Réflexions et Pensées

(Reflections and Thoughts)

Life has been more than a litte crazy since we have landed back in the US of A.  I landed in Kentucky around midnight so I could attend my sister's bridal shower the next afternoon. I was dead on my feet but still managed to be there awake in a dress and even won one of the games.  Since that time we have been to West Virgina to see my parents, North Carolina to see Daniel's parents, New Jersey to see my grandparents,  Pennsylvaina to see friends (when Daniel's office told him we would not start working on Wednesday but on Monday), and then to Fairfiled Connecticut where we are renting a room from a very sweet lady from Craig's List and have found an apartment in Norwalk.

The journey

 Though sadly we will not be able to move into our apartment for another week, for those who have keep track, it will be two weeks here before we more into our apartment, a month since we lived in our own place, and 3 months since we packed up our house and I saw all my things.  It will be close to 4 months since having our dog, between dropping her off before we starting packing and picking her up after my sister's wedding in September, I am sure I owe my parents something really good for Christmas.

Luckily renting a room has been an awesome choice as it feels like we live somewhere and Jill, the lady we are renting from, has a sweet greyhound and two sweet cats.

That would be Star curled up beside me and you can just make out Snickers on the sidewalk.  Lounging in a backyard writing this post is way better than on the Econo Lodge hotel bed.

It seems uncessary to say I miss Paris, but I really do.  I am sure this is amplified in a bit by finding myself once more in a new place right as Paris was becoming comfortable and familiar.  It was a bit of an odd realization that we discovered we going though a bit of culture stock coming back home to our own country.  Our first Super Walmart grocery shopping trip was a bit of a contrast to the open air markets of Paris we had just left.  And while I was super excited to reunited with my mini cooper, if you know me know how much I love my car, it was amazingly odd to start driving again after a two and half month hiatius. I did my first true parallel parking today and despite my short car I was certain I was going to rear end the car behind me.  And while I do enjoy milling my way through used book shelves I can't tell you the joy it brings me knowing I can walk into any new bookstore and know I will find what I am looking for.

It is still occasionaly feels odd ordering in a restruant and not rehersing my order before giving it to the waiter. I find I miss using my french very much.  Don't get me wrong it is wonderful to return to world where I speak the same language as everyone else. I was so excited to banter again I was joking around with the US immigration guy when we landed, I think I made his day too.  I spent two and half years attempting to learn french, the first year of that was before we even had a trip planned.  It was not always the most rigorous of practice but I ran through two different audio tape series, three levels of Rosetta stone, watched french movies, watched american movies in french, read books on french culture, read children's books in french, wrote a blog in french, and annoyed Daniel practing my french daily on him.  It never worked out for me to take a class and I certainly didn't make time everyday and probably not enough time as I should have but I invested a lot of myself in this endevour and it is odd to see all that perparation come to an end.  I don't think I have ever work this hard and this long to choose to learn something before and I find I am at odds with what to do next.  Should I continue to learn french so the next time we go back, and there will be a next time, I will be able to speak at 6 year old level and not a 3 year old, or should I start my focus on our next big trip, I am thinking Italian.  I really enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment when I knew I could be understood and the apperciation and often encouragement I got from those I enteracted with.

I miss the food stalls, Sunday picnics in Luxenburg Gardens, just being a short walk from the Siene at night which provided sights I don't think I would get tired of if I saw them every day for the rest of my life, I miss the cheese, I miss the bread (God do I miss the bread), knowing there was always a new street to turn down and then having some of those same streets become familiar enough I no longer needed a map to cut between them, I miss the more adventure chic world of fashion and wanting to rise to meet it, I miss the french, and I miss that a situation like that requires you to be more adventrous, to be more open, to be more friendly.

These sort of trips are often refered to as once in a life time expereinces and I believe it was and I think in so many more ways than just the longest vacation I will ever take.  It makes me sad because with the flurry of activity since coming home and making a new home it all seems so distance and out of reach.  I think I gained a lot of exposure to things I would like to change about my everyday life to better reflect what I enjoyed about my life while in Paris, it just feels hard to do these things as you are living out of a suitcase and spending half your time driving. I worry I will forget.

This whole post is not to say I am sad it is over, I am, but my joy in having been able to do this trip way out weighs any feelings of loss.  I consider myself very fortunate for the expertise and find a lot of joy recounting the trip here and flipping through my thousands of pictures, which I can not wait to be reunited with my printer so I can bring some of the Paris sights to my Connecticut apartment.

I promise the next post will be shopping.

My City

La Fin de la Ligne

(The end of the line)

Sorry I am a little late with this we made it back home.  And have been pretty busy with all of the rentering the country, my cheese set off security alarms at the x rays both at Amsterdam and Boston, and the time zones, which has landed me with a bit of sinus/ cold. But I did wanted to finish up the trip for you so I present:

THE END OF AMSTERDAM

More time on a boat!

Because we had not had enough time on a boat between staying on one and the tour yesterday we decided to take another tour of the canals via a paddle boat.

The view from the bow.

You can really see the wind rushing through my hair.. that might be the sunglasses.

I would like to tell you I did an excellent job steering, I did not.  Though Daniel did let me occasional steer and then would take it back from me as we started to crash into a wall, a house boat, a moving boat.  There was one very memorial moment when a pair of guys sitting on the ledge had to pull their legs up as we knocked into the wall below them as a tour boat was honking a aggravated horn at us. Luckily the guys found it funny I don't think the tour boat caption did.

It really was a great way to see the city.

Afterwards we got a drink at Cafe Brecht, a really fun coffee shop that felt like a cozy coffee from home.  I am a huge fan of Parisian cafés but sometimes you just want a quirky cosy coffe shop.  Though neither of us had a coffee, Daniel had a beer and I had rhubarb juice drink, a fun choice.

We decided to enjoy the night on our house boat with some take out indian (not the same as being home) and the BBC's coverage of the Olympics.  So we were in The Netherlands, watching British coverage pulling for American, I mean I have done weirder things.  Though I did cheer when a Dutch woman won gold in the pool

Cheese!

The dutch are known for their cheese at least that is what the dutch tell me.  To fully appreciate this quality cheese we enrolled in a cheese tasting class.  We got to taste six different cheese and learned about the fine art of cheese aging and the proper way to evaluate cheese.  Apparently tasting the cheese is the last of the steps of evaluating cheese, Daniel and I just ate twice as much cheese.

Our instructor signing our cheese tasting certificates.

If you can tell there is a cheese guillotine in front of me, this seems to be the proper way to slice cheese.  This would also be where I obtained the problematic cheese, each security team let me keep it, it just apparently looked like a bomb in my bag.

I'm so proud.

It kept promising to rain, but we got lucky and it only rained at night, except our last night when we were sitting out side enjoying a nice Dutch French dinner as the storm clouds rolled in.  So I didn't get that last half of my baked potato as the rain drops started to hit, but it make not choosing dessert  easy and who doesn't love a run through the rain after a big meal?  

So we ended our fabulous European/Parisian summer.

America!

I took three plans home, Daniel took four.  We have already been to see my parents and now are visiting Daniel's parents before heading up to Connecticut.  Thank you so much for following our adventure, we really did have a wonderful time and I hope you enjoyed hearing about it.  I will probably be posting a bit more there are few stories I never got a round to telling, though every day was a story.  

Je suis sur un Bateau (de Maison), Amsterdam

(I'm on a (house) Boat, Amsterdam)

Our last stop on our trip is four nights in Amsterdamn, The Netherlands ... four nights on a house boat!  

Welcome Abord!

We are renting a houseboat we found off Airbnb.com.  And are loving it.

Living Room

Bed, it is like a fort.

A shot from the livingroom back through the boat.

And these would be the boats that tour by our house during the day and occasionally jostle us.  It is odd being part of the tourist attraction. 

One of the top things to do here is see a movie in the Tuschinski 1920's theatre and we hadn't seen Batman yet.... so that seemed like a good way to spend the night tired from training with all our luggage.

Swanky ... We got the VIP loveseat in a box. This also came with waitered snacks, I had champaign.   

Check out the cool art deco walpaper in the back.  I snuck in to the commoners section to check out the ceiling of the theatre, post movie.

The next morning we rented bikes and rode to the park, so I climbed a tree.  There really are as many bikes as everyone jokes about.  The streets are dangerous to cross as you dodge, cars, trams, bikes and motor scooters ( which drive in the bike lane).

I feel the need to specify the tree had fallen in to the canal but kept growing so I am really only about 5 feet off the ground.

So if biking is the best way to get around Amsterdam than boating is the second best, so more boating! 

We took a tour of the canal system which was lot of fun. 

Bridges!

We even passed our house boat on the tour.

Amsterdam has very quirky fun architecture at least compared to the uniform sleek look of Paris. Oh and they have trouble with buildings leaning here ... but they have worked it out.

Sadly nothing in this picture really indicates where we are.

Interestingly this church marks the center of the RedLight District.  We did stop by and walk the red  light district after the boat tour.  It really wasn't sketchy during the day but it was odd to see the women posing in windows.  Well at least they have a union and a healthcare plan here.

Finished up the day enjoying a storm, a thunderstorm is a whole new experience on a house boat, and we had a couple leeks around the windows, they just don't build them like they use to.  

40 Heures dans Brussels, Belgium

(40 hours in Brussels, Belgium)

We said good bye to my beautiful Paris a few days ago and started our long round about journey home.   Home is kind of a relative word as we will be staying with my parents and then Daniel's parents on our way up to Connecticut.   

So much luggage!

Our first stop is Brussels, Belgium. Chosen at random on our way to Amsterdam also chosen at random.  We only had a little less than 48 hours in Brussels so we planned our trip very closely on the priorities of the culture ... Chocolate, waffles, fries (they apparently invented them), and BEER.  There was not time to be waisted on dallying on Brussel Sprouts.

 After getting in we headed down to the Grand Place which is suppose to be beautiful with ornate old buildings. It was crazy crowded with mobs of people in orange and yellow shirts, and pep bands blaring, and two chicken suits running round, and small raquette balls that kept rocketing out of nowhere.

Turned out to be the National Championship of Balle Pelote.  It is a weird cross of handball played like tennis with the addition of goal post. In short it was horribly confusing, luckily two nice gentlemen tried to explain the game to us as we jumped back and forth between their broken english and our broken french, talk about a language exercise. 

The orange guy in the rear is the going to bat the tiny ball with his hand.

We ended up staying for the entire game we were both disappointed that yellow was not able to mount a full 4 game turn around.  I am debating starting up my own league in Connecticut. The game took up most of our afternoon so we headed out to dinner afterwards.

First beer of the Trip, Hoegaarden Rosée.

Followed up by our second beer of the trip Hoegaarden Grand Cru, which was a high gravity.  We also had dinner but we came for the beer.  We were pretty beat from the day so we called it an early night.

You may have heard of the famous boy peeing fountain in Brussels, if you haven't, you shouldn't, and if you have thank me you have now seen it and move on to the next thing on your Belgium itinerary.   Ta Da...

We went back to the Grand Place sans competition

Very pretty indeed.

Stopped by the beer museum, which was more the Belgium Beer Guild PR video but you get a beer at the end of the "tour".

Next we did a real tour of the Lambic Cantilion Brewery where they brew with wild yeast.  Very cool, here Daniel is playing tour guide for us, the tour is self guided. They still use the 100+ equipment the company was founded with.

Beer in Casks!

Beer in bottles!

At the end of this tour we got some Lambic beers, soo pretty.

At this point it was time for lunch, Belgiun waffles for lunch, there were also some frites sadly not photographed.

Post lunch was followed by more beer.  The Ala Mort Subite bar still has it's original 1920's decore and some delicious micro brew Lambics. This one is a peach.

And of course I had to try the raspberry.

Now it wasn't all beers, I did stop by this lovely "mall" and bought some chocolates.

Ta Da ... truth be told there were five different chocolate shop stops.  In my defense there are about three chocolate shops on every street block, the idea you could just go into one is ridiculous. What if you accidentally went into the worse chocolate shop on Brussels, what a waste of a trip, nope best to get two chocolates at a couple of stores and compare. 

Before dinner we stopped off for another beer. Daniel sought out a bar serving Kwak just so he could order the special glass holder.  There are almost as many bars as chocolate shops ... but not quite.

Daniel talked me into hitting up the casino in town for a hour later that night.  I did not beer there I think I had successfully reached my beer quota for the day.  The casino wasn't bad, it sure wasn't Vegas but it wasn't the middle of Missouri either.  Interesting to watch a black jack dealer work a game simultaneously in both french and english.  Sadly we didn't make enough winnings to pay for the trip, maybe next time.

On to Amsterdam and a house boat!!! 

Film en Plein air avec des amis

(Outdoor film with friends)

Paris doesn't really recognize summer starting until the end of July so I was excited to get a see one of the free outdoors movies before we left.  It had been raining all day so we were a little worried especially since we had invited a few people to join us ... that's right we have people to invite.  Ben joined us and I invited Jenny, from Chicago, we meet during the macaron class.  

We showed up around 8:20 to picnic before "Gran Torino" started and were planning on renting chairs.  Chairs would be for rent at 8:30 so Jenny sat on a small bath towel while down sat on a plastic bag, we were looking pretty sad.  At 9 they finally let us rent chairs though no promise that a movie would actually be shown.  A nice bonus was our chairs came with giant blankets, our picnic was saved from our sad towel.

  

Jenny and I under the lawn chair blanket lean to Ben and Daniel constructed. 

It started to rain just a little bit but we decided to stick it out and open another bottle of wine. Luckily it only sprinkled for about 20 minutes and the weather behaved for the rest of the night.  We had a ridiculous amount of food that everyone brought which was great though we did run a little short on wine, so Jenny and I ran to a store for more.  I really enjoyed getting to spend some girl time, Daniel and I have been spending a lot of time together.

Movie screen is inflated! Tom, a fellow american and friend of Ben's, is in the foreground.

So this would be a picture of our food and wine, apparently trying to take a picture sans flash at 11 outside doesn't work so well.  Ben would be the white blur. 

In getting more wine we also bought some chocolate bars to accompany Ben's oreo for dessert.

Aren't we cute.

Despite renting the five chairs we spent most our our time lounging on the blankets which were the real saving grace to our picnic.  The five of us had a great time before and during and had to be shooed off the lawn after the film finished.  It was our second to last night in Paris and spending it with our summer friends was a really nice way to wrap up an amazing trip.