New phone number!

The trouble with getting a phone number in France is that you need a RIB to get a pay as you go package and they had all the features we wanted and it was CHEAP! But to get a RIB we needed a bank account. The bank wanted $16,000.00 to open an account. I didn't have $16,000.00 in my pocket that day so I couldn't open an account. We bought an expensive prepaid phone plan instead. It's about the same price as our old one in Canada. It was really hot and we spent a lot of time trying to get the cheapest one possible and it seemed complicated because it was all in french but in reality it wasn't that hard. Hugh and Tom have the number if you need it. We knocked a few things off the bucket list by visiting the Musse Louis Braille, Maison Natale, the Basilica of saint Denis and the port de plaisance in Paris. 

Mary here we are eating a pastry for you.

Luxemburg Gardens in Paris. Best sit in the house.

Saint Dennis, the truth is that after he was decapitated, he walked away with his head in his hands.

Marie Antoniette and husband king Louis with some photo magic courtesy of my new camera.

Catacombs in St. Dennis.

A sculpture at the Louise Braille museum.

The same type of tool that Louis Braille used to poke out his eye. Be careful with knives.

A cool stair game with Braille dice. A starring contest for blind people. 

Yoly teaching the new guy Braille at the museum. The job just had to be done.

Yoly  and Louis in his student uniform.

Sitting on the well at Louis' house.

Paris

Paris. We arrived, the bikes arrived, and all is in good order. At least it is now, Yoly's bike took a bit of a beating and it was a bit of a challenge to get all the bearings from the headset in the correct spots again. That may have had something to do with lack of sleep. Somehow planing to wake up refreshed after sleeping on the plane from Montreal to Paris and waking up refreshed are different things. The bikes are built but they won't fit in the elevator so we will have to work something out.

So we're in Paris and want to go have dinner there are lots of restaurants but the are open 11:00 to 15:30. It was 18:00 and we managed to find a McDonalds. We found a bunch of other stuff we needed too but dinner in Paris at McDonalds? We had to eat salads and royal avec bacon.

Yoly at the Louvre  

Al got an iPhone that works everywhere at the Apple store.

Got close enough to the Eiffel tower to get a photo but that's as close as we got.

Just about went for a carrousel ride but was too busy eating churros.

Yoly is trying to win a fish at the  Jardin de Tuileries. 

We are off!

Well we made it to the airport. I am sure that is a step in the right direction or maybe wrong direction, time will tell. It was sad to say  good by to Hugh and the dog but we had Terry and Bob wishing us well so it kind of balanced out. I have a picture of what the loaded touring bikes look like when they are in the bags so you can look forward to that until I work out how to get it off the camera via wifi and into the blog. I did it once before so I should be able to do it again. One of the main themes of most people who said there farewells was to stay safe. My friend Jerimi recommended a JHA. Which is a Job Hazard Analysis. Well I think I will modify the JHA  to be VHA. Vacation Hazard Analysis. We promise to complete one at the start of every day. Today the greatest hazard identified so far is airport/airplane food. See you in Montreal.

We went to a wedding on the week end it turned out beutifully even if the the maid of honor was absent because she was delivering a baby. Too bad we didn't get to see the baby before we left I am sure if we would have known the timing we would have adjusted our schedule for that. Big weekend for my brother and sister in law!!!

Still IPad blogging.

This is using a different interface through safari instead of the blogger app.

 I should bring you up to date on the progress we have made recently and warn you of the setbacks. As far as progress goes we were able to shed a few pounds by training hard and weighing ourselves before drinking any water. Almost five pounds between us. We lost about ten pounds off the bikes by switching to lighter seats, lighter and fewer tent pegs, fewer clothes and less gear. Hopefully it won't get cold this year or windy.

The guys at the storage place in Paris want way more information about us than we have, like where do we live, how long a lease, what bank do we use, what is the account  so they can automatically take out the rent. I am going to call that a setback because I thought it  was all sorted.

This is the new seat!

Blogging from an IPad

We will see if it is possible to blog from my IPad.  I am going to look for pictures now, wish my luck...

This is a photo of desert at Mary's house. The cool part is the background defocus effect. That and it was, as always, an awesome end to a spectacular dinner. Here's another photo.

This one is a chick trying to get rid of his baby feathers in favour of more flight feathers. Well that's as far as I will go with this test. Lets see if it works! Well it looks like it works, but there are fewer opportunities to manipulate the blog from the IPad so you will have to put up with boring looking posts unless I can figure something else out.

It's not the same watching it approach as having it on the doorstep.

We got the Visa for France. It is valid for one year from the 31st of July. We should have more than enough time to spend all of our money and that may give us an incentive to go back to work.

We also got a chance to test out our gear in BC and found of course that we forgot to pack lots of things, like a cutting board, shower cap, nail clippers and the list goes on. The stuff we did have we couldn't find without going through every bag. We have 10 bags on the bikes and each one has 3 pockets so that is at least one hundred places to look for any thing you can't find. Another thing we discovered while pedalling our fully loaded touring bikes up the big hills is that we are way out of shape and we have way too much stuff on our bikes. Sadly it seems we need all that stuff.

My plan to eat lots here so I don't need to eat as much in Europe, where food is more expensive, may have backfired. It's a matter of rocket science actually, the larger the rocket payload the more rocket fuel you need to put in the rocket. The more fuel you put in the heavier the rocket becomes and it burns more fuel escaping the atmosphere. Eventually the rocket becomes so heavy with fuel that it can not escape atmosphere. I fear I maybe approaching the point of diminishing returns.

This is for Yoly's Mom, they are Robins and were living on the front porch of our house in Calgary.

Mama aqui esta la foto de los pinchoncitos en nuestra casa que le prometí.

There was a huge commotion in the swamp when a bald eagle flew through and grabbed one of the young ducks. The rest decided to head into the denser part of the swamp. We were near  Roberts Creek on the sunshine coast half way between Sechelt and Gibsons. Everyone was quite upset except maybe the eagle.

With only one shoe off it doesn't appear that Yoly is overly committed to going for a walk in the ocean.

Loaded touring bikes!