Day 14 Paris:

Today we get out of bed to another beautiful day and today we are taking the kids to Disneyland Paris. We get organised and make our way to the Paris underground. This is our first experience travelling by train in Paris. The underground station is called Chatelet Les Halles and this was our first hurdle. The train we were catching was not part of the metro system but instead a RER train which is the Paris regional line. To add a bit of spice to our hurdle I read last night that this train station hosts 750,000 travelers every day of which 493,000 of them are on the RER. In addition to this, the station can also see up to 120 trains per hour. The train station itself goes down 5 levels of which are all shops that take up an entire block (I reckon it would be about 6 Perth Myer buildings). Knowing this in advance has not filled me with a great deal of confidence as we head down to buy our tickets. We get down to level -5 and manage to secure the tickets without too much fuss, although we did get slugged 46 Euros ($62 AUD) for the equivalent of a train trip from Currambine to Perth. Next we have to find our platform which we do after asking for help. Now, which train is it? If I had of listened to Tyler we would of headed off to god knows where, “Dad, it’s this one I know it”!! I have the choice of listening to my 9 year old expert or asking for help. I decided on the latter and asked for help from a French only speaking chap and we managed to sign our way through a conversation and find out which was the correct train. Fantastic, we were on our way (and no, Tyler wasn’t right). We get to Disneyland, which is a 30 second walk from the train station and buy tickets for both the Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland Park. We are in right on opening time at 10am and I reckon we’ve done alright! We told the kids that it was their day and they were in control. The day was an absolute blast, the kids had the best time going on all the rides of which most were only a 5 minute wait and they also got to choose what food and drink they wanted......all day. They had a driver stunt show which was amazing, but when I think about it, it’s probably not that different from taking a cab ride in Paris. I can recall on a couple of our cab rides the car being up on its side on two wheels and flying over the top of a truck and I’m also sure there has been at least 1 or 2 explosions on our journey. Mia loved all the rides and all the Disney characters and Tyler told me he didn’t want to go home, instead he wanted to live there. All up it was a great day out. We leave Disneyland at about 6:20 for the 35 minute trip home that takes an hour. The trains in Paris have got nothing on the London Tube. This train from Disney looks like it’s been parked in the streets of Koondoola unattended for a month before whacking it on the train lines and it just keeps stopping for no reason. We finally get back to Chatelet Les Halles station and by absolute chance we exit the station from the same spot we entered. Its nudging 7:30 and we still need to get dinner. The kids are shagged so we decide on the same as last night, meats, cheeses, bread and some fruit back at the apartment. The amazing thing about Paris is that most things are still open. On the street that crosses ours about 50m away there is a supermarket, a handful of bakeries, fruit and veggie shops and bottle shops all open not to mention cafes and restaurants and unlike Perth when you buy bread at 7pm it doesn’t taste like bread that was bought at 7pm, this bread is incredible. We have some dinner and pop the kids to bed and before we know it it’s nearly 9 o’clock. The days just seem to fly while you’re on holidays.
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