. We are getting used to walking uphill. It was a five Km steep turnpike ascent up what I lovingly call the mountain of death.

Definitely the closest I’ve ever come to complete physical exhaustion. So so tired. Slowly and with great pain we eventually made it to the village of Foncebadon which is hilarious. All I can say are two words: Yoga and goats. We found a little auberge that gave us great hot chocolate and let us sleep in their yoga studio so we wouldn’t have to share our kids with the community of snorers. I literally feel like Mary & Joseph as we park our bikes and head back between the goats and mules to make our bed in the yoga studio. This is so surreal! Tomorrow though, is downhill!

Till then watch your step!

Camino Day 2 biking to Astorga

Sept.24 Camino Day 2
26km

All I can say is that if your doing long distance biking without wearing spandex underneath your pants, you aren’t going to make it. All day was spent biking the beautiful backroads along the last section of the plains.

We left our less than stellar campsite and the Norwegians by around 10:00 am. Laundry was still wet and the unfortunate thing about spain is that you can still see the moon at 9:00am which makes it hard to get up and get moving in the dark. We had six hours of biking ahead with huge hills and I was trailing Kathryn who likes a lot of brakes. She’s doing amazing for a six-year-old with only minimal “I’m tired mom” breakdowns. We saw the longest and oldest bridge in spain and had café and lunch beside it. The afternoon is always the hardest leg in the journey because the physical stamina is waining. We met a nice friend of Ruth’s from Brazie outside the Guadi Museum on our arrival in Astorga. He had been travelling all the way from France and said that for him what separated the Camin from other vacations was that it cleansed your soul. I think his Camino didn’t include having to stop pre-schoolers fighting over blankets in a bike-trailer!

The auberge we stayed at was great! I got a massage for six euro’s and our laundry also dried! The sleeping? Well, however nice a place is, sleeping in a room with 100 other bunkmates is still going to result in a lot of people snoring. We had put the kids down earlier though, so they weren’t phased by it at all. All I can say it that along with spandex, earplugs are a must for any camino venture. The thing that saved our kids was finding a quiet back corner. Tommorrow or the next day we will finally hit....the mountains that have been looming in the distance.

52. Sept.24 Camino Day 2 tenting-catherdral City of Astorga
All I can say is that if your doing long distance biking without wearing spandex underneath your pants, you aren’t going to make it.
We left our less than stellar campsite and the Norwegians by around 10:00 am. Laundry was still wet and the unfortunate thing about spain is that you can still see the moon at 9:00am which makes it hard to get up and get moving in the dark. We had six hours of biking ahead with huge hills and I was trailing Kathryn who likes a lot of brakes. She’s doing amazing for a six-year-old with only minimal “I’m tired mom” breakdowns. We saw the longest and oldest bridge in spain and had café and lunch beside it. The afternoon is always the hardest leg in the journey because the physical stamina is waining. We met a nice friend of Ruth’s from Brazie outside the Guadi Museum on our arrival in Astorga. He had been travelling all the way from France and said that for him what separated the Camin from other vacations was that it cleansed your soul. I think his Camino didn’t include having to stop pre-schoolers fighting over blankets in a bike-trailer!
The auberge we stayed at was great! I got a massage for six euro’s and our laundry also dried! The sleeping? Well, however nice a place is, sleeping in a room with 100 other bunkmates is still going to result in a lot of people snoring. We had put the kids down earlier though, so they weren’t phased by it at all. All I can say it that along with spandex, earplugs are a must for any camino venture.

Camino Day 1 Leon-Villadangos del Paramo

Sept.23 2010

Day 1
23Km, 4.5 hours

First time ever biking 23 km.....yeah!!!!!!!
We didn’t make it out of Leon and we’re lost. The kids played with dogs and sat on cobblestone paths as an older gentleman tried to tell us where the best places to eat in Leon. Ruth’s pilgrim guide warned us of well meaning locals, who will send you in the wrong direction. Thanks ol’ man- we are going this way! The number 1 rule of camino we will learn….follow the yellow arrows and sea shells….and hope they don’t point different ways at the same time (they will). We learned to always follow yellow arrows and sea-shells-not people in berets.

We finally found the right path and met real Spain. We had café con leche’s and an omelet that came with fries and hot dog for lunch…weird I know. We ended up in Villadangos del paramo. A kind of two bit town that promised a caravan park with a pool. They lied. The pool was closed. Rob went on a random search for food while we set up tents and I tackled laundry. We ended up having lentil soup over the campstove, but Rob forgot the lentils at the store! It rained and so the laundry didn’t dry, but we collapsed in bed by 8:30.

happy

In the Book of the Dead

Sept. 14 2010

Today we went to Edinburgh Castle. While the kids sat on cannons and climbed the ramparts I pursued the museum. At the top of the castle the Scot’s have turned the chapel into a war memorial. I decided I would hunt for my Uncle who was killed during WW2 a few days after D Day.
What I came upon startled me. In one of the many great volumes of names was my own. Even my initials.

D. Robert Hall.

It hit me….He died (my namesake), in a war because he loved his country, and I trust the cause. It is a somber thing to think he died, voluntarily, willingly. He at some point put his name on a piece of paper knowing full well he may die for having signed it.

I prayed that when and if I needed to do the same, I would have the same courage. I pray that I would have the conviction to put my name in on things that I believe to be right-even though I too may suffer.

Breaking camping rules

sept.11 2010


Frigid Temperatures and a deluge of rain, thunder and lightening. Have to go to the bathroom. Oh no, the rain has started. Really have to pee. Now Kathryn and Sim have to pee…..but every time we’re about to try and go the rain starts harder. Desperately I find the umbrella-eventually.

I am breaking all of my camping rules (Camping is for people who don’t enjoy sleeping by the way),

okay back to my rules:
a) Never be cold
b) Never have your hip bone in the ground
And my two new ones
c) Never be wet
d) Never be smushed between children
So, I had blatantly broken all of my keys for Camping success and yet I couldn’t stop smiling. I am so happy to be here, to have “action living” as I used to say is, to be living this dream with my family. I am utterly alive and so wrecked for normal life.
We woke up to drips landing on our heads. Time for a new tent!

BE A ZAMBIAN HERO- PLANT A TREE

The rate of deforestation in this country is ALARMING! We see evidence of land burning and trees being cut everywhere. The question I heard a missionary raise lately was, ‘I wonder if anyone is planting trees to replace them?’ The question stuck in my head. The likelihood of a trees being planted somewhere in my experience seems absolutely remote. It has been the hardest thing to try to teach people to value trees- why? Well because in a culture that doesn’t expect to reach old age they have never seen the value of a tree grow. Never appreciated the shade a planted tree has brought. In a culture where everything is about surviving today, a tree that will produce fruit 6 years or shade in 10 years is just too low on the priority scale to notice. I came up with this slogan and I want to make it into a t-shirt, ‘be a hero plant a tree.’
I don’t just want to plant a tree though. I want to plant 1000 trees. 1000 trees in the next 2 years. This year’s goal is 500, next year I want to have started a nursery to plant the rest. You can see the pictures of the farm where we are developing. I notice 1 thing……where are all the trees? When I see people wilting in the hot sun I think, ‘where are the trees?’ When I see a malnourished baby with a distended belly just outside our gates in a country that has trees that can produce fruit 365 days of the year, ‘where are the trees?’ I want to pack every available space with a tree, for soil conservation, for shade, for water retention, and for fruit! A tree costs $3. Help me plant some trees, buy the whole orchard and I will name it after you. The nursery that we begin this year will become a seedling bank and enable us to get trees to vulnerable families.

100 orange trees
100 banana trees (300 more next year)
100 papaya trees (which will produce fruit this year)
50 mango trees
30 avocado trees
50 guava trees
70 ornamental trees (maybe some grapes if I can find them)


Donate Today: click here and designate for John and Ruth Kerr c.o. community development project.

October Update from Rob and Kate

October UPDATE from Rob and Kate
________________________________________
Greetings, from the supplier of your household plumbing: Kitwe, Zambia. It is great to know that we have contributed here to such a basic and essential thing in your house…..your copper pipes. Kitwe’s only claim to fame is its massive production of copper. The mines have been booming here since copper prices have hit an all time high. Unfortunately for the local Zambian this hasn’t trickled down into jobs for the average worker. Unemployment is high, and poverty is everywhere. Having said this I am amazed at how different life here is, 10 years after our first visit. The shops have food and clothes, supplies are coming in all the time, small business is everywhere. It is a good season for Zambia and for us.
We are feeling more settled in Zambia as we near our first month anniversary. We jumped right in with teaching classes, preparing the farms for the rains (which came today YaHH!!). What has complicated things is Cameron getting malaria, which has taken 2 rounds of medicine to cure and Simeon spreading Impetigo to all of us, who incidentally are benefiting from topical antibiotics. It takes a lot of energy battling stuff like this so far from home. As for work, there is no shortage of things to do. Training in just basic things is so badly needed here. I can’t tell you the number of pipes held together with rubber bands. Picking your battles and being at ease with the fact that everything will be just a drop in the bucket, makes life bearable and sleep possible. As we begin to figure out what it is we really need to do here, there are a few holes we feel really need to be addressed and we need your help to do it. There are 3 projects we would like to begin as soon as possible, which is when the funds come in.

The TTC playground: Operation get the kids off the water tower.
I feel so Canadian realizing that my first pet project is a playground. In North America we have privatized play. Many people I know don’t even go to public parks, but have the play grounds in their own backyard. This makes play safer, convenient and very different from here. In Zambia every toy is precious, especially for us because we didn’t bring any. Toys are shared and fought over. There often aren’t many to go around. You can imagine when every extra is going into paying for education our family students there isn’t a lot of toys at home. What’s more is that most kids are just left to make play for themselves. It isn’t normal to play with kids, to make an effort to notice them. Our kids are making do with what they find, which unfortunately is a leaky water tower and our farm equipment- the tractor is a favorite.
On our grounds there are several families that are studying here, at present that accounts for 20 kids. This has provided an instant play group if not a constant one. Imagine 20 kids in a small area sharing a few toys-crazy! Or 20 kids with no unsupervised safe place to play….no backyard, except an equipment yard- Dangerous! The number of kids swells at conference time and our training classes. We would love to make some simple structures, a swing, a monkey bar, a slide. This is about more than just play space it is also to help the families here imagine and model play with their kids. It is an opportunity for them to turn towards their kids and focus on them. Our goal is to look for recycled materials, and creative things that can be reproduced in the slums that surround us.
Playgrounds are places to earn your stripes as a kid-they are places to imagine and dream. It is on playgrounds that adulthood is formed. We in a very, very small way want to help model this here. If you would like to help we are trying to raise $2000 to build a sweet structure that will also employ some people. Better yet come and help build it. Hopefully this is the first of a number of structures we can build here and in the surrounding neighbourhoods.
BE A ZAMBIAN HERO- PLANT A TREE
The rate of deforestation in this country is ALARMING! We see evidence of land burning and trees being cut everywhere. The question I heard a missionary raise lately was, ‘I wonder if anyone is planting trees to replace them?’ The question stuck in my head. The likelihood of a trees being planted somewhere in my experience seems absolutely remote. It has been the hardest thing to try to teach people to value trees- why? Well because in a culture that doesn’t expect to reach old age they have never seen the value of a tree grow. Never appreciated the shade a planted tree has brought. In a culture where everything is about surviving today, a tree that will produce fruit 6 years or shade in 10 years is just too low on the priority scale to notice. I came up with this slogan and I want to make it into a t-shirt, ‘be a hero plant a tree.’
I don’t just want to plant a tree though. I want to plant 1000 trees. 1000 trees in the next 2 years. This year’s goal is 500, next year I want to have started a nursery to plant the rest. You can see the pictures of the farm where we are developing. I notice 1 thing……where are all the trees? When I see people wilting in the hot sun I think, ‘where are the trees?’ When I see a malnourished baby with a distended belly just outside our gates in a country that has trees that can produce fruit 365 days of the year, ‘where are the trees?’ I want to pack every available space with a tree, for soil conservation, for shade, for water retention, and for fruit! A tree costs $3. Help me plant some trees, buy the whole orchard and I will name it after you. The nursery that we begin this year will become a seedling bank and enable us to get trees to vulnerable families.
100 orange trees
100 banana trees (300 more next year)
100 papaya trees (which will produce fruit this year)
50 mango trees
30 avocado trees
50 guava trees
70 ornamental trees (maybe some grapes if I can find them)

Come and be a part of our SKILLS TRAINING
We have a building currently under construction that will house what will be a new shop for trade development. When someone says to you here, ‘I know how to fix that-car, a bike, a leaky tap’-BEWARE! We know as Canadians duct tape can fix anything, but should it? By early next year we hope to have begun training in a variety of simple trades each of the 200 bible college students. We hope that all of them graduate knowing how to exegete scripture and work with their hands. Everywhere around us though is opportunity to pass along help. I asked a group of adults, ‘can you tell me what compost is?’ NO ONE could. The wealth of knowledge we have as Canadians is unbelievable. You could be a help in many, many ways…..so come!
Just to encourage you more. We could use:

• plumbers
• carpenters
• farmers
• concrete guys, tillers
• nurses/ doctors/ nutritionists
• food service people
• friendly people
• pastors

What could this look like: We can accommodate people coming on short term teams-anytime. Guests would stay with us on the college campus and get a feel for living in semi rural Africa. Depending on your skill and what you would like to do we can customize an amazing, life changing trip for you, or your team.
Spend time here training the future church leaders of Zambia at the college. Bring your skills to the people in greatest need by training community and business leaders from the poorest neighborhoods of Kitwe. Go off in your downtime and visit rural churches, or head out to the lake to fish, and when you are totally spent- head down to the Zambezi River and visit Victoria Falls, or head to see some animals on a safari.
If you want to think about coming, let’s start talking and planning. Send us an email.

Keep up with our travels on our blog: www.withkidsintow.blogspot.com

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like to contribute to us or the projects we want to get started:
We have streamlined our donations to Loads of Love. Loads of Love is the Canadian Charity that is directly involved with this project in Kitwe and will transfer funds directly to us.

www.loadsoflove.ca
please designate all donations to: Kitwe Zambia Community Development Project.

setting up tents in the dark.

Sept. 12 2o1o

We moved from the tea-room to a taxi owned by a man with a sweet disposition and a brogue I can’t quite understand. He has a wagon and has crammed all of us in. It is now 9:30 p.m. and pitch black as we climb a hill with chariot, packs and kids in tow. An older couple with a broken down R.V. are ahead of us occupying all of the caravan park attendant’s time so we get to our campsight by ten and then I grab the kids and haul them into the bathroom while Rob sets up the tent.
In the dark. Without tentpegs. (Guess what happened to my toothbrush holders?)
Without a flashlight.
Oh, and guess who dropped his one and only remaining soother on the way to the bathroom?
Screaming, crying tired kids, frustration and anger, we were all beyond our worst and I pity the poor people trying to tent near us.
And then the rain started.
Tonight was the most stressful experience I’ve had since…well, Paris to Scotland, or being homeless in Edinburgh was pretty bad, or maybe the train to Taize, or how about…never mind. Is there perhaps a travel theme here of biting off more than we can chew?
In the depths of stress beyond understanding God had pity for on the way back from taking out my contacts which had turned to stone, what did I see twinkling in the moonlight?
Cam’s solitary soother. Whoever is struggling with the concept of divine intervention, there’s your answer.

Bus to Oban......is that a woolie cow?

Friday Sept. 10

Cameron decided to lose both his soothers behind the bunk-beds that are nailed to the wall at 6:00 am. Luckily the cartoons were in English. After showers and packing up we went downstairs for dormstyle Scottish hostel breakfast. We are getting good at this one night stand-pack your luggage in the AM routine. Note to self: don’t order coffee in Scotland (especially if you have spent the last few weeks in France).
We left at 10 am and wandered in the pouring rain to get bus tickets. If you are trying to get places in Edinburgh we highly recommend the tourist office on Princes St. Often it has a huge line but they can book anything you need anywhere in the country-very knowledgable. We discovered through them we could travel for 35£ per person (we paid tickets for Kathryn because they were 1/2price and kids under 5 free) anywhere we wanted for 3 of 5 consecutive days with Citylink. Enough time to get us to Iona and back.

Since our bus didn’t leave until 3:00, we bought Kathryn a new raincoat and a sleeping bag and then went for fish and chips at a very cool pub that even Tolkien would be proud to frequent. We then went on a fruitless search for toques because Scotland is FREEZING!

City link bus route- Edinburgh-Perth (or Glasgow)-Oban (4.5hr)
To go to iona- oban ferry to (isle of Mull) Craignure(50min)-bus Craignure to Finnphort(45min)-Finnphort ferry to Iona (15 min)

On to the bus headed to Perth. Cameron slept on the sleeping Robert, Kathryn slept in her own seat and Simeon talked to me non-stop for two hours! Then we boarded the bus To Oban and I am now seated with the under-the-weather Kathryn who is requesting stories from when I threw-up when I was a little girl. Sim is telling Robbie that he wants to climb all the mountains we are passing and Cameron has switched from yelling “Moo” out the window to “Baa”…we are in Scotland after all.

Leon- camino day 1 photos

Camino Day 1 Leon- but first RUTHIE where are you???

Sept. 22 2010

It was almost midnight when we had arrived in Leon after the worst travel experience of the trip. We were told by bike spain we should be okay getting our bikes on the train......don't try it. All trains accept 3 bikes....we took all three, but the conductor did not want to let us on. If it weren't for some very supportive bystanders we would not have got on the train. They complained and held a mini boycott on the platform or we would still be standing there....after all that stress Cammie cried for 3 solid hours till we pulled out the stroller and put him in it.

In the dark of a foreign city we biked until we found our hostel (which Rob had pre-booked praises be) and we found out that our hostel had no windows and that they were two ajoining rooms not one room for all of us. It did however overlook the most incredible Cathedral that was lit up in the night and the wonderful thing about Spain is that everyone is out on the street with their babies at midnight so they didn’t think that we were up for the worst parents of the world award.

I brought the kids downstairs to find breakfast while Rob had gotten on the bike and decided to see if he could find Ruth somewhere in the city. The best is that while the kids and I were downstairs who should come through the door, but Ruthie! So amazing to see family in the middle of our adventure.

Rob eventually showed up and we ate a raisin bun and café-con- leche’s outside underneath the gaze of the Cathedral. The kids were so happy to have someone to play with besides us, and we met all kinds of interesting “peregrino’s” from all over the world and even one man from Etobicoke. Small, small world. After breakfast and check out and speding time in the cathedral we biked to get our pilgrim passports which prove that you are legit to all the pilgrim hostal’s on the way and then we headed out for day one of biking the Camino!


adios modern transport.....hello biking...and walking (the first hill was a doozie.)

Falafel in Paris- little middle east

So we were winding our way down a small alleyway in Paris, taking the scenic route back home. Strangely enough I started seeing Hebrew lettering on the storefronts. We kept going and I saw men dressed in black and wearing keepah’s and suddenly I was back home in the middle east. We couldn’t resist the 3 falafel shops in a row. Sure enough, best falafel this side of Jerusalem was had in Paris.
We confirmed we were in the middle east, because 2 guys start fighting over a motorcycle, till mama comes out of a shop and beats the 2 grown men with her cane……ahhhhhh the middle east.

Businessmen and Baguettes

Sept 6 2010

Yes, accommodations may be less than desirable for the young family trying to stick to a budget, but I really do love Paris. I love that men in suits have a cellphone in one hand and a baguette to take home in the other. I love that the café’s are lined with tables looking out on the street and that every table is taken. That there is a love for good food, friends and café crème. It is also so beautiful. The attention to detail and beauty makes me think the line of kings couldn’t have been all bad…well, except for Marie Antoinette.

I had brought Dickens’s A tale of Two Cities to read with me on the plane and was so glad I did. We were staying in the “Bastille” district map(which perhaps explains why our hotel was less than stellar) and it was making me a little squeamish reading Dickens’ account of the French Revolution at the same moment as I was walking Parisian streets where so much blood had been shed.
What a history this country has.

Floating down the Seine

Sept. 6 2010

We weren’t planning on taking one of those tourist boat rides down the Seine but as you know by now the Louvre was closed. So, since Cameron kept yelling “Boat, boat, boat” with every sea-vessel that passed his gaze we decided why not comply?
I don’t know why Paris doesn’t have water taxis. In my opinion it would be a great step up from the larger crafts that circulate up and down the Seine. Most are rather tacky and not all that cheap or user friendly. Best advice on picking one is decide what it is you want to see- do you need it to stop?
Ours was just a straight tour that showed mostly the underside of Paris’ bridges. Yes, we had to sit in plastic row-seats and the aisles were covered with plastic poinsettias- I don’t know why. A big plus was the busload of Seniors from Spain-- you’ve never seen my boys so happy and to pass each bridge in Paris by water and be told their history and significance was really fun. Also, you are told about the places you wouldn’t see in a guidebook and to look at the Eifel Tower from the water is even more spectacular than being under it.

The seniors from Spain turned out to be highly entertained by my children. This meant that Simeon got a lollipop and was able to monologue to some grandmothers who didn’t speak English but thought he was so cute. With the kids occupied and contained Rob and I….were able to relax and have a nap.

'CN Tower-Eifel Tower..'

Sept 6 2010

We took the kids to see the Eifel tower- aka ‘the trinket trap.’ We decided it was easier with the stroller to take the bus. I think we were right, but it did take 45min from the Bastille. I have to say the best thing about the tower was the Merry-go-round at the bottom. As it turns out the kids really did remember and enjoy just seeing it. In preparing the kids for the trip the Eiffel Tower was one of the things that would define for us, ‘ when we are in the world.’

On the way home Simeon came up with an awesome song he wishes to share. Sing with Simeon “C.N. Tower, Eifel Tower” now repeat this in a loud voice for two hours straight throughout the streets of Paris and you will see the impact that Mr. Eifel had on my young son.

70 Euro in Paris gets you.....

A room that you’re scared to sleep in. We are once again on a train. Our luggage system has been streamlined and each trip we find more organizational resources within ourselves to keep our luggage to a minimum. We still look like the traveling circus but we are now travelling with eight bags instead of eleven. We arrived in Paris tired and crusty and in major need of a place to stay; which meant that following our favourite tradition of inability to plan because of lack of internet and phone, we were walking the streets trying to find a place.

After staying in Taize for two weeks, we were a little shocked that the places below a one-star where you are sure that only cockroaches would want to live cost 70 Euro a night, but it’s true. Since Paris is the most visited city in the world it is little wonder that beggar’s can’t be choosers.
So, we settled for the room we were scared to sleep in and left as soon as we had dropped our bags. I should also note that there were no bathrooms in the hall but that there was one bathroom for each floor and that their entrance was on the winding staircases with steps just large enough to make Simeon plummet down them every time he had to step out of the washroom. Oh joy.