Weekend

Lovely weekend with just one shower on Sunday.  The market is back to it's usual hustle and bustle.  We bought flowers, cheese, fish and fruit and a basil plant (hope I don't kill it!)

Today we had beautiful macarons with coffee.....

Musee Carnavalet - history of Paris

Today Lotta and I set off for Paris straight after drop off at school.  We visited the Museum Carnavalet in the Marais area.  The museum is in two adjoining mansions and houses paintings, furniture and small items from earliest times in Paris through to the 20th century.  We were particularly interested in the period of Louis 15th and 16th and the Revolution.  They had pieces of hair from Marie Antoinette, Louis 16th and their children.  A bit creepy but interesting.  Some of the art depicting scenes of the guilitine  were quite horrible.  Lovely buildings and pretty formal gardens in the courtyard, plus it was free entrance!

After lunch we walked almost the whole length of Rue de Rivoli for a bit of light shopping.  This tower near to the Hotel de Ville has recently been cleaned.  It is called Tour Saint Jacques and is a gothic former bell-tower of the Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie church. The church was destroyed during the Revolution.

Since 1891 it has become a meteorologic station in which, among other things, are measured the air quality and pollution level in Paris.

Back to School

First day back at school today.  Mia was delighted to find that her friend Mackenzie is in the same class and their desks are close too.  Unfortunately Wilhelm is in the other 2nd grade class.  The two classes will still spend time together at gym and in the playground and at lunch so they can still see each other.

Ben is happy to be back.  His advisor is the MUN teacher that he knows well and likes.  So far so good....

Jarle is home at the red house to go to the Offshore North Sea conference.  However, Jarl Christian in some misguided wisdom had switched off the fridge freezer before leaving in July and the contents of the freezer (chicken and salmon mostly) had gone off (that's putting it mildly, from what I understand the content of the freezer was putrified).  This has caused an infestation of flies.  Seems like we need professional cleaners to sort this out.  The house stinks.

Gold

Norway have had a fantastic day at the Olympics today in Beijing.  The women's handball team beat Russia to take the gold medal.  They have narrowly missed the olympic gold three times before and were beaten by Russia last year in the World championship final so it was even more exciting for them.

The javelin thrower Andreas Thorkildsen also won gold again, he won at the last olympics too.

Aberdeen

We're back from a few days visiting Granny and Granda in Aberdeen.  We flew to Prestwick because Ryanair offer very cheap flights which is super but it is a bit of a hassle not flying direct to Aberdeen.  Mum and Dad drove down to collect us though and took us back!  Thank you!!!!

We visited Pamela and Co on the way up to Aberdeen and had a lovely evening there.  While in Aberdeen we visited Kevin and Teresa and wee Alexander too.  They live in a very cute cottage which is over 400 years old and surrounded by lovely countryside.  I also had a chance to meet up with Ashleigh and we had a good yap.

The weather was not great but then it was not great here in Paris either.  When we drove home from the airport last night there was torrential rain, lovely.....

Back to school next week.  

Sand City

Nearby our hotel in the Algarve was an exhibition of sand art, claiming to be the biggest in the world (hmmm... it was quite big).  It was great, but the day was very hot and there was no shade while looking at the sculptures.  Lucky we took a bottle of water each (which Jarle poured over his head at one point!)

Boat Trip

While in the Algarve we took a little boat trip (about 40 minutes) with a local fisherman (at least I think he was a fisherman who was probably making better money taking tourists along the coast).  It was very interesting, the coastline has been carved into sandstone making lots of weird shapes and caves.  Mia was a bit scared though and quite rightly asked why we were not wearing life vests!

Here are some pictures.....

Paris

Le Jardin de Luxembourg
Church Saint Etienne
Asta, Silje and Mia

We had a lovely day in Paris today (me, Mia, Asta and Silje).  We took the metro to Hotel de Ville and walked across to Notre Dame.  Far too many people standing queuing in the sun for us to bother joining them.  So we walked around Saint Germain, had lunch in the famous Les Deux Magots cafe then looked inside the Saint Germain church (which dates from the 1st century, oldest church in Paris).  Then we walked to Saint Sulpice (2nd largest church in Paris) through the Jardin de Luxembourg (very pretty) past the Pantheon (I think it's a church) and a lovely church called St. Etienne and on to a street called Mouffetard (or something like that, lots of cafes along here).  So we took the metro back to La Defense to get the train home, very tired......

 

Happy Birthday Mia

7 Years Old Today!!!!!

Pestana Viking Hotel, Algarve.

It's only about a two hour drive from Lisbon to the Algarve.  The roads are good but not much scenery to look at.  The drive is through cork country.  Portugal produces 50% of the world's cork!  Most of that grows in the region Alantejo.  We saw lots of trees that had recently been harvested and marked with a number which shows the next year it can be harvested again.

We arrived at our hotel and found our room to be quite nice.  One bedroom and bathroom and a living room with sofa bed.  Two terraces but the view was of a side street and bit of carpark.  Three days later we were waiting for the lift and saw into another room which had a fantastic view over the gardens and the sea.  So Jarle went down to reception and asked to be moved. MUCH better, we even had a little kitchen in the new suite and Mia and Ben very much enjoyed playing "bar" and serving us drinks and snacks on the terrace.  

Pictures of view from terrace......

Lisbon

While we were in Lisbon we visited the Cristus Rei statue which was completed in 1959 and was inspired by the one in Brazil.  There was a fantastic view from the top and the statue is HUGE!

Back to Paris!

We arrived home last night at nearly midnight!  Exhausted.

I've got the third load of washing on......

Here are a couple of pictures from the beginning of our holiday where we spent 3 nights at the Pestana Palace Hotel in Lisbon.