Day Twenty-Four: We See London. We See France.

Today was our last day in London. We spent the morning gearing up for our journey back to Paris with some calisthenics:

  

Which subsquently evolved into a dance party:

  

 

I think it was all a bit much for Toby: 

We also spent some time working on a Parisian puzzle we brought for Claudia:

The finished product:

After we bid farewell to our extraordinary hosts, and our favorite horse:

  

...we waited for our train into London. The girls looking longingly at candy they know we will never buy them:

According to them, we are the world's worst parents and we never let them do anything fun. However, they still find a way to eke out a smile:

Samantha has mastered the art of the eyeroll:

There was plenty of love and atrocious behavior on the Eurostar back to Paris:

A boy from the UK was acting atrocious as well so they formed an alliance to disrupt the other Europeans on the train:

 

When we finally arrived back in Paris, we ran into a checkpoint where metro police verify your ticket. Of course, we only just started using the reduced fare tickets for our entire family, when they are meant just for children. We figured the chances of getting caught were quite slim. Apparently, we were wrong.

Unfortunately, those days in the UK erased all memory of the French language from my mind. When the belligerent French transit officer tried to explain to me that I had done something illegal, I explained to her in my clearest English that I spoke absolutely no French. She deferred to her superior who just shrugged her shoulders and said I could go.

And so we are back in Paris...

We actually feel like we are home; we missed the city and are glad to be back. While the three days away was a fantastic break, we are looking forward to soaking up our last days in Paris before we return to the land of air conditioning and poop-free sidewalks, where not having to smell other people's horrid body odor or side step land mines of dog feces in the sidewalk are our constitutional rights.