Wednesday 29/9

After midnight, but never mind. Just arrived close to Disneyland Paris, Hotel Kyriad. Day started with an example of the organizational skills of the group: all luggage in bus on time + students being helpful to load the coach, all keys delivered at reception, no prompting needed, everybody ready for breakfast on time: this group takes responsibility! There we went to a traditional French market in Matignon: excellent quality food like the best fruits and vegetables (e.g. heaps of fresh green artichokes) or seafood that is still alive, because the French take special pride in fresh. The students were impressed. After that a coastal walk at Port Cast: beautiful Atlantic coastline, fresh seabreeze and magnificent light. On our way to Le Mans we watched Les vacances de Mr Bean, mainly for laughs, but also as a preparation to our Paris visit. In Le Mans warm lunch and shoppings in a hypermarket = 20 times Shoprite + Game combined. And then we took the TGV to Paris, comfortably travelling at 250 kms an hour. In Paris grouping in order not to get lost in the metro, which of course did not happen, but in stead of that another cosmopolitan experience. Final station: Eiffel Tower. We had a picnic right next to the most visited touristic site in the world. Our students enjoyed themselves playing all sorts of games, of which rules were altered constantly. 7.30 p.m. we started ascending (by lift) and as we reached the top it was already getting dark: a fairytale like view of the city of light and fortunately no sudden attacks of vertigo amongst the students. Late arrival at the hotel. First surprise tomorrow: breakfast at 9! Tomorrow we'll post some students' quotes and photos again, sorry for the delay. Let me end with one, Megan's: "I don't want this trip to end, can this trip please go on and on?" Last news: we found ourselves in the newspaper Ouest France on page 5 + photo: BMIS world famous in the West of France!