August 7. 2010
Let’s just say, this last day, my angst from being in so many lines comes out in this posting…just sayin’…

We get up, pack and load into the taxi, and make our way to say good bye to the Charles de Gaulle airport. We were so happily surprised as to find out that Jarom’s status on Delta allowed us two 70 pd. bags coming to Paris, but operating on Air France going home, they didn’t honor that, and charged us $100 Euro for each of our bags. Jarom didn’t give up once we got home, and fought for it back, and he did it!

We have a short flight to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and enjoy the most beautiful airport we’ve ever seen, and are sad we can’t enjoy it longer. Let’s just say, when you see pic’s, it’s hard to believe this is an airport. My new fave airline is KLM for sure, which we flew from Amsterdam to Atlanta. The tiniest details, from toothpick’s, yummy free snacks, fancy wrapped delicious meals with stylish plastic ware, not like the U.S. offers in the least. While in and out of consciousness, we enjoyed food and movies.

Then, my favorite line of all-the airport-international side. After going through a line for customs, and getting in a gigantic line to declare our bought cheese in the Netherlands, we wait and grab our luggage off of the carousel, come around a corner, where we give our luggage to someone else, ride a bus with no luggage, and wait for our luggage a second time on another carousel. Loved that part!

We anxiously arrive home, share gifts and eat Parisian baguettes and Amsterdam goat cheese we brought back, and visited and caught up on the wonderful times the girls had with their amazing Aunt Valerie and cousin Noah! They had a party week, sewing purses, making button bracelets, going to a movie, shopping, doing other crafts, eating cake and watching movies, painting nails, doing hair, and who knows what else they did, but they had fun and I’m so grateful to a sister to come hang out with my most treasured possessions and make sure they are happy and safe! The family goes to bed, and Val and I have a little time to spend together, chatting and laughing. Her and Noah leave at 5:30am Sunday morning, and all I know is, Jarom gave a great lesson in Sunday School, even though we had been up for around 24 hours with the time change, and little sleep. But we can’t really complain, it was definitely worth all the sleep deprivation, blisters, and 2 pounds I gained.

Monday school starts, and we are off and running, making wonderful memories back home. Now, how do we get a job to travel Europe with the family…

August 6. 2010
Hated getting up at 7:00 am again, even told Jarom to see if we can do the morning tour later, or just not go, but finally got up, got ready, and left at 8:30. We made it to the west leg of the Eiffel Tower, to meet our tour guide on a segway. We walked, while he rode back to the Fat Tire Tour office(not fair), and we were taught the in’s and out’s of the segway, practiced on our own, and got to know our group as we headed out for our segway tour of Paris. Luckily for us, we learned so much in our previous tours, we felt like the kids at the front of the class raising our hands with the answers, because we had learned so much in the previous days. We made our way around Paris, even passing but not getting to see a movie being filmed. Darnit! our guide said he even saw Leonardo and Johnny Depp just days before, but we couldn’t take the darn segways over there. I say leave the segway! We had a nice lunch at a cute little bistro out on the grounds of the Louvre in the gardens, and then headed back. We ended about 2:30, finished up a little more shopping, and went back to the apartment for a little rest and snacks. We wanted to eat dinner late, since our tour of the Eiffel Tower was at 10:30pm. We enjoyed a little nap, visited with the owners who live next door for a long while, and ran out the door hoping to not miss our tour. Jarom loved his yummy nutella crepe as we ran the distance, and reached what would be our first of many lines to make it up that beautiful but overly-crowded work of art. Here goes my description: First line, not bad because we had reservations and bought our tickets online. Met a couple of Russians, so Jarom really enjoyed conversing and freshening up on that amazing language. We then are let through, to head to another line to get in the elevator. We finally make it, squish in like cattle, and are let out at the second level, to get in another line for the next elevator. The symmetry and artwork of this masterpiece in my opinion is absolutely astonishing. To originally be built for the World Fair, and expected to be taken down after that and looked upon as an eye sore, and was fought for to keep it’s position in the city was a wonderful happenstance, or wonderful unplanned event for sure. We finally are in the second elevator chatting with a couple we met in our first line from Scotland, and we get out at the very top. We walk around the whole top, admiring the city and sites at night, and it’s absolutely beautiful! We pass and hear a couple who just got engaged that very second, and we all clap and congratulate them-they’re from England. So it gets better…we go get in line to go down, and after who knows how long, we make it to the first elevator…make our way down, and I refuse to stand in another line to go the distance to ground level. Jarom and I decide to take the stairs, which was totally a blast, as we got to enjoy the inner architecture of the Eiffel. We made it down eventually, three lined on the metro back home, walked up the hill, and fell into bed at 2:00am. Let’s just say, 5:30am came very quickly!

August 5. 2010
Up at 7:00, we got ready, and headed out the door at 8:30 for our bike tour we would be taking around Versailles. We arrived to the Fat Bike Tour office at 9:15 after catching not one, or two, but three different metro lines to get there, and hustling down some blocks. It definitely was a lot of good exercise! We grab a bike, meet the group, and start biking through the city. Luckily, the city of Paris is very flat, which makes biking a total breeze, and more of an enjoyable visit learning about others in the group. We get to the train station, grab our bikes and walk them down the stairs to the train, separate out, fit our bikes on the train, and ride for probably 20 minutes out to the country. Grab our bikes, and ride to the center of the city, where there are bread boulangeries, cheese and meat markets, and fresh fruit. Of course, all housed in beautiful ancient buildings. We start off the morning with our first crepe drenched in Nutella-not the best for needing to lose weight, but who cares this week!

We meet an hour later after everyone has shopped for their lunches at the open market, and we start biking toward it all! We bike for awhile, along a long dusty road lined with beautifully spaced tall trees for, and make our way to Marie Antoinette’s play area, where she had a village recreated including somewhat of a tree house built to play with her children. After consumating their marriage 7 1/2 years after their vows, Marie and King Louis the XVI had four children. To remember history, you can think of it this way…the XIV built it, the XV enjoyed it, and the XVI payed for it. King Louis the XVI and Marie had quite the homes to enjoy, but ultimately didn’t make very good choices concerning the kingdom, and payed a high price, in this case, their heads. Getting back to the tour, we take what pictures we can through the trees, and then head to the Grand & Petit Trianons. Beautiful smaller homes than Versailles, but in reality, very large, these homes offer a fantastic view into the original Versailles. We then bike around the most beautiful biking trail, same as before, lined with trees, it’s dreamy and you are not believing you’re actually in as beautiful place as you are seeing. We come to the canal, the largest pond I’ll ever see in front of one’s home I believe. We guess it to be longer than three football fields, in the shape of a t. We bike along side it, not knowing exactly where we are and where the chateau is at this point, and I film Jarom riding, to look over my left shoulder and see the most beautiful palace. We then bike to the farthest end of the canal, where our group parks our bikes, we gather our food, and picnic, watching people boating, staring at the chateau, and enjoying our fresh bread and goat cheese, pastries and fruit. We were the only one drinking water, which I’m surprised you can drink so much wine and still be ok driving! We finish our lunches after about an hour of great conversation and relaxation, get on our bikes, and bike down the other side of the t toward the chateau. We finally make our way to the entrance, and feel as though the world has suddently become gigantic leaving us very small. The best thing about this tour, was you get a small device, punch in the numbers that are displayed in each room, and you hear information about that room as you walk through it. The Chateau was beautiful, extremely lavish and large, and housed the Royal family until 1789, when the Revolutionaries forced them back to Paris. We eventually made our way to the Room of Mirrors, which I remember nothing about this room, but learned this was where King Louis the XIV had lavish parties, and was also the site of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 that officially ended World War I. We finally make our way out of the chateau, and out to the gardens. I’ve never seen anything to massive, perfectly manicured, and so inviting in my life. I can’t believe this was all for one family. The original Versailles covered 2000 acres, so imagine most of this as beautiful manicured trees, hand dug canals, flowers, and shrubs-including a maze of shrubs you could get lost in!

We make our way to our bikes, ride to the bus station, and relax on our way home, enjoying our conversation with a family from Canada, celebrating the graduation of their daughter, who chose a trip to Paris as her gift. We are almost home, and decide to take the funicular up the mountain above our apartment, walk through a shop and buy a few more souvenirs, and walk down the winding streets of restaurants, shops, and beautiful memories.

For dinner, leftover goat cheese, baguettes, sandwiches, fruit and chocolate were a perfect end to our day. We climbed up to our bed in our loft, and relaxed watching a little more movie, and could hardly move, much less keep our eyes open, but what an amazing day. My favorite. Can’t wait to bring the girls. Is now my new happy place!

August 4. 2010
We woke up too early for my liking, to get to the Louvre by 9:15am. Luckily we decided to buy tickets online, which was a very good choice, since the Louvre is closed every Tuesday, Wednesdays are a line nightmare. We met our group, went straight down to get our ear pieces to listen to the tour guide, and were on our way. Let’s just say, looking at every piece for 24 hours a day, you still wouldn’t make your way through the whole museum in three weeks. So you go to enjoy the experience, and look and admire the amazing palace, art, and blisters you acquire. After seeing quite a few famous pieces, we entered the gigantic room, which houses wall sized paintings including one with Christ, and then there’s a wall in the middle of the room, holding very carefully, a small sized portrait of the Mona Lisa. So, after departing from the group after our tour, we elbowed our way to the front. I have to say that you have to be pretty aggressive, feeling as though you are entering a metro in India housing hundreds of people. I held my ground, even when the sweaty tall man kept pushing into me, and I kindly hollered, “please stop pushing!” repeatedly! I finally make my way to the front, hold the camera up, and the screen is BLANK! No battery life left. I look back, not having an idea where Jarom is, and he’s only five heads back, and he hands me the battery, and we capture pic’s of the famous art that we personally have no idea why it’s famous, but there you have it! Voila-we made it through!

We head home for lunch and for a change of shoes for me, because I have blisters on my feet from my cute shoes I thought I’d bring, and they are killing my feet, and I change shoes. I also bring along a pair I had bought in Paris and had broken to exchange on our way out to our next tour, so when we exchanged them, I then wore my third pair of shoes for the day. We head out to our walking tour of the French Revolution, and I am clogging my way about on the swedish clogs I thought would be comfortable, but only rub and exhaust my feet as we cover probably a few miles walking around Paris. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun learning the history behind this ancient city. This is our first tour through a company called “Fat tire Tours” and end up using them Thursday and Friday also. They were awesome, English speaking, and have tours in many cities throughout Europe.

We decide to find another pair of shoes, perhaps tennis shoes that I can be comfortable in, since the back of my feet are worn away, along with both pinky toes, and even the mole skin bandages aren’t cutting it. So we walk around Lafayette mall again, searching for the right shoes. We find sandals for me and my sister, but not tennis shoes. So we head to the sports store, and find some Puma’s. Yea! We also see H&M, which I’ve not shopped in but maybe once, and they have the cutest clothes at this one, so we do a little damage there, and head for dinner. We find a cute pizzeria, sit down with aching feet having walked all day, and visit with the couple next to us from Holland. We find out all sort of great things about Amsterdam, what they do, and enjoy the evening eating our yummy pizza. It starts to pour as we head out for home, and we run through the rain to the metro. The few rain showers we had were awesome, and fun and romantic. They were perfectly timed I’d have to say! We eventually got home at 10:30, started a movie on the ipad, and after minutes we drifted to sleep, anticipating the early morning we had the next few days.

Even though there were five shoe changes, it was such an eventful, adventurous day, but little did I know, that Thursday would be the best day of all!

August 3, 2010
We decided we would sleep in to no alarm today, since the rest of the week is planned with tours. I woke to the door closing, and decided I should start getting ready, since it was already 8:00. Jarom arrives back at apartment with fresh groceries from our little market for omelets, and fresh croissants and a baguette for our breakfast. While I am getting ready, breakfast is wafting through our little apartment, and we are anxiously excited for breakfast. After yesterdays smoking of my flat iron, even with a power converter, I grew nervous from the burning smell this morning when using my blowdryer. So no hair appliances available to me that I brought, I knock on our neighbors door, who happens to be the owner of our apartment. Lia showed us our room on arrival, and helped us out with the Internet a few times, and Jaime got back late last night who we hadn’t met. So this morning, I knock on the door to borrow a hair appliance, and we meet Jaime and visit with them both for awhile. We learn he is a brilliant photographer, traveling around the world to capture the last of tribes of any culture, everywhere on earth. His website is www.memoiredescouleurs.com, if one is interested in the fascinating lives of beautiful human beings around the world.

We decide to be on our way at 12:15, and call it a wandering day. We look in small shops on
our way to Lafayette, what we in America would call a mall. We stop at a chocolatier shop to soak in the lavish chocolates, and start visiting with a mom and daughter from hawaii. We learned a lot about their seven weeks of travel together, including visiting italy where the daughter had done a year exchange program. We continue to head toward our destination, and reach Lafayette. The layout, displays, and clothes are different and beautiful, and we indulged in a delicious healthy lunch on the “lounge” floor of the mall. At the top of the building, it is open to sit in awe at the beautiful architecture all around, including the opera and ballet palace across the street. After hours of walking, we head back up the hill, and it’s just about 7:00pm when we get in to our apartment.

We rest shortly, and then accompany Jaime and Lia to a yummy cafe, and have our first yummy Italian pizza. It’s fun meeting and getting to know our new friends. We walk down and up the hill chatting, with an exciting plan. Jaime says people take locks to a bridge over the seine, and wrier their names on it, lock it together on the wire railing, and throw the key into the seine, symbolically showing your love forever. And that’s exactly what we did. From getting in a tiny car, with inches in front and behind it, bumping gently the cars in front and back, Jaime drives us down the streets of paris, showing us beautiful buildings, expensive places to shop, all while we help lua brush up on her English. They both speak many languages, lia is just starting to learn English. Even though they are from south America, their French is great. We park, make our way to the bridge, as the largest university of art towers over us in it’s brilliance, we wander through groups sitting on the bridge eating,
visiting, drinking, and playing instruments. We lock our locks on the bridge, throw our keys, marvel at large boats passing on the Seine river, and then head to the car. After giving us a driving tour, we drive down Champs de Elysees, the beautiful street which houses many things, including the Arc de Triomphe. That’s the arc we wanted to see yesterday, but didn’t, so it was great to see it, and we didn’t have to walk this one! We stop at the Eiffel Tower and enjoy it’s splendor, while all lit up, snap a few shots, and drive home, enjoying our conversation and the information about this beautiful city. We say good night, and Jarom and I struggle to stay awake, finishing up our days end. What a good day, full of spontaneity, enjoying moments, taking moments, and sharing moments.

Monday, August 2, 2010
We rose at 7:15, got ready and did some things around the apartment, and made it out the door by 10:00am. We took a wrong turn, and ended up at the top of our hill at the Mt. Monmartre cathedral. Absolutely beautiful, and up on the highest hill overlooking the city of Paris. We wander down some streets, ate our favorite salad with the fried potato on top, and then caught the metro. We were trying to use our time seeing things until 2pm, which was when a guided tour in English of the Louvre would start, but we ended up getting off at the wrong metro spot, got back on, but ended up at La Defense. A beautiful but modern arch, we took pics and headed back to the metro, where we then just decided to get to the Louvre. The tour was booked for the day, but we walked in awe at the massive architecture, the beautiful pyramid entrance, and you wouldn’t ever believe, shopping stores. Even a Mac store, which was a great resting and research place to figure our next step. Making our way out the Louvre and through the Pyramid was one of awe and excitement, and then stepping onto the grounds of what once was Louis the XXIV palace is unbelievable. We entered the Louvre from the metro stop underground, so the palace grounds were a new scene for us.

What I love most about Paris, is that people stop. They sit. They visit and enjoy bread. They
are not in a rush all the time like us Americans, or at least like what I feel like.

We get what is now our most favorite ice cream that is Swiss, and meander to the gigantic Ferris Wheel, yes that’s right, a carnival lies on the side of the grounds of the Louvre. The ferris wheel is lit up at night and is beautiful, but we rode in mid-day, and it was very romantic! Oh the grounds are so massive, with ponds and fountains, and chairs everywhere to sit. After relaxing by a pond, dark skies roll in, and we start moving quickly, but not before rain starts falling heavily, and we hire a tuk-tuk instantly. They are new to Paris from India we are told. Salvadore our driver did a great job getting us to the Eiffel Tower, but rain came on again, and we quickly got ourselves to the nearest bistro, which wasn’t very good at all! We end up sitting next to a woman from DC of all places, whose on a five week European tour by herself, and we chatted throughout dinner. We then head through the city,catch the metro home, and stop by a cute market not far from our apartment, and got some chocolate and fruit to end our evening. We started a movie, ate some snacks, planned out our week, and dropped into bed exhausted. Guessing, we probably walked 5-7miles easy. It was a good anniversary.

July 31. 2009
Jarom and I decided a week and a half ago, to wisk off to Paris for his week off. We thoroughly enjoyed a visit from grandma and grandpa Olson on the 29-30, and my sister Valerie flew in on the 30th also, with cute baby Noah. Thank heavens for a great sister so willing to watch our kids for a week! Going from 1 to 5 kids is a big change, but thank goodness our girls are getting old enough to be independent!

So Saturday, we got on our flight to Charles de Gaul at 8:50pm, and arrived in Paris around 11:30am. We taxi’d to our apartment, took a desperately needed nap, and started our Paris adventure. The architecture is beautiful of course, same as Italy and Spain. Narrow streets, skinny bread eating people because they walk everywhere, and thank goodness for newly purchased flat sandals(sorry for the shoe shopping trip that took hours before!). Back to our apartment, atelier de picasso, one of picasso’s first apartments. We are up on a hill, and have a beautiful view of Paris and the Eiffel tower. We are in after walking the streets and eating dinner in a cute restaurant cafe. Wow, our meal was great… pics will come after our week, but I will try and journal our daily activities so our sweet girls can follow mom and dad.

On a side note for my journaling, found out this week I have a nice combo of lymes disease, fiber/chronic fatigue, and what I’ve already known as hypothyroid. That explains the unexpected weight gain after our move:). So I was told I can no longer eat gluten(which happens to be in almost everything…celiacs disease…and no dairy products…what the? So, I thought coming to France I’d try and be good, but let’s face it, whose not going to eat bread and cheese in France? I’ve already eaten a foot long French bread walking around. So here’s to the new lifestyle change…in a week of course!

Good night, from our glass dining table, looking out our open windows at the Eiffel tower.