We were rudely awoken on the ferry this morning at 7 am after a restless night on a pitching boat. We finally found the route to Paris from La Havre, only to have to turn back to get Euros to pay the tolls along the way. We arrived in Serris (about 30km outside of Paris) at about noon. We plan to spend two nights here and do some sightseeing in Paris tomorrow.

The team split up on Monday, with Graham and Connie visiting Disneyland Paris (which was wet and cold and fabulous, and Connie couldn't stop grinning the whole day) and Jen and Witt going into Paris for some sightseeing, visiting the Paris must-see attractions, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc De Triumphe, and the Notre Dame cathedral.

A less-often-visited Paris attraction, the embassy of the Republic of Niger, proved to be a worthwhile stop, and we decided to spend an extra day in Paris to get a visa for Niger, potentially saving us going out of our way to get the visa in Ghana.

Having had enough of 3.50 Euro coffees, (exacerbated by a US dollar at it's weakest point ever against the Euro) we visited the "Hypermarche" near our hotel. The place was like a Wal-Mart on steroids, selling everything from cheese and wine to auto parts. We found a good selection of French wines selling for about the same as the aforementioned Café au Lait, so we stocked up. We purchased fruit, bread, and cheese to complete a fine meal in our room, with several bottles of wine left over for future consumption.

We departed Paris for what would hopefully be warmer climates further south. Our route consisted exclusively of motorways (interstate highway) and it rained for most of the day. We decided to get off the highways for awhile and make a trip through the tiny country of Andorra, and ended out about 40km south of Toulouse, France, when we decided to stop for the night at a very strange hotel in Pamiers. One of Witt and Jen's tires developed a leak (after having been recently repaired in England) that was discovered earlier in the day. The first order of business on arriving at the Rocade hotel was to switch the tire for one of the spares. The hotel mascot was a puppy in his "biting" phase who insisted on gnawing at our ankles as we checked in. The proprietor seemed to find this perfectly acceptable and we were left to fend off the little menace on our own.