Friday January 26

After breakfast at our hotel,  R, Sarah, and I headed out to the RER (Réseau ExpressRégional; English: Regional Express Network), train station very near our hotel.  R helped me buy a day pass (17 Euros) and we were off to visit Disney Village outside DIsneyland Paris and Val D'Europe.  The RER train (or fast train as R calls it) is very much like BART in California except it has three levels. We rode about five stops away and entered the world of Walt Disney. 

We were there for about 7 hours at 3 different shopping malls.  

First, Disney Village 

Entrance to Disneyland Paris to the right.  It is 25 years old this year.

Another photo of people waiting to get in line.  Kind of a dreary day in January so not a big line.

Minnie!

A view of the main street. Sarah on the right

See the familiar sign on the right?

We enjoyed a Starbucks coffee. They even spelled our names right!  

There was a balloon ride but it was closed due to high winds

Annette has her own diner

Nile the Crocodile at the Rain Forest Cafe.

Plenty of Minnie stuff in the Disney Store.  Filmed this for Maya who loves Minnie.

Then we got back on the train, one stop up to Val d’ Europe.  You can see the stairs to the upper and lower decks.

The front of the RER station in Val D'Europe

As we walked from the RER station to the entrance to the mall, we were greeted by young people in blue jackets from "Les médecins du monde."  I found out later this is Doctors of the World, provides emergency and long-term medical care to the world's most vulnerable people. It also advocates to end health inequities. It was founded in 1980 by a group of 15 French physicians, and works in both the developed and developing world.  I think they may have been soliciting funds, I don't know for sure, but they didn't speak English.  When they realized we only spoke English, they said "Have a nice day!"  More than one of them did that, so I guess that's what Americans are known to say!  

A little about Val D'Europe (This is how I heard them say it: Val-dur-opp.) From Trip Advisor:  "Val d’Europe is a shopping mall located 30 minutes to the east of Paris, and 5 minutes from the DisneyLand Paris theme park and the Villages Nature holiday village. The mall has 190 shops and 30 restaurants, covering over 1,000,000 square feet since its most recent expansion completed in March 2017. Val d'Europe is open 7/7, every day of the year except on May 1, December 25 and January 1."

From Wikipedia:  "Val d'Europe (lit. Valley of Europe) is the westernmost part of the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, located around 35 km to the east of Paris, France. It was built in conjunction with The Walt Disney Company, who wished to create a town near the Disneyland Paris resort. Val d'Europe is made up of five communities, which have grouped together to form a town council. The area is primarily given over to Disneyland Park, as per the contract between the government and The Walt Disney Company. One of the terms was that the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Paris) immediately got 19.40 km² of land to build Festival Disney (now named Disney Village).

At the shopping centre here is a large Auchan hypermarket, 160 shops and a food court known as Les Terrasses as well as a Sea Life aquarium indoors with about 300 species of marine creatures."

We ate lunch at Le Paradis Du Fruit

And then we walked for a long, long, long time.  I bought a few very small items for my grandkids at a store called Hema, which kind of reminded me of a TJ Maxx or Marshalls.  But mainly all day we just browsed.

We did go to the Apple Store.  R told me they were replacing the batteries of everyone's I Phone for $29 instead of $79 (or something like that) because they had been deemed faulty.  So we decided to go get hers changed.  After having it tested and deemed faulty, she got a certificate to come back and get it replaced, but at that moment they were all out.  R said that everyone was choosing to get their battery replaced even if it wasn't faulty so there was a huge demand.  (Later I saw online that that was available in U.S. through December 2018.) 

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/03/how-to-get-29-dollar-iphone-battery-replacement/

We then left that mall and walked through La Valles Village. It kind of reminded me of Eastown Mall with its high end shops.  This is also the season of Soldes, "The Sales."

Line outside the Gucci Store

Admirát joined us after she got off work (about 7 pm or so?) and we walked with her to the hotel she had gotten for her and Sarah for the rest of the week called HiPark. We were supposed to go to Paris, but by this time R and I were too tired so we walked back to the RER station picking up some to-go food on the way at the Columbus Cafe.  

When we arrived in the station, our train was delayed by an accident so we took an Uber. 

Back at the hotel we ate our food, got my cell phone topped off because I had used all my minutes on data, and figured out I didn’t have international texting.  

We also called her mom who will meet us for breakfast in the morning.

We talked a bit, watched the news where we saw how the Seine is rising and 56 baboons escapes from the Paris zoo! 


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42856634

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/26/paris-zoo-evacuated-50-baboons-escape/

This proves what a big mall it was!

Finally --- night night.