Paris, France to Polermo, Sicily

FINALLY! Tonight is the first chance since we left on June 29th to update this. We are having an incredible time and seeing so much! We have blended two delegations, ours from Santa Rosa and another one from the Fairfield area...together we are traveling with 45 delegates and 4 leaders!

Getting to Paris was an adventure in itself! Our plane was late getting into JFK because of thunderstorms....so when we landed we had 15 minutes to get to another terminal. Picture this...49 Californians running...literally running, through the JFK airport. Unfortunately, we found out we had to go through security...so Lea and Andy went together ahead of us and asked the people at our departing gate to hold the plane...which they did! We left JFK over an hour early. The people on the plane were not too happy. oh well...

We arrived in Paris at about 11:30 a.m. Paris time....ready for a full day. We met Karina and Claudio..our wonderful bus driver!...and off we went to the Eiffel Tower and also for a cruise on the Seine River. We all CRASHED that night!

July 1st we did a walking tour of Paris, visited Notre Dame, the Louve, Sacre Coeur, and as we were driving back to our hotel that night, Portugal had just beat England in the World cup and it took SO long to drive down the Champs Elysses because of all the honking cars with people waving Portugals flag. It was our delegates eye opening experience to the intensity of Europe toward soccer!

july 2 took us to the magnificent palace at Versailles. We were on our own to explore this enormous place. Truly magnificent. In the afternoon, we headed toward Lyon... from there, on July 3, our bus airconditioner broke about 3 hours before we were to stop...the kids were unbelievably cheerful, accomodating, and wonderful....We sang, we fanned each other, we drank a lot of water! We arrived in Cannes. July 4th found us exploring Cannes ... oh my, it is gorgeous!!!
For lunch...we all tried escargot! There were many faces before it was tried...but everyone tried it and as far as I know, everyone liked it!

From there it was to Monaco...another OH MY!...we explored there and then to Monte Carlo where we drove on the Grand Prix roads for a while. later in the evening we visited an amazing candy factory where we sampled a LOT and bought a lot! We made it worth their while to stay open for us!

July 5th was sad because Claudio had to leave for a day to fix the bus AC...but we had a new driver and a new bus for the day. he took us to Eze and a perfume factory! That was interesting... then we headed on to Pescia where there were 3 other People to People delegations in the same hotel....now THAT was interesting. I am not sure what the other people visiting thought.... that is about 200 high school students in one hotel....go figure!

july 6...PISA! Wow! The leaning tower of Pisa got a lot of photos taken of it that day! It started being built in 1173 AD!!! so much history. From Pisa we went to Florence! That is one amazing city...it is absolutely beautiful. There we saw the 17 foot statue of DAVID!!! He has been in the same spot since 1873....i think thatàs the date!

July 7th took us to ROMA!! the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peters!!! Too much to soak in...

July 8 started off in the Colosseum which was started in 72 AD! We also toured through the Roman Forum...and then after lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, we dropped the kids off on the Spanish Steps in the middle of Roma and gave them a map and five places to find and answer questions on....they had 3 1-2 hours to find their way...which they all did. It was a wonderful experience because the map was not very good and they had to ask locals...that was part of the experience.

July 9th....we were off to POMPEII....the ruins...it was breathtaking! Unfortunately, Kyle wore a French soccer team jersey and our guide would NOT start our tour until he took off or turned the shirt wrongside out...we thought he was kidding, but no, he would not start...so kyle changed his shirt...that night, Italy played France for the World Cup finals...and won!

I am about out of time...but will try to update again tomorrow night...we are in Polermo sicily right now...came over on the overnight ferry last night..

for now...Ciao!