5/26/2004, Wed - NYC A-train to Howard Beach and took the Airtrain to JFK. Pretty easy. Jean at BA check-in told us our tickets were for yesterday. Scared us silly, but she was wrong. Got upgraded to "World Traveler Plus" w/more room. Walked into business class waiting area - no one stopped us! Flight very pleasant! Served dinner & fell asleep. 5/27/2004, Thu - London / Amsterdam Served breakfast on plane and landed 45 min early Easy bus ride to near hotel walked around fries w/mayo - nataliya liked anne frank house walked thru red light district - girls in lingerie in windows Argentine restaurant (Argentinos Grill) for dinner back in hotel, bathroom light not turn on and light behind 5/28/2004, Fri - Amsterdam woke up 11am breakfast in "Fun and Fair", a place by hotel in park (Vondelpark) by canal. ate pancakes w/strawberries and whipped cream, and "fritters" (kind of like silver dollar pancakes) w/rum. Excellent! walked around canal boat ride centraal station roman Catholic Church - St. Nikolas walk through red light district chinese section & temple lunch @ Chao Phraya 5/29/2004, Sat - Amsterdam Vincent Van Gogh museum - 1/4% related to his works. street festivals Rembrandt's House - original house was sold (along w/his belongings). It was "modernized" around early 20th century, but was later painstakingly restored to the way it looked in Rembrandt's day, based on his paintings and inventory notes) 5/30/2004, Sun - Amsterdam bfast @ Cafe Luxembourg drizzling lots of walking Red light district 5/31/2004, Mon - Amsterdam / Paris Notre Dame Louve museum walked through park by museum (ice cream... 2.50�...ok,2.00�) Champs �lys�es walked to Arch chez de champlain (?) for dinner metro back to hotel stop stopped for hot beverages & internet for email check 6/01/2004, Tue - Paris 10:30 segway tour, met by eiffel tower. A lot of fun! I fell down after lunch when we used the yellow key (12mph) instead of black key (6mph). went to armee's museum (WW2 exibit) & napoleon's tomb walked to cafe for snack. (soup? No soup. Onion soup? Oh *soup*!) Took metro to shopping district - Samaritaine. Almost bought a dress at Carol's Then we walked into the third district and somehow ended up in a sleazy area, complete with ugly prostitutes. Finding the metro, we went to the main strip and tried to find a good place for dinner. One place we found asked Nataliya what food she wanted to eat. (seafood) This guy at the restaurant said they serve everything but fish. Their menu suggested otherwise. He suggested another restaurant. We walked away, but Nataliya was insulted, but I told her that the French act this way when they don't want to serve or do business with you. (I recall trying to rent bikes in Nice) 6/02/2004, Wed - Paris breakfast at La Coupole eiffel tower, walked up to 2nd stage. mus�e rodin park (gates of hell & the thinker. Rose garden) mus�e d'Orsay (rembrandt, monet, van gogh, others) caf� - Le Saint Germaine for wine & cheese, and French onion soup w/ emmental cheese - similar to swiss cheese. Walked around and went to restaurant in tall building looking over Paris. Back to our room & back out to Latin Quarter for late (midnight) snack: Tuna panini for me and choco-banana crepe for Nataliya. 6/03/2004, Thu - Paris bfast in latin qtr - Basilique du Sacre-Coeur (sacred heart church) touristy "train" ride in area. Tour was in three languages, but English portion difficult to understand. (Nataliya making friends with British family's baby.) metro to French Open went back to latin qtr & had dinner. Spoke to British guy on business trip (for GE) w/his daughter. walked around a bit and went back to room. 6/04/2004, Fri - Paris / Rouen bfast in hotel walked to park, Jardin de Luxembourg stopped to check internet. Seth got smoked salmon w/cheese panini sandwich. back to hotel & packed subway to train station and on to Rouen met george at station; walked 10 min to his place. Waited for sylvia who fed us an amazing dinner w/seafood feast. We had a lot of leftovers which they threw out. George & I went out to look at the male prostitutes dressed as women.. Nothing much to look at. Stopped off for a drink before heading back to their place. 6/05/2004, Sat - Rouen croissants and chocolate croissants for breakfast sylvia had to work so we went to market and bought some veggies and sweets. Stopped at caf� and ordered hot drinks to go w/the sweets. Went back to their apt. Went shopping - bought dress and wine. Went out for dinner at L'Orangerie for a "real" French dinner.... walked around town went back and went to sleep. 6/06/2004, Sun - Rouen Sylvia got us a huge b-fast, with (plain & chocolate) croissants, smoked salmon, fresh oj (that george made), raisin bread, regular bread, and fresh fruits. Then it was off to the market for more food. George and I went to a cafe while Nataliya and Sylvia shopped. We got a baby blanket (blame Nataliya for this) and underwear. Then back to their apt. for lunch. Sylvia prepared a feast. Mussles, rotisserie chicken, oysters, two types of bread, 10 types of fresh cheese, salad w/homemade dressing, white wine, fresh tomatoes, 5 different types of sausages, fresh melon slices. Overly satiated, Nataliya and I passed out for a couple of hours. Dinner was great as well, but neither Nataliya or myself were very hungry. Their friend, Wilfried, came over to join us for dinner. He was very friendly and while his English wasn't very good, he could communicate pretty well and we appreciated his patience. Nataliya was still kind of full from lunch, while my stomach felt really bad. I went to sleep, hoping it would pass in a few hours. 6/07/2004, Mon - Rouen / Paris / London / New York After 18 hours of travelling, we finally arrived home. However, the day started out more colorful than you'd think. I woke up at 4AM feeling worse than I did the previous night. I knew that I needed to throw up, but 20 minutes sitting on the floor of their toilet didn't make any difference. Knowing we had a long day of travel ahead, I wearily and painfully began the day. It wasn't until I was brushing my teeth and hit the back molars and Nataliya had just finished her shower did the projectile vomit begin. Within 30 seconds, I was a few pounds lighter. I was convinced by this point that it was definitely food poisoning and probably from bad mussels. Even after throwing up, I still felt very sick. It took us about 90 minutes and 6 different trains/busses to get to CDG. It would have been 20 minutes shorter, but I led us to the wrong bus and wasted about 20 minutes. It took FOREVER to get to our gate. This has got to be one of the most disorganized and mismanaged airports I've been to in my travels. It didn't help that I felt sick. Luckily, Nataliya was able to pick up the slack and get us onto the plane. Once on the plane, we were delayed because there were a couple of bags that were on our plane that shouldn't have been. They had to unload the plane to find them. Once in London Heathrow, we had an easy time of things. We got to where we had to be very quickly and afterwards, had time to shop while waiting for our next flight. On the 7-hour flight home, these kids behind Nataliya kept kicking her chair while some huge guy in the seat in front of me sat as far back as possible. When my tray table was down, I was afraid it might split me in two! We watched "50 first Dates" which we both enjoyed. Once back in the U.S., it was pretty easy getting through customs. Although we checked in together, our luggage was sent onto the belt 20 minutes apart. Then it was onto the Airtrain to Howard Beach (20 minutes) , the A train to the port authority (45 minutes) and we ran to the bus which took us home (35 minutes).