European Vacation

We were lucky enough to jet off for another week vacation. This time we headed to Paris to meet our friends Cheung, Devina, and Brooks. We spent 2 days in Paris seeing some local sights with Brooks who is working in the city. We had some fabulous crepes and saw some nice parts of the city tourists might not normally see. Though we also did the tourists sights like the Eiffel Tower (at night), Norte Dame and St. Chapelle. We then took a cheap flight to Barcelona. I had never been to Spain before and I really enjoyed it! I basically got of the metro onto Las Rambles (the main market street) and turned to Jason and said “I like it already”. The weather was warm the day we arrived which was a welcome change from rainy Paris (and colder Norway). We spent the first day just walking the city and enjoying the sun. Then we visited some of the classic sights like Sagrada Familia, Park Guell and some of Gaudi’s other landmarks in the city. We did tour the Picasso Museum after waiting outside in the rain for 45 minutes. I was glad I was able to clear up Jason’s ideas on Picasso before we went inside- he had it in his mind that Picasso was actually Van Gogh – he would have been so disappointed!

We parted ways with Cheung, Devina and Brooks and stayed another 2 days in Barcelona before taking a sleeper training back to Paris. The train was a nice way to travel but not as quick or cheap at a flight. We spent the last three days in Paris. We saw the Sacre-Coeur– including the end of a service, which was cool – and we climbed the tower, which has a nice view but it was raining. Then we spent an hour in line to tour the Catacombs. It was very, very interesting and creepy – 6 million Parisians and their bones. And little did I realize it was Halloween! It as a 1.7 km walk but it was well worth it – we were checked for bones at the exit – they had about 3 skulls and 5 long bones on display that they had collected from visitors on that day alone- yuck! Then we had dinner with other friends working in Paris, Brian and Phuong and their son Michael, which was great- it is nice to hear others experiences with living and working abroad. We spent the last day at Versailles – it was beautiful and we got to see a good bit of the gardens and Marie Antoinette’s domain, which was really interesting. The weather let up just in time for us to talk a cold 2 hour hike in the gardens. Though we were annoyed with the “modern art” displays in Versailles- it took a lot away from the rooms- see the pictures for an example. The trip was really nice and relaxing. It made us long for good food but also realize how lucky we are to live in a country were people can and will speak English to you and are nice! The French were quiet interesting JOn Sunday we flew home to our dogs. The first snow of the season happened while we were gone. Part of me was happy to miss it but another part was sad to miss it. But the next snow will be our first. I think it might happen late next week.