Je parle français zéro.

Translate: "I speak zero French." and that was a problem when in Paris despite the times that Christian translated for us...thank goodness.  We struggled both in the southern part of the country and some in Paris with the language barrier.  Jeff and I have been spoiled that this is the first time we have experienced any language barrier.  I would have assumed the city would have been very English friendly since there were tourists everywhere.  #spoiled

Paris was quite an experience and did many attractions in just the first day there.  Jeff's Comment: "Who said you can't do Paris in just one day?" We woke up early to make our way to the Louvre Museum, where the Mona Lisa and other famous paintings are held. It was filled with tourists, some more bossy than others.  I think I started getting some elbows out later in the day because I was tired of being pushed around. You'd think the Mona Lisa was about ready to walk away as people pushed their way up to the front to take a picture. Crazy tourists. Jeff had his audio guide. Are you surprised? But it was nice because he would share some of the facts he learned, which was the perfect amount for me since I don't have the attention span to listen during my entire journey.  He was able to get a better understanding of the paintings and architecture.

Great time at the Louvre Museum although Paris was not kind with beautiful weather for our two-day trip. I was proud of my picture of the Mona Lisa.  All I needed was two elbows! Ha!

We headed to the Love Lock Bridge afterwards. If you don't know much about this bridge, it is filled with thousands of locks that couples write on, lock it to the bridge, and then they throw the key(s) into the Seine River.  We made sure to load our lock up with lots of writing: date of marriage, date on bridge, JMB + SJB = ♥, & "God Gave Me You" which is a song that has special meaning to us.  We latched the lock, and each threw a key into the river.

   

 Not the best photography on these, but you get my point. Pretty disappointed in myself for the finger in the top right one and middle one. Bummer. 

 

 With our love lock. 4 lamp posts in, in the center. Go look for it! 

 

As we continued to walk around the city, we had an odd experience happen to us...well Jeff.  We were walking onto the Notre Dame Cathedral when this young girl put this petition type paper up on Jeff's chest.  Jeff felt the young girl unzipping his chest pocket (which had his wallet in it).  Needless to say, Jeff freaked out on her and she ran away (no wallet in hand).  First and hopefully last experience with a pickpocketer.  We were definitely more careful about where our purses were and wallets the rest of the trip.

After all of that excitement we checked out the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was beautiful, although I do not have any pictures of the inside as we are fighting with our current camera situation. Afterwards we traveled to this beautiful church that was on this large hill, Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. Quite the walk up a lot of stairs, but it was well worth it to see the interior as well.  Since it was on the hill, you were able to see beautiful views of the entire city of Paris.

 Notre Dame Cathedral (left). Do you see the hunchback? Kidding...stop looking. 

Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris (right). 

Still chugging along with Day 1 activities, we headed to the Eiffel Tower.  It was definitely an open-mouth in awe kind of reaction when you see it.  I lucked out, as Jeff wanted to walk the first part of the Eiffel Tower and then take the elevator up from the 2nd landing.  We luckily got into the wrong line and took the elevator up the whole way.  As you know from previous posts, we like to climb to the tops of towers and whatnot, but I don't like to see the ground as I do so, and that's what the Eiffel Tower walking experience would have been like.  It was still pretty nerve racking going to the top in the glass elevator because of how high we were.  Everything at the top was caged in or glass, so it wasn't too intimidating.  We got lots of photos, read a few blurbs about the tower, and headed back down to the bottom.

FYI: That's a tennis ball in the middle in honor of the French Open that was occurring the same weekend. 

It wasn't even dinner time at this point, so we grabbed some cheese and wine at a local spot. I think this was one of our favorite moments as a group.  We were at a restaurant that was mostly locals, so it was nice to just blend in and not feel like a tourist anymore.  Afterwards we headed to dinner, and then one last stop at the Eiffel Tower.  Seeing the tower at night was beautiful as they did a "lights show" with it at a certain time. The tower sparkled, as if it was a Christmas tree with fast-speed lights.

Day 2 was low key as we visited a small church, Sainte Chapelle. It had beautiful stained glass and within each window told a biblical story. After the church, we attempted to visit The Catacombs, which is an underground ossuary, which I read held the remains of 6 million people. The wait in line was 2 hours, so we decided again the waiting, although we all would have liked to see it.  Maybe next time.

At this point, we said our "goodbye for nows" and headed our separate ways.  Jeff and I wanted to go to Roland Garros, which is where the French Open was occurring. We were really lucky in our weekend choice to be able to experience it.  Unfortunately, we didn't plan ahead very well and could not buy tickets once we arrived.  The area was huge, and we were both pretty bummed when we couldn't go inside.  We both like tennis a lot, and it would have been pretty cool to experience that tournament.  That concluded our time in Paris, so we hopped on a 40-minute plane ride to get back to London.  It was pretty incredible to be able to experience all of these sights abroad with our great friends.

I end you with this picture, and I agree with Roland Garros...Thanks for your visit to my blog!

The Beaches of France

We had an amazing time in Cassis, France with beautiful weather, rocky beaches, the cloudless sky, and for the first time ever...travel buddies! Jeff and I were really excited to have travel companions during this trip; one of my best friends (& sorority sisters), Kristin, and her husband, Christian.  Although, they had some unfortunate issues with transportation (President Obama was flying out the same time they were trying to leave from Chicago), we were able to see each other bright and early on Day 2.  While waiting for their arrival, we enjoyed lunch in a small cafe.  Unfortunately, none of the menus were in English, so we guessed based on 1 or 2 words that looked similar to English.  I think we both got lucky, and to be honest I am just telling myself the meat on my salad was chicken...

 Lovin' the beautiful weather. What a change in scenery, too!

 Chicken?

We, as well, had some hiccups on the way to Cassis, as we learned transportation isn't the most reliable to/from Marseille.  We tried to take a bus from Marseille to Cassis (about 30 minutes away).  We waited an hour for the bus and it never showed.  This was the first time we had ever bit the bullet on a trip and took a taxi.  We were pretty bummed until we saw the amazing cliff views of the sea and beaches.  That took all the pain away of having to pay for more expensive transportation.  Fact, American friends: Look out for a Bachelorette episode in Marseille. Although we weren't there during the filming, one of the destinations later in the season was filmed there. Beautiful city. 

Our hotel room overlooked the beautiful sea.  It was amazing to fall asleep to the waves crashing and wake up to a beautiful sky.  We had an all-day beach day the next day with Kristin & Christian.  We were able to get some sun, although it was an interesting experience laying our towels down on rocks.  But we were super excited to not have sand all over us at the end of the day.  We grabbed dinner at the port in the city centre where all the boats were docked.  We all had great meals and shared a bottle of wine. It was a great start to our extended holiday and quality time with great friends.

 The next day we traveled to three chateaus for some wine tasting around Provence.  The first chateau was amazing and the estate was just gorgeous.   We were able to taste some rose and red wines as well as take a tour around the vineyard and estate. It made me think of my grandpa, who made his own wine for a while. We were able to learn a few things about the process, so Grandpa, I'm looking forward to chatting about it next time we talk. Jeff and I purchased a couple bottles of wine and are looking forward to opening them soon.

 The outside of the estate. The vineyard & a personal pool. I think I could manage living here. 

 Great drinking buddies friends!

Jeff made a friend. This dog was so sweet. 

 

After 3 chateaus, we were all exhausted. Our tour guide was probably laughing as all 6 of us (2 Canadians joined us as well) took little naps on the way back to Marseille. We enjoyed some coffee, crepes, and drinks before we hopped on a fast-speed train to Paris. We arrived in Paris around midnight. What a long, but lovely experience in Cassis, Marseille, and surrounding areas.

Look out for a few more posts this week. Lots of traveling recently...

U.S.A, U.S.A, U.S.A

Time flew by on our 5-day journey back to the United States for our close friends' wedding in Boston. Jeff and I had a great trip over here, although taking a train, metro, and a plane was a bit much to/from (Nottingham---London).  We got into Boston about lunch time and immediately met up with friends to start soaking up as much time with them as possible. As the weekend went on, more and more of our friends showed up to celebrate the wedding weekend festivities.

Jeff and I were enjoying all of our social time so much that we only took a few pictures. Sadly, none of the bride & groom...Sorry Andrew & Julie! It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, with wonderful little details & surprises throughout the night. Gorgeous. Jeff was in the wedding, so I didn't see much of him. Although I enjoyed some quality time with other friends.

And now for a few friends debut on the blog...

We had great company during the reception!

The time change had a small effect on us, although coming home (back to England) has been a rough transition. Jeff and I aren't feeling the best and the jet lag isn't helping matters. Don't worry, Mom. We're fine. 

All-in-all, it was a great weekend and we were so happy to share their special day with them. This was 1 out of 8 weddings we have been invited to this year. We were so blessed that we are able to make a couple, but sad that we are missing out on the others.

Short post this time. Sorry! I'll leave you with a picture of Mackey and his helpfulness in the packing world.

 

No Queen Sightings this Time

Monday was a bank holiday, so Jeff and I were blessed with a 3-day weekend. We traveled just outside of London to Windsor for a couple days. On Sunday, we went to the Wellington Regatta on Dorney Lake. We watched easily over 40 races from college teams all over England. It was a beautiful day, and we even got a little sun! We actually planned to go to Windsor Castle, one of the Queen's "summer/weekend homes", but we enjoyed our time at the lake so much that we stayed there all day instead. 

That night we walked around the absolutely adorable town of Windsor. There were plenty of cute little restaurants and a lot of little shops. We randomly walked into The Crooked House of Windsor. It is not only a crooked house, but a tea shop. We ate at a quaint little Italian restaurant later that night. 

We woke up bright and early to walk down the large path in the Windsor Great Park. The path leads up to the Windsor Castle. We walked for a while before entering inside the castle grounds. We were not able to take pictures inside the castle, but we took a few pictures of the outside. Inside we saw Queen Mary's Dolls' House. Jeff was obviously unimpressed with this room, but I thought it was really interesting. Each room in this gigantic doll house resembled the rooms in the actual castle. According to the audio guide, many investors would donate a smaller version for the doll house that they donated to the real castle. For example, the plates in the doll house were miniature versions of the actual silver platters (& really made of silver). Although Queen Mary never played with the house, it would be a very impressive doll house to own to say the least.

 The castle was huge! This is picture doesn't do the size justice. Check out the aerial view.

 If I lived in the town of Windsor, I would definitely be spending a lot of time in this area. People were walking and playing with their dogs, running, biking, and socializing. And what a view!

This is the section of the castle grounds where the queen stays. No sightings this time!

After the doll house, we went into The State Apartments. Many of these rooms are used for events for the Royal Family. Through our room-by-room audio guide we learned a great deal of what the rooms are used for and about the great fire of 1992.  Over 100 rooms were damaged in the fire, so many features of the castle were created and built within the last 20 years.  In one of the rooms, they "fixed"  the floor by flipping each of the pieces of the wood flooring over. You couldn't see any damage! Seems so simple, right?

Before heading to St. George's Chapel, we watched the changing of the guards. There was a whole parade of music and presentation for this event.  We were not upfront when it started, but we lucked into a great spot because the guards walked past us as they went to their posts. We ventured around the chapel for a little bit before heading out.  Although, St. George's Chapel was beautiful, but it doesn't rank in our Top 5 churches we've seen so far in our few months of being here. I think we just gravitate towards the stained glass windows, towers, and intricate features of other churches more.  

We had a great time, and we know we are so blessed being so close to these amazing sights. We only drove 2 hours to see one of the most well-known castles in the world. Amazing.