With a 7hr drive to Paris in front of us we were up and on the road impressively early given the late night in town the night before. We hit Lyon just before 10 and headed for Les Halles for brunch. Whilst we were clever enough to find the markets, I didn't think to see when they were open - with only a few stalls operating everyone managed to find their something special.
With the clock burning we decided we'd better keep moving to Paris. Lyon looks far too deep and rich to attempt to see sights in a few hours - we'll be back!

Back on the road I was pondering how I'll adjust back to Sydney life, here speed limits are less critical funding source and more minimum expectation. Though I had noticed a pattern of mostly foreign plates screaming ahead the fastest. In Italy the GPS told me where all the cameras were, here in France I was enjoying this apparent libertarian freedom from the juggernaut. At one point I was screaming along just over 150km/h and noticed a flashing police light behind me - merde! I pulled over and slowed, the flics just kept screaming past me putting my speed to shame. Even Fid was perplexed - "Dad how had you not been pulled over yet?" But my delusion was put to rest - bundling along at 158km/h in a 130 zone as this weird little orange box flashed me - not so libertarian after all. Imagine how many of these flashes I haven't noticed this week?

We arrive in Paris just as the city is building toward peak hour. Struggling for orientation, the moment was almost over when we realised we were about to drive across Place de la Concorde and up past Maxim's. We've walked this path, Fid and I have ridden our bikes around it (at 6am on a Sunday) 4pm on a Monday is a little more exhilarating! Our apartment is in the midst of Madeline, just 300m from the first (and Gab's favourite) Channel store at 31 rue Cambon. 

We've arrived a little earlier than planned. The car needs to be returned a few kms away from our Apartment, I return it through even more exhilarating afternoon traffic, across the louvre, through the old palace gates and along the Seine. Last night at dinner the ladies from NY were explaining that there is an explosion of US tourism at the moment as the dollar continues its rebound. If there were some in Provence, Paris is packed with US accents at every turn. Boo wasn't satisfied with the US accents on the street, she insisted we either go to Disneyland tomorrow, or the Disney store tonight - the later seemed the least painful.

We headed across to Champs-Elysees where Gab took the kids into the store and I made friends with some Paris office workers at a bar on a back street for a little while. An hour later Gab and the kids returned with Boo ecstatic with her bounty. I was almost as excited to find out Fid had decided there wasn't anything he wanted to buy - he's growing up!

On our way over we passed a Shanghai restaurant that was packed with Chinese tourists - there would have been 50-60 queueing out the front when we passed. All four of us had been thinking about Chinese food for the past few hours without telling each other - when I suggested it everyone lit up - obviously all missing a little bit of home. The dumplings looked like I'd made them, but they tasted great and made a refreshing change.

We got back to Madeline around 10pm, I still can't come to grips with how bright it still is at this hour. It's still over 30, the apartment has been baking in the sun all afternoon. Without aircon the cooling was a cold shower and open the balcony doors - even with a belly full of dumplings, we'er feeling very Parisian tonight.