Paris in Motion part 2

Here is another cool stop motion video of Paris.

http://vimeo.com/50467187

Post cards from Paris

I recently found some old post cards that my grandmother had saved from when my parents were in France. Thought you might get a kick out of them too.

 

You may recognize this picture from a previous post. My mom used it to make Christmas cards in 1965.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend of my grandmothers was vacationing in France and stopped by to visit us this is her post card to grandma. This was dated 9-16-65.

It says "Bonjour we found their house without any trouble as D** had been nominated as one of the soldiers of the month, he was at the base so we went to see him. L*** did not recognize me for a bit. Had a delightful lunch and dinner and evening at the club with them. Saw the kids both adorable and very friendly (yeah that's me adorable and very friendly). Met the family that babysits. They love the kids (of course who wouldn't love me). We also met many of their friends at the club. We leave Fontainbleau this morning and head for Strasbourg. More later. Our best to everyone. K & C.J."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a post card that mom sent grandma when they went to Spain dated May 11, 1966. I get a kick out of the $.08 stamp.

It says "Hi Mom we just got back from a wonderful trip to Spain. We had a wonderful time and the weather was beautiful. We both got sunburned. Everything is so cheap there. We had a hotel 1 block from the beach and the hotel was less then $3.00 a day. Beer is only $.10 and rum $.20. We didn't want to come back but we missed the kids. D** got his assignement Chicago, Illinois 5'th army headquarters. We will see you sometime next month. Love D& L"

 

Wow if beer and rum were still that cheap I think I'd be drunk all of the time and probably hungover too.

 

 

Monument des fusillés d'Arbonne-la-Forêt

Well thanks to the great folks on Tripadvisor I have discovered that monument in Fontainbleau is really not in Fontainbleau but near Arbonne-la-Foret. Special thanks to Mrs. French and French Mystique from Tripadvisor for sharing their knowledge and helping find this monument.

It is a memorial for 36 civilians and resistance fighters that were massacred by the Germans after the release of Fontainbleau in 1944 and World War II. See included wiki link for further details. Such a shame for the lost life's of this war.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbonne-la-For%C3%AAt

The massacre of 36 civilians and resistant

July 21 and August 17, 1944, six days after the release of Fontainebleau, thirty-six civilians and resistance fighters were released from prison in Fontainebleau, where they were tortured. Brought her hands tied in the back with sand pits of plain Chanfroy, they are executed by the Germans and summarily buried in two mass graves. December 7, 1944, when they come looking for sand Chanfroy the U.S. military discovered the first grave.

There were seven survivors who could not get into the truck for lack of space. The 36th shot has never been identified.

State funeral took place on December 14 at Fontainebleau where it installs a mortuary chapel in the covered market.
The two pits were never filled to keep here the solemnity of meditation.
A ceremony pays tribute to every third Sunday of August.

I believe that my parents probably visited this monument around the 3'rd week in August since there are so many flags of ceremony surrounding it.

Fontainbleau Memorial

In my August 8'th post I had a few pics of my parents in front of a memorial around Fontainbleau.

I would like to visit this same memorial on our upcoming trip however my mother can't remember what it was called or how to find it.

Posting these pics to see if anyone recognizes it. If you recognize it can you help me solve the riddle and let me know.

Le Flâneur

Here is another great stop motion video of Paris.


http://vimeo.com/17894033

Here is a link to Lukes website.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1191072802/nightvision

Vintage Flashback in France

Life is throwing some of it's curve balls and has me reminiscing. Thought that I'd share some of my childhood photos from when we were in France. Our family photo album had an unfortunate mishap with some water so some are damaged....but it adds to the vintage feel.

The Nuptials

My father proposed to my mom here in the states then he got stationed in Fontainebleau, France.

Mom came over a few months after he did and they got married in France.

When I ask my mom about her memories of France the one that she says stick out the most was on the day of her arrival in Paris. As a young girl out of the state of Michigan for the first time she was quit shocked to see people peeing along the side of the road and when they honked at them they just waved. What an experiance for an innocent young girl.

 

 Here are some pic's of their wedding reception in the cabin they rented while there.

I just love that huge brass chimney.

Here are some pic's of a very young mom shortly after arriving unpacking a trunk her mother sent from the states.  I don't think my dad ever let my mom have the camera since there are very few pictures of him.

This picture reminds me of the story my mom tells of the first time I got drunk. She had a few friends over one afternoon and the ladies were drinking rum and coke. Mom had set her drink down and went to the bathroom which you had to walk outside to get to. Of course lil ole me loved coke so I climbed up on a chair and got the drink off the table and proceeded to drink the whole thing down. She was quit surprised when she came back in the room. I guess dad wasn't happy when he came home and saw me walking into walls. Me ehh what can I say I started tipping them back at an early age.

  

The Trips

 This war memorial was right down the street from where we lived in Fontainebleau. If anybody knows the name of this memorial and where I can find it for our upcoming visit please let me know.

The following pictures were taken on a trip they took with friends to Belgium, Holland, Germany and Barcelona, Spain.

Mom has a few great stories about this trip.

They free camped or camped wild w/o a tent in the mountains. As they were sleeping it started raining in the middle of the night and they had to scurry around to get all their stuff out of the pouring rain. Glad we'll have an RV.

Dad pretended to fall off the mountain they were on and scared mom to death.

The funniest one is the day dad and Frank were carrying a cooler to the beach and dads pants fell down and the construction workers started whistling at him. I still chuckle when she tells that story.

She also remembers that in Spain they were offering to give my dad a shoe shine.......only thing is he had on tennis shoes. Anything to get your money she says.

Spain

This was taken at a German rest area.

The Nightlife

I've often wondered what bars these photo's were taken at. 

Mom looks so elegant in these pictures.
 They were celebrating their anniversary at a German Night club.



One of the few decent quality pictures I have of both mom and dad together. Happy anniversary.

The Cars

A very anxious mom to be in front of our cabin in Fontainebleau.

The Kids

See I told you I started at an early age.

Big sis and lil brother

Our only family photo in France

No fashionista.

Hey mister can I have a ride. This was the son of one my folks friends.

Lil bro and I, we've always been close.

This picture shows our French babysitter in the background holding my baby brother.

Oh yum may I have more please.

This is my all time favorite childhood picture of my lil bro and I.

Hope you enjoyed viewing as much as I enjoyed reminiscing.

Paris in motion part 1

I just found this video on trip advisor thought it was so cool I had to share it with you.

http://vimeo.com/46106624

Stay tuned as I am presently working on a new post with vintage photo's from the 60's.

European Dreaming

It all started with a big dream in a little girl’s mind that she would one day be able to visit the country she was born in. After romanticizing

all of my childhood about my parents living, playing and working around Paris I had always hoped that I would be able to see some of the things they spoke of.

I was an Army brat with a dad stationed in Orleans France in the early 60’s. Mom and dad got married in France and I and my brother came along later. We came back to the states and a dream was born.

This dream had festered for nearly 50 yr’s and had always been put on the back burner until a future time that we could afford it w/o breaking the bank.

After a major medical issue with my husband Mark last year it has made me rethink how short life is and not put everything off. Let’s live life.

I had been saving several years for a big romantic vacation for our 25’th wedding anniversary (in 2016). After a very heartfelt discussion Mark and I agreed to not wait and why not use the money for a major vacation to celebrate or 50’th birthdays coming sooner then we want. Mark graciously accepted my dream vacation and is now very excited too.

So we are planning a 24 day trip to Europe to fall about half way in between our 50’ths. Spring time in Paris what could be more delightful.

24 days you say…..how fortunate. Yes we are. If spending so much money to fly to Europe I want to take advantage of it. What do we plan to do you ask ……..well follow along and find out.

The first major obstacle was trying to decide on what parts of Europe to visit. We knew we wanted to hit Orleans and Paris, but where else beyond that.

Mark and I had dreamed of taking a Rhine river cruise through Germany (home to ancestors on both sides of our family). We often joked around about touring a city while docked up and while out and about drinking too much bier in the Bier gardens. We would laugh and say that we should have a note in our pocket to give a local to direct us back to our boat. So of course Germany and its bier and schnitzels were calling us.

Then we remembered watching Tour De France and thinking about how neat it would be to rent a RV and travel through the Alps. So yet another idea will come to fruition.

Humm then where else……after all we will have 18 days in that RV. Of course if we’re in the Alps why not swing down into Italy and hit the Mediterranean coast.

Oh the sunny beautiful Mediterranean what would a visit be w/o hitting up the French Riviera. Then there is Provence and Burgundy with all of their wonderful wines. So an itinerary is born. Or so we think. The above is the present agreed upon itinerary, after it has been revised several times and I’m sure several more revisions will occur.

This vacation will not be planned to the minute as I do most vacations. One of the advantages to a RV is being able to change our minds at any given time so I am sure there will be last minute changes.

Well with the decision made to take this trip the next challenge was to get the time off from work. With a 14 month advance warning my bosses thought it best to approve the time off to save one of their employees from going postal. That was a wise decision on their part. Little do they know I may never come back from Europe. JK

With my time off approved the next step was putting a deposit down on our apartment in Paris,as we will stay there for 6 days after our RV trip. After spending 100’s of hours researching apartments and looking at tons of pictures of them we finally narrowed our choice down. Our main objective was to have a view of Tour Eiffel or The Eiffel Tower as us Americans call it. After our first few choices were already booked I was starting to get disappointed. Are you kidding me we’re 14 months out and their already booked? But a little bit more searching and we found our ideal apt. at an even better rate….so it was meant to be.

http://eiffeltowervacationrentals.com/apartments/apt1001

Here is a pic of our view.

 

Many folks are surprised that we are choosing to rent a RV as neither of us has ever driven one, let alone to drive one for the first time in a foreign country. I will admit that the thought is a little intimidating but we are two semi intelligent individuals (debatable to some) and can learn. At least they drive on the same side of the road as we do and learning a few new traffic signs wasn’t going to be an issue. We have both driven large boxed moving trucks so how different could a motor home be?

After reading several books and blogs on the subject from others who have done it and researching tons of motor home websites for European rentals we had enough confidence to continue on.

I contacted David Shore one of the authors to a book called Europe by Van and Motor home. He can get us a discount on our rental. I told him that we were interested in renting a motor home out of Amsterdam with a drop off in Paris. One way rentals are very pricey but we were saving a lot by renting out of the Netherlands vs. Paris so it equaled out. We found out that the rental agency in Amsterdam was already booked up for the size RV we wanted. All they had left were little VW vans w/o a bathroom. I know many of you out there that know us are laughing at that. For those of you not in the know I inherited my dads tiny bladder and big appetite, which means I use the restroom a lot and that I am not going to be comfortable in that tiny van for 3 weeks. Again I was disappointed that 14 mo's. out they were booked and I was beginning to wonder if we’d be able to RV through Europe.

With a little bit more research we decide to change the pickup city to Paris and will save some $ by having round trip flight tickets out of the same city. At the expense of not getting to the Netherlands. I was so looking forward to seeing all of the tulips fields in full bloom. At this point the rental agencies in Paris weren’t booking yet and I had some real nail biters waiting to find out if we were going to be able to rent the RV. Alas the day comes that we can book our RV and of course I worried about nothing. A plus was that David was able to save us 8% of what we would have booked directly from the rental agency (McRent). So deposit is placed for the RV as well.

Next step booking airfare. Sighs…as right now Mark wants to fly 1’st class and I know we can’t afford that. So have been doing my homework to find the right flight and airline. I think I’ve got it nailed down to an Open Skies nonstop flight out of Newark to Paris they have Premium plus seating that won’t break the bank but offers a little bit more room. We will see what happens.

Stay tuned for a posting of our loose itinerary.