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!