Paris Greeters

We finally got set up with a Paris Greeter. We're going to meet our guide on the 27th of July and he's going to take us on a walking tour of the 12th Arrondissement, which is an area of Paris. This area has some old furniture workshops, Aligre Market, a garden on a former railway line, art craft shops, and the Place de la Bastille which sounds like it's a symbol of the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution. We're going to meet him at 9:30 in front of a tourist office. We have his picture and he has ours so it will be an interesting way to meet each other. It will be really nice to see a part of Paris that isn't just a tourist area.

The more I think about it, I wish I had built in a little more time in Paris. There is so much to see that I almost don't know where to start. I know I want to see the Louvre, Notre Dame, Montmartre, the Eiffel Tower and Versailles. I just hope we can see these things without missing too much.

By the way, we're still short 2 tickets for the swimming event. I don't think any more have been released. We almost got 4 tickets for a different swimming event earlier in the day but I was just a few minutes too late and they were gone by the time I got back to it. We're starting to see more things on TV concerning the Olympic trials. I watched a little bit of Diving, Track and Field and some Swimming. It's really getting close and I can't believe it's less than a month before we leave.

Only a month away

Can't believe we're only a month a way from leaving on our trip. I'm starting to get a little nervous and worried that I might have missed something critical in the planning.

Hotel Rooms - check
Transportation to, from and around London and Paris - check
Passports - check
Tickets to Disneyland and Harry Potter - check
The feeling that you've forgotten something - check

I still haven't gotten two tickets to the swimming event so we might be forced to try and get them when we're there. I did rent a personal wi-fi hotspot that we can take with us around London. It will allow us to use our iPhones while we're around the city to check a webpage, do a search or iMessage someone else that has an iPhone. It's going to be cheaper in the long run than signing up with an international data plan through AT&T and it will allow all of us to be connected at the same time. One thing we will have to turn off while we're there is text messaging. It's like .50 per message whether you send one or receive one so if you send any of us a text, we won't get it.

Last Chance for Swimming Tickets

Tomorrow is the last chance I think I'll get to pick up two swimming tickets through the official Olympic ticket website. It looks like they're releasing their remaining tickets all at the same time at 9:00 AM. If I don't pick two up here, I'll have to resort to the secondary market and that means the price will probably go up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

On another note, I talked to someone from KHQ about sharing our view of the Olympics while we're there. We might be using Skype or sending them pictures or movies that we take. We'll have to wait and see. I'll keep you posted on what's going to happen

Watching Harry Potter

We're watching one of the Harry Potter movies tonight and just thought I'd pass on that on July 24th, we have plans to go to the Warner Bros Studio Tour outside of London. This is the actual studio where the Harry Potter movies were shot. We'll get to go see the Great Hall, Diagon Alley, Hagrid's Hut and other scenes from the movie. It sounds like they kept the original sets and then built a tourist attraction around them all. The studio tour opened earlier this year and we ordered our tickets a couple months ago. When you order the tickets, you need to select a specific time. For a family that's watched our fair share of Harry Potter movies, I think this will be a really fun side trip. I do know that Rylee was really excited after learning that we were going to go there. She's a really big Harry Potter fan.

Ceremony of the Keys

On July 23rd, a couple of days after we arrive in London, we're going to go to the Tower of London and watch the Ceremony of the Keys. For over 700 years, they've been doing this nightly ceremony. We had to order the tickets early because they are free but issued on a first come first serve basis. We put in the order at the end of December and received them some time in January. Jeff and Kari observed this ceremony on one of their visits and recommended it. If any of you have ideas on what we should see or do, let me know.

Paris Greeters Program

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a Paris Greeters program on the Rick Steves website. The way it works is that there are people in Paris (and other locations as well) that volunteer to take tourists to areas of the city that they are familiar with and might be less "touristy". They don't charge for the tours but they do take donations that are passed on to the program that puts the volunteers in touch with the tourists. I looked at a few sites and this program received some really good reviews. I thought this might be a way to experience Paris in a different way, through the eyes of someone that lives there.

We submitted a request and I did hear back today that they accepted it. However, they don't start putting us in touch with a volunteer any earlier than 6 weeks from the trip. They also mention that it might be possible that we wouldn't hear anything definite until just before our trip. I'm looking at this as an added bonus. If we can make it work, great! If it doesn't work, we'll just head out on our own.

By the way, we're taking some French lessons from a neighbor. Michele Lamb is teaching us a little bit of the language and how the French and English language are connected. It's amazing how many of our words are similar to the French words. Michele was born in France and lived in or around Cherbourg and has studied languages. We're fortunate that she's willing and has the time to give us a few pointers. We're just hoping to pick up a little bit of the language that will help us feel a little more comfortable while we're in France. It's only 47 days now until we leave. I can't believe that it's getting this close.