Fabric Extravaganza

Stephanie made it in just fine. She was tired and ready to be on solid ground, but otherwise fine. Today we hit the fabric store, La King. We then ventured to the artisinal to barter for some gifts for her to bring back. After that we went to the batik store for her to put in some orders. Off to do a scenic drive of Mount Febe and then down to Prestige for lunch. Our seamstress, Catherine, just left and Stephanie is to have a brand-new, custom-made wardrobe. We leave tomorrow for South Africa.

Awaiting Stephanie's Arrival

Tonight, my middle sister, Stephanie arrives for a 3 week visit. I am so excited to be able to show her around Cameroon. We are also lucky enough to be going to South Africa. Our friend, Marianne will be our tour guide. So stay tuned and in a few weeks I'll have some SAFARI shots!

Swiss Francs, CFA's, Pounds, Euros, Czeck $

This shot shows all of the different money I had at one point. There is a
lot more to tell, but I am afraid those are all the pictures I have for now. At some point in Paris I realised that I had forgotten to reinsert my memory chip after printing off some photos for my students' graduation. I thought, no big deal, as my parents were bringing me one when we met up with them. Then the most dreaded thing possible happened--their luggage never made it! So I will have to update later-making the blog go out of sequential order--CURSES!!!!

Bath Cathedral

We loved Bath. The weather was cold and damp, but a nice change from Cameroon. After I had a freak out about staying in a room with four strangers and anything else I could think of, we had a good time. The hostel actually wasn't that bad and it saved us a lot of money. We spent a couple days walking about the great town and even jogged on a bike path alongside a river. Food--yummy!!!!! The Roman Baths were interesting and the people very friendly and helpful.

Bath, England

I was totally stressed as to how we were going to get to London from Paris, in order to meet my parents. We had looked online a few days before leaving Yaounde for the Eurostar, which takes you under the English Channel. We were looking up one-way prices and they were way too high. So we just went to the bus station in Paris and the nice lady suggested we buy a round-trip ticket instead--it was less than half the price. WHEW! Once in London, we got another train ticket to go to Bath. In Bath we just asked a taxi driver to take us to a B&B. It was really cute and I loved it. Unfortunately it was 70 pounds a night so we only stayed one night. The owner made us the best breakfast I ever had the next morning before we set off to find a hostel.

This is Pete's first English pint, AAAAHHHHH!

Bridge/Eiffel Tower

We were pretty tired, but found our way down to the Eiffel tower. No pictures because at the base of it you can't see the whole thing. The crowds were worse than any amusement park I have been to. We just walked around and sat at a bench nearby. There were gypsies asking if we could read English and then they hand you a card with their sob story on it. Despite that it was great people watching and relaxing in the park next to the tower. We made our way back and had the worst/overpriced meal (our fault, we should have left when we saw they had a menu in English). We didn't get to see Paris at night as it does not get dark there until almost 11 pm and we had to take the train back. Off to the UK!

Louvre

We spent quite a while trying to figure out which way to go to get to the Louvre. When we did, we were awestruck at its size. Then we were a bit puzzled as to why there weren't lines and lines of people trying to get in. We mosied up to the glass pyramid (the entrance) and saw the sign saying it was closed on Tuesdays! Oh well, we knew we would be able to go back when on the bus tour.
It was neat to see the outside even.

Saint Teresa

Which one is the saint? Haha! Last of the shots inside Notre Dame.
Of course nothing can do this magnificent building justice. Despite the crowds and people taking pictures of things with signs in several languages and even pictographs telling them not to, we took a few minutes to take it all in and felt loftier when we left.

Nooks and Crannies

These are in tribute of some saints. The one on the right is of Saint Peter, I think. That's why I stopped taking so many pictures- you can't remember what it is of after a while. On the bus tour with my parents were taking two and three pictures of every single statue, bridge, church, and street sign we passed. Ridiculous!

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Notre Dame

Our first European church. Believe me when I say, they do all start to look the same after a while. This one is kind of dark inside, but there are stained glass windows everywhere and little nooks and crannies exulting the past. The gargoyles are all around the sides and back-- to prevent evil from entering.

Seine River

Ahhh, just beautiful. The river ain't so bad either!

Architecure--Amazing!

I have no idea who this fountain is in honor of, or when it was built. There is just too much history to process. It is the first thing we saw as we emerged from the underground in Paris. We walked around the entire day and loved it all.

Paris, the first round

Pete and I left Yaounde on a Sunday evening flight, on June 17th, along with almost the entire ex patriot community. We got some help from Sandrine about the public transportation system. Jennifer and Daryl helped us get to Information. 87 euros later we were off to the suburbs of Paris. Due to our lack of time to plan anything for this summer, when we went to go book a room nothing was available. As a result, we stayed way, way, way outside the city, next to Euro Disney, of all places! It was a rough start as we had an address and figured since it said "near public transportation" people would know where the hotel was. No such luck. We got on and off that train many times, at several different stations before finding the right one. Then a glimmer of hope-- a free bus would take us there-- in three hours. So, instead we ate a delicious and expensive lunch and then got a cab. He totally over-charged us and at that point we were so tired we didn't care. This shot is of Pete walking from the RER station to the group of hotels where we stayed- it was just like Vegas the last few years we lived there--show rooms for future apartments and parking spaces that said "welcome home". It was a hike, but a brand new place, with a pool. The first day we just layed at the pool and geared up for our next day in Paris.