European Dreaming

Monday, June 23, 2014

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Departure day

Well the time had come to say goodbye to Europe and the Dream vacation of a lifetime. We had an amazing 25 days and though happy to be getting home to the ones we love (2 big hairy kids & couple of moms) we depart with the usual saddness that the end of a vacation has.

We woke in a timely manner and got out the door 5 minutes early (9:25am Paris time) to meet the G7 taxi we scheduled. As we walked out the elevator the taxi driver was just pulling up in front with 11 euro's already on the meter. He was a nice driver that spoke very good English and I should have asked him about the 11 euro's but at this point I just wanted to get home with as little hassle as possible and I was getting anxious. I felt foolish when he asked which terminal at Orly we needed and I realized all my notes were packed in the luggage instead of my purse. He quickly looked it up in a book he had and we were off. When Mark went to pay him he almost gave him a 10 euro tip until I brought it to his attention. As we entered the terminal and Mark spotted the armed police carrying automatic weapons he had the suspicion that we were in the wrong terminal. As I waited with the luggage Mark went to the information office to find out where were needed to be and sure enough it was the next terminal. So dragging our 2 bags a piece behind us we shlepped through the airport to get the tram to the next terminal and within 10 minutes we were where we needed to be sitting and waiting for the airline desk to open up. Sure is nice to be early and not stressed. Well at least relatively stress free. I was so anxious to get home that every little thing was bothering me and if it wasn't for Marks even keel and approach to matters I may have just lost it, it really does help to have two people to help each other out. I was very grateful to have him around. While we waited I went to the pastry shop to get our last A.M. pastries and use the last of our euro's.

After our bags were checked going through security wasn't as easy as leaving the US. They have you take all liquids out of your carry on even if they meet the 3 oz limit and personally checked them all but yet they didn't make us take our shoes off. After doing some duty free shopping we waited our few hours to board the plane then we were off for home.

We had a smooth uneventful flight home and watching 3 movies helped pass the 8 hours. I loved Open Skies and will fly them again if possible. Cleared customs in Newark in about 45 minutes and I broke out in a huge grin as the guy welcomed us home....it sounded so good and it was nice to be back where most everyone speaks English.

Checked our bags at the United counter and then it was off to find the cheesburgers we had been craving for a couple of weeks. The beef in France was not the most tender or prepared the way we are use to here in the US so beef seemed to be what we were both craving.

Catch our United flight to Indy and land at 10:30pm Indy time in a thunderstorm. Even though this flight was only a few hours it felt longer then the intercontinental flight because I was so anxious to finally get home. The landing was smooth but as we rolled up to the gate the captian came on the speaker to say that we would have to sit on the plane until the thunderstorm had passed and it was safe for the ground crew to roll out the walkway. I think everyone moaned and within a minute we all let out a sigh of relieve as somebody on the ground crew rolled it out and we started deboarding. Yay we must have been living right. We wondered as we were walking to luggage claim if there will be a delay do to weather to get luggage off the plane. Again we were living right as we walked up to luggage claim our bags arrived on an earlier flight and were sitting there waiting on us. So we were out the door before the others from our flight. Our moms pick us up at the curb and 20 minutes later we're home telling them all of our great stories. Though it's been 19 hours since we left Paris we're wound up and keep them up until 1 a.m. Thought we'd sleep the next day away but I woke up wide awake at 9 a.m. and beat everyone else out of bed, but.....boy let me tell you the jet lag hit at about 2 pm and for the next 3-4 days I felt like I had a fog around my head. Funny never did get the jet lag going just coming home. I'm sure much of it was the over excitement of everything.

As the French say Voila. That's it for our great vacation and I know there are a few things I forgot to mention but I'm too old to remember everything that happened in 25 days. Hope you all enjoyed the stories as much as I enjoyed sharing them.

Bye Bye
Au revoir
Auf Wiedesehen
Ciao Ciao

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Day 6 Paris

This morning I wake up and think holly mother of god who beat me up with a baseball bat while I was sleeping. I woke so stiff and sore (actually the worse time the whole trip) I had to remember what we did yesterday and realized it was being bounced around on the top of the HOHO bus for 2 hours and we thought the RV was rough on our old bodies.

Mark ran out in the rain for the pastries this morning and came back saying he had to go to the grocery store instead because the pastry shop was closed. Upon further discovery we find out today is another holiday in France I think they call it a workers holiday. We were going go to go to the Orangerie Museum followed by hot chocolate at Angelina's today but we both agreed to stay in and not run all over the city.

We sat in and enjoyed a long morning of hot tea and pastries and watched the clouds dance around the E.T. and occasionaly shroud it. We slowly packed up and scheduled our G7 taxi to take us to the airport in the morning.

We eventually wandered out for lunch at a local restaurant. This was our last full day in Paris and we wanted to have escargot again before we left so we were off to find a restaurant that served it. We walked around looking at all of the posted menu's and found one that served it. This also ended up being a restaurant recommended to me from trip advisor so all the better. We liked our lunch so much that we made reservations with the owner for dinner that same night and requested the same table.

The Escargot were delicious and easier to eat since not served in the shell.

More pasta for Mark.

I ordered a stuffed pasta with foie gras which was my best main in France.

Nutella & Banana crepe for a shared desert was good but nothing to write home about.

After lunch we went to the grocery store to purchase a bottle of champagne to celebrate our last night in Paris and then back to the apartment to hang out.

Our afternoon wine from our collection from Chateauneuf du Pape. 1997 Prestige

Our little neighbor friend, we'll miss his greeting us when we were on the balcony.

Just a few of the motorcycles and scooters parked on the boulevard and yes they are covered with pigeon poop. Guess these folks have to bring something with them to wipe down the bikes before riding.

Diner was a let down and not nearly as good as lunch. It didn't help that the owner had given our table to somebody else. We again ordered the escargot but this time it did not look nearly as appealing, the plate was all chipped upped and looked like it should have been thrown away months ago and then we had to ask for Escargot forks to eat them. We paid 2 euro extra to have the Veal dish because it had Morell mushrooms instead of their everyday mushrooms what ever they were. This was way over rated and the veal was very tough. I wished that I had ordered the foie gras stuffed pasta again it was so delicious. This was the quickest meal in France we had, we were in and out in a hour with only the escargot, veal and a glass of wine each we were requesting l'addition s'il vous plaît. We promptly walked next door to our favorite neighborhood cafe L'Atlantique and had what would be our last cafe (espresso) of the trip.

It was then back to the apartment to pop open our bottle of bubbly and toast our final night. We took lot's of pictures of E.T. and discovered that since tonight was a holiday they have a rotating light on top like a light house.

Then it was off to slumber land where we dreamed of sleeping in our own bed tomorrow night.

Day 5 Paris

Today we had a some grey skies when we woke but they soon cleared. After pastries in the apartment we headed down to the post office just down the block to purchase a shipping box to send a few of our souvenirs home. So glad we did this today as we found out they would be closed on Wed & Thur. We would have been stuck paying extra baggage fees plus having to haul it through Newwark airport would have been a pain.

After packing up the stuff and dropping it back off at the post office we were off to enjoy another beautiful day in Paris and grabbed a bus to take us to the E.T. so we could take a hop on hop off bus (hoho). As the bus pulled up and parked at the end of the line at Luxembourg gardens/Pantheon we realized we hopped on the right bus but going the wrong direction. But it all worked out for the better as I had wanted to go to Luxembourg gardens but didn't see having the time to squeeze it in. As we walked into the gardens and I realized we were next to the Medici Fountain I told Mark it was meant to be that we ended up here as I really wanted to see it. We walked around the gardens for a while enjoying the warm sunshine, beautiful tulips in bloom and watching the people of Paris enjoying their lunches in the park.

The Pantheon

Luxembourg Gardens

Medici Fountain

Luxembourg Palace

Once done inside the gardens we enjoyed walking around the outside fenced walls looking at all of the large posters of previous Le Tour D'France.

Then it was across the street to have lunch at Le Luxembourg Brasserie were we sat out on their terrace and had a wonderful tasty lunch. I had the hot goat cheese tossed salad that was great and I highly recommend and Mark had another pasta dish and of course a couple of beers.

After lunch we used our last two tickets of our carnet for the bus and grabbed it to the E.T. confirming that it was headed in the correct direction this time. While walking from the bus stop to the HOHO bus stop we encountered the petition girls with the first one asking me if I spoke English and I shook my head no and the second one shoving her petition in Marks face. This did not go over well with Mark and he slapped the papers away this of course upset her and she started yelling at him as we kept walking away. We had seen the petition youths Saturday morning at Notre Dame and had not seen them again until today. We also saw several of the keychain salesmen without issue. We never did see the ring trick.

When we first got to the bus stop there was a bus waiting but it had no seats available on the top so we waited the 7 minutes for the next one. As we were waiting a French tour guide walks right up and tells his group to get in line for the bus. Just then the bus pulled up and he proceeded to get on. I had enough of this type of crap while in Paris and wasn't standing for it. I stepped forward and put my arm in front of him and said that we had been waiting longer. He said something in French and was trying to argue with me. My voice gets extremely high at this point as I begin to argue with him (giggles as my friends know what I mean here). In clear English he quickly says just go then. So I allow the couple that had been waiting ahead of us on and then we got on.

Various Pictures from our HOHO tour.

Todays police station that still has the bullet holes in it from when it was a Nazi building in WW II.

Place de la Concorde

La Madeleine Church

Palais Garnier Opera House

Place Vendome

Place de la Concorde

Fouguets restaurants now on the Unesco Historical register.

Arc de Triomphe

Grand Palais

Petit Palais

Flame of Liberty

George Washington Statue

E.T. from Trocadero

After the HOHO tour we grabbed a taxi back to our apartment since we had used the last of our carnet tickets for the bus. This was the only cabbie that we ended up disliking. She started by going out of the way to get to our apartment then we saw her looking it up on a map since she didn't have GPS, no wonder. She would speak bad about any driver that she diddn't care for and she also turned her engine off at every stop light. She was just very negative. She approached our apartment from a different direction and once she arrived at our street she said it was too narrow to turn onto and dropped us there at the corner...crazy lady. I told her that other drivers had no issues with the average size road. Her and Mark argued a little until I started to walk up the street to the apartment.

For dinner we ended up at L'Atlantique again and enjoyed joking with our same waiter from Sunday. Then back to the apartment for the night time E.T. show.

Tower Montparnasse at night.