Wednesday: Location: Toronto Airport. No indoor playground in Terminal 1 but kids more than happy to climb on golden lion statue near gate. Actually, many kids climbing on lion. Perhaps lion is the indoor playground?
The travel gods have smiled upon us. Each seat on the airplane has an individual TV with movies & cartoons on demand. PLUS, the kids meals arrived (plain pasta w. cooked carrots & peas, a Motts applesauce + a bear paw cookie).
Kids watch Princess & The Frog and then go to sleep for the next 5 hrs. BLISS.
Thursday: Location: Munich airport. Kids wake up after “big airplane” and want breakfast. The menu chose is pretty much German terminal is sausages & saurkraut. Kids settle for margarita pizza.
Take shuttle bus to “small airplane” (where we walk up the stairs, in open air, to the plane). Bumpy, bouncy, plane ride. Happy to finally arrive (with luggage) in South of France.
Friday: Location: South of France. Car ride 3 hrs north (we are headed to middle France for a wedding). Kids listening to ipods (thank you Justin Bieber & Michael Jackson). HAPPY.
Take kids out to a bar/cabaret to celebrate various family birthdays. Thankfully, with time change midnight in France is only 6pm in Canada – kids were good to par-tay.
Saturday: Location: Middle of France. Wedding day. Travel gods still smiling on us. There is a playground just outside the city hall where the marriage is to take place. Kids play with cousins throughout picture taking. That is until, Thing 2 runs up to me covered with blood (ah…the 1st nose bleed).
Take chid to a bar (I’m telling you France has a bar on every corner) to get cleaned up.
Wedding lasts until 2:30am – at which point kids and I are super le tired. Enough – I call “go to bed”!
Sunday: Location: French Countryside. We are having lunch at Aunt Maria’s (a paella of course) before our 3hr trip back. I realize kids haven’t asked to watch TV in days. They are happy enough to follow Aunt Maria’s dog around for hours (damn dog slobbered all over my bag!).
Monday: Location: Avignon. We are taking ONE day to visit the 
country rather than family. Since Thing 1 is studying Medieval History in school we decide to go see the Palais des Papes.
Thing 2 got a bit bored half way through the tour – so she and I started making our own narriation about the castle “This is where the princess slept, this is where the servants worked” (ignoring that it was really only Popes who lived there)
(Note: If you ever visit the Palais des Popes it is very stroller un-friendly).
We also visited the le pont d’Avignon (you know the song:”Sur le pont d’Avignon”).
It completely bummed out Thing 2 as apparently singing and dancing was expected rather than this ->
The next 1/2 hr contained “this is DUMB” and “I’m bored” while the tour of the bridge was finished. FUN TIMES.
Wednesday: Location: South of France. Whole family flocks to spend one last day with us. Older cousins are keeping younger ones occupied while parents snack on saucisson. MUST PACK.
Thursday: Location French Airport. So apparently there some sort of volcano business while we were away?
I have never seen a board with so many cancellations! We fly to Munich then waitlist for Frankfurt. In Frankfurt we are stranded. STRANDED.
to be continued…
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