Preparing for vacation

My whhooollleee family is taking a two week trip to visit my grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins in England (with a 3 day side trip to Paris) this summer.  The trip was planned and booked a long time ago by my parents, and suddenly it's only 2 1/2 weeks away.  For once in my life, I am not doing much preparing for this visit (I know, I know, it's really hard to believe!).  Rather, it's my husband who is doing all the researching.  We'll be sitting on the couch and he'll turn to me and say, "Everyone at the Parisian hotel where we're staying speaks English." 
"How on earth do you know that?" I'll ask. 
"I looked it up."
"How do you know where we're staying?"
"Because I looked at the ITINERARY." 
"Oh."

Or, while day dreaming in the car, I'll say to him, "You will love the Eurostar train that takes you through the Chunnel to France."
"Now we're taking that to France but flying back to England, right?" He'll ask.
"No, I think we're taking the Eurostar both there and back..."
Then, the next day, he'll say to me, "By the way, you were wrong.  We're only taking the EuroStar to Paris.  We fly out of de Gaulle airport."
"Really??? How do you know that?"
"BECAUSE I LOOKED AT THE ITINERARY!"

My mom emailed out the itinerary probably about 3 months ago.  I have it tagged but, well, haven't really looked at it.  I think the whole "working 10-11 hour days" and "preparing to have a baby" and "being pregnant and puking all the way up until just a month ago" has kind of gotten me out of whack.  There are six of us traveling together.  I plan to just go with the flow.  Perhaps I'll have my dad walk with a giant yellow umbrella overhead so I can follow him, even when we're just in my grandpa's back garden.

One thing we did try to attempt was to learn a little French.  I went to Paris with my family 5 years ago, and even with my dad knowing some French there were moments when people really did treat us like crap for being American or English.  I think it would be nice if my husband and I could break away from the group for a couple hours and venture out on a little date (when we brought up this idea to my mom, she responded, "Oh, you mean with all six of us?"  Errrrrr...ummm....).  So we downloaded a podcast called "Coffeebreak French" that is really fun (seriously, check it out here.  It's cool).  The man and woman who run the podcast are Scottish so it is entertaining no matter what language they are speaking!  The podcasts are arranged in short 20 minute segments, and Jim and I got through the first nine on our last trip to Michigan. 

Mark and Anna (our Coffeebreak French friends) began by leading us through general pleasantries and numbers.  For me, the most valuable phrase I learned is "Je suis fatiguée."  Then, as we got to the podcast on family members, my husband suddenly began blurting out the French words for "mother" and "father" BEFORE Mark could even feed them to us.

I couldn't believe it.  "YOU KNOW FRENCH?" I screeched.  He then admitted that he had taken French in high school.  Just when you think you know everything about a person.  He assured me that his knowledge was limited, and sure enough we both seemed to learn together once we got to the later podcasts.  For a moment there I really felt like I was on an episode of "Punked."

Jim has since rounded out his French education by learning to say "Don't F**K with me" (pardon my French).  I figure that no matter what phrases we are able to remember during our 3 days in Paris, as long as we hold on to that one, we should be okay :-)

Here is Jim's triumphant grin when I realized he knew some French!