One more time around!

So, suprise surprise, I made it to Paris one more time. I think this will be my last trip some place before I come home and given that I have been to Paris so many times and love it there...it seems almost fitting that it would be my last big trip. I ended up going with Laurence for an overnight stay in Paris and saw still more things that I have not seen there. Amazing that you could go someplace 4 times and still have more things left to explore. Laurence was going to meet one of her other friends and staying there so I came along for the ride and to spend time with her. We stayed in a beautiful section of town just above Notre Dame know as La Marais. There were lots of fun shops and great restaurants and happily for me a Starbucks coffee. It is so sad to pay almost 6 EUR for a venti caramel macchiato, but you will never know how much you miss your coffee until you run into a big coffee place 4 times in 6 months! And to boot, they had donuts there! As we were walking out the door, I said to Laurence...I must have died and gone to heaven...coffee and donuts! From there we did a little shopping and I got some presents for my mother and my sister. For those of you who did not catch it and want to make fun of me later...Yes Starbucks was my first stop. And yes that was the thing I was most excited about seeing! From there Laurence and I sat at a cafe and had something to drink while we waited for her friend Jean to meet us. When he arrived, I left to let them have some time to catch up and I went off to take some pictures. Since I have taken most of the touristy pictures of Paris that I wanted to take, now I was just trying to find things that I thought were interesting. I have posted them here. I was pretty frustrated at how things were coming out, but I did manage to find a few things that I thought kind of worked out. I went back and met Laurence and Jean and we went to a trendy restaurant called B4. It was good, the company was really nice. Then when Jean left us Laurence and I stopped for another drink on the way home and talked at one of the little outdoor cafes. I think that this is what I am going to miss most about Europe: Laurence and sitting outside having a drink and solving the problems of the world. Sunday, Laurence was meeting another friend. Before that we went and had brunch at a famous place called Le Loire dans le Theiere. Here we got real breakfast! After that I left Laurence and took pictures in Le Jardin des Plantes and I sat by the Seine and listened to music and enjoyed the atmosphere of just being in Paris.

Well I finally made it to Bruges

For the last weekend that Sara is here, we decided to try and make it to Bruges in Belgium. This time we took the train to make sure the it would actually happen. :) The city was everything I had heard and more. I really loved it there. The atmosphere was amazing and it was so great to be able to spend that time with Sara. Bruges is considered to be the Venice of the north and very touristy. There were definitely a lot of tourists but it was really quaint as well, and the people were so friendly. The train ride from Luxembourg took about 4 hours. It was raining on the ride and we were both really tired because we took the 7 am train. We took the time to rest and regroup. When we got there, we took the bus to the area the hotel was in. We were able to get in right away which was nice because were about 3 hours before the check in time. We dropped our bags and went to the center. On the way there we had seen there was a Dali gallery and we both wanted to check that out. First, we went on a canal boat tour, I put some pictures on here. The canals are now only used for the tourists, which is kind of a shame because they were really cool and seemed like a great place to spend the day. We did a lot more shopping and window shopping than we thought we would. Of course, the chocolate there was really amazing. We made it back to the Dali gallery right as it started to rain. Talk about perfect timing. It was really interesting to go and spend time there with someone that appreciates his work and has some interesting perspective on it. From there we went to a really great little restuarant and split a Croque Monsieur (toasted ham and cheese) and we each got a Belgian Waffle. Clearly, we could not leave Belgium with out trying that. The food there was really wonderful, we loved it so much we went back the next day for breakfast. Other than that we also went to a great tea room. I think that we spent most of the trip really shopping and eating! Not a bad thing! We also had time to try the sauna at the hotel. Overall, it was a very relaxing trip. The next day was brunch at the same restaurant and then a little more shopping to pick up some presents for some of our family. I will definitely be going back to Bruges. It is a little hard to put the ambiance in words and the feeling that we had being there, but it is definitely someplace the everyone needs to see! And doing it with a friend like Sara makes it even better. We had so much fun and so much to talk about, we have too few opportunites to really spend time like that. I was really happy to have that time with her.

The middle of nowhere is amazing!

My last guest of my six month stay is here and we are having so much fun. Sara, one of my closest friends from Plymouth arrived here on Friday afternoon. I was nervous about getting her at the airport because I realized after she had already boarded the plane that it was arriving here at 3 instead of 5 and I had made no arrangements to get her that early. Thankfully, Dave was really understanding and let me take a long lunch break during our month end pricing to go get her! Thanks Dave! So Friday, I went and and picked her up at the airport and then dropped her back at my house and then went back to work to tie up some unfinished projects. When I was finished we took a walk aroung Luxembourg and I showed her the abbey, one of my favorite and one of the most picturesque places in Luxembourg. I will take pictures there eventually to show everyone but I am sure that they will not even do it justice! We arrived home at about 10pm and I cooked dinner and then we stayed up until about 1:30 talking and catching up some more. The next day we met Laurence and headed to Luxeuil les Bains in pretty much the middle of nowhere in France but it was amazing. It is about a 3 hour drive from Luxembourg and the region is best known for the healing mineral baths. A lot of people go there for the healing properties for rheumatism or psoriasis or other such ailments. We were really excited about the hotel because it had a pool and also really excited about meeting Laurence's friend Sylvie that night. The hotel was really cute. The rooms were similar to a bed and breakfast anf everything was modern and clean. We changed as soon as we got there in an effort to get a little time at the pool and in the sun. We did manage that but sadly no tan :( We then walked around town a little. We ran into a bachelor party and we chatted with the groom for a bit. I am adding his picture with us here, because you have to see how he looked, his friends were ruthless! (but all in good fun). One of the best parts of the evening was the phenomenal jazz fusion band that we stumbled upon in this obscure courtyard park. Even the little kids were silent when the music was playing! We really wanted to get a CD, but they said that they did not want to record their music because they felt that they wanted to be able to share the music and the experience with people and the recording it would take that experience away. This was a kind of cool but very frustrating answer. When we left there we went to dinner with Sylvie, one of Laurence's friends. We had an amazing time. The food and the conversation were really fabulous, I am sure that we solved one or two of the worlds problems that night! We got home at about 1, and really, we were not even tired. Sara and I proceeded to stay up until about 3 chatting and laughing. In fact, we were so loud that Laurence could here us from her room on another floor! Oops! The next day, we took the back roads through the cute little provincial towns to Baulay, to visit Sylvie and enjoy a barbecue at her farmhouse. The food and the time was really great. We had so much fun. As Sara put it, it is amazing that smart, liberal women from all over the world seem to be the same no matter how far apart they are! We brought Sylvie a slip and slide as her present for having us there. It was supposed to be a gift that we could use too since it was going to be hot out then too. It was complete with little inflatable race cars to race with others, too bad it was not hot enough that day, we could have testing it out to make sure it worked. I would highly recommend visiting the middle of nowhere and meeting Sylvie, the whole weekend was really fabulous. Today, Sara and I just tooled around Luxembourg. She window shopped and I really shopped. It was a great, relaxing day that we both really needed to unwind. Thanks to Sylvie for hosting us and showing us such a great time. It is really nice to have made such a wonderful new friend!