To Africa!

I am really getting behind on this blog - I need to catch up before I forget what I want to say! :-) We are currently in between visits from family from Texas - Jason's sister & her kids were here the week before last and Jason's mom & stepdad come on Thursday! So stay tuned for those posts... hopefully sooner rather than later :-)

But first: We've been writing about our week of vacation in February during Katie's "semana blanca" school break. Wednesday of that week we wrapped up our French experience and headed back to Madrid to get Rich on the plane back to Texas. He left Thursday morning around 11 and we followed him to the airport shortly thereafter :-). Living over here has been nothing if not seizing any opportunity that comes our way :-). Ever since we moved to Spain, we have been looking for opportunities to visit friends of ours who live in Europe - or at least close by. We have friends, William & Joanie, who live in Tunis, Tunisia, with their 4 kids and we were so excited to get to see them. I have known Joanie since I was about 4. :-) They have lived in Tunis for 7 years and lived in France 7 years before that. Surprisingly, it has really worked out that we've seen them fairly consistently through the years in random places - in San Diego while Jason was on a business trip, in Houston while we were on vacation with my family, at our house in Dallas. But we had never gotten to see their world!

Part of our excitement was also the chance to see Africa! Unbelievable when you think about going to a different continent :-). North Africa is definitely distinct from the Africa you typically think of, but it still counts! :-) We were so thankful to be visiting friends and not just venturing out on our own. It is really crazy - the flight was only about 2 hours from Madrid! Tunis is just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy. In spite of its closeness though, it is definitely another world - for one, everything is in Arabic & French - neither of which we speak :-) So again, nice to be with friends who know both!

William & Joanie were such gracious hosts, even giving us their room to stay in while we were there. Friday morning William (& Michael) took us to the market while Joanie watched Katie & the other kids. It was so nice to experience the city for the first time without having to keep an eye on Katie and we were grateful that they thought of that before we did! We went to the food market and the thing that struck me was how beautifully displayed everything was. It was like an art exhibit of beautiful fruit & veggies! The fish were especially interesting because they took care to arrange them in interesting ways - all the fish in this picture have their tails flipped up in exactly the same way which was kind of funny :-). We also saw swordfish that were tied into arcs by their heads and tails. Very artistic! Another striking thing about the market was the absence of pork. Since Tunisia is an Arabic country, they don't eat pork. It was quite a contrast to Spain where pork is everywhere and in as many different forms as you can imagine :-). They also had a lot of olives since they are also a Mediterranean culture, and the shopkeepers even let us try some before deciding which to buy. After the food market, we also toured the tourist market. It was fun to see the shoes, spices, and pottery.

That afternoon, we went to a park near William & Joanie's house. The kids had a great time playing on and under this huge, ancient tree. Definitely a highlight of the trip for Katie was playing with their kids and they were so nice to include her like they'd known her forever. Their kids are Jonathon, 10, Christina, 8, Michael, 7, & Nathaniel, 2. Katie slept in Christina's room and even exchanged a few e-mails with her after we returned home :-). It worked out well because they were also on break from their school while we were there!

That night we went out to enjoy a typical Tunisian meal. Sadly, I can't remember most of the names of the food we ate, but it was all delicious! My favorite was something called Breek (I think) that they typically eat to break their fast after Ramadan. It was fried with an egg and some yummy greens inside. Very delicious! I also enjoyed the mix of peppers, onions, and olive oil that they served with olives and bread. Yum!! Another interesting restaurant tidbit: some of their cafes are men only with no women allowed! Definitely a different world!

2 more differences of Tunisian food from Spanish food:
-- They have spicy food in Tunisia (hooray! :-) ). Joanie sent us home with a yummy spicy sauce called Harissa. It doesn't really change the flavor of the food you put it on, it just gives it extra spice. Probably a handy thing to have around here :-).
-- The meal we enjoyed was also very very inexpensive. Very nice after the sometimes outrageous prices for a meal in Madrid!

Saturday we headed off to do more sight seeing. The ancient city of Carthage is on the edge of the modern city of Tunis, and we went to the ruins of an amphitheater there. Carthage was to a large extent the center of the 1st century Christian church, so it was interesting to hear a little of that history. This amphitheater was the site of the martyrdom of 2 women, Perpetua and Felicity. There is a very interesting article about it here. (seriously, what would we do w/o Wikipedia?? :-) ) In an interesting side note, this picture of Katie & Christina was taken very shortly before Katie fell into a nasty mud puddle and got completely soaking wet and dirty. The rest of the day she wore her (clean) sweater wrapped around her waist as a skirt and her coat on top to disguise the makeshift attire :-). I just figured it was part of our African experience of flexibility :-).

After the amphitheater, we headed to the city of Sidi Bou Sain. Wow. It was really beautiful. I should add here that it had been raining and cold in Tunis for several weeks - but on this Saturday especially, we had beautiful weather!! It was a truly a blessing! We enjoyed seeing the beautiful white houses and the amazing view of the Mediterranean. Katie enjoyed seeing her 1st glimpse of the markets and was very intent on getting some "African shoes" like her friend Frida had brought home from Morocco. So yes, we did come home with some beautiful sparkly "African shoes". :-) We enjoyed a yummy doughnut treat (hmmm... I'm really going to have to ask Joanie to remind me of the names of the foods we enjoyed!) Here is Jason & me in front of the Mediterranean - in the only picture of the 3 of us here, the sun was so bright it hurt to look up.... so that picture is not fit for internet consumption :-)



The doors were so beautiful - and reminiscent of the Moorish architecture in Sevilla and the southern part of Spain. Another fun thing we enjoyed in Sidi Bou Sain was getting our hands painted. Kind of like the Tunisian style of a henna tatoo. We felt very North African :-).


Tunisia is an Muslim country, but it is a fairly secular. Though we were still woken each morning by the 6 AM call to prayer going out all over town on a loud speaker, there is some degree of religious freedom there. William is the pastor of the French speaking Protestant church in Tunis and one of the highlights of the weekend was getting to go to church with them. We sang along in English as they sang several familiar songs in French :-). They have a translator available, so we were even able to follow along with William's sermon in French.

It was a great trip - I know we say this often, but we really left immediately wondering how & when we could go back :-). It was just so sweet to catch up with William & Joanie, get to know their kids, and see their world. I felt like we could more appreciate their lives b/c we are also expats now - though they have lived out of the States so long that their experience is also very different. It was fun to see the similarities and differences in our lives and countries and to pick their brains for ways to learn from their wisdom & experience.

Loss

Well, there are happier posts that I need to write.... but this is the one pushing to get out....

Life as an expat is filled with loss. Some losses are big and some are small, but it's not too hard to come up with a list: being so far from family, not getting to see dear US friends in so long, living without dogs, feeling just a bit out of place most of the time, etc.

Now I know what (many) of you are thinking: that is not the whole story. And you're right, it's not. Life as an expat is also filled with excitement and new experiences. We would not trade this experience for anything and we are so grateful for the opportunity we have been given. But my point is that it is a 2-sided coin.

We've also realized that our most meaningful trips in Europe have been those where we have connected with friends - proving that God did not make us to solely seek pleasure & new experiences, but to be in relationship with Him & other people.

We've always known that one of the realities of being an expat is lots of upheaval in your friendships. Expats move around a lot. I met an American guy in London who had lived in Amsterdam for 9 years and he said his wife went through 3 sets of friends. Our friends here who are living in Spain long-term talk about this too. We've just not experienced this part of expat life before.

But last week our friends, Helene & Alex, moved to Dubai. Some people you just click with from the start, and that was the case with Helene & Alex & their kids. All 7 of us really just clicked. Helene was my 1st real friend here and I believe she was sent from God to bring me encouragement. They were also our closest friends geographically since they lived on the street behind us, something that was very comforting. Many weeks that Jason & Alex were traveling, we have shared afternoons & meals with Helene & her kids, providing such companionship. Their daughter, Chloe, is just a couple of months older than Katie and is also probably the friend that Katie has clicked with the most.

We hope to see them this summer in France, and we hope to stay connected with them when we are all back in the States. But this morning I am sad, because we will really miss them, and our time here in Madrid will now be different without them.

God has been so good to us. He has given us so many friends here - friends that it seems strange to think we've only known a year. It really blows my mind when I think about the richness of friendships God has given us so quickly. We are so thankful that we have friends who it hurts to say goodbye to - because our lives are richer for having known them in spite of our brief time together. Many more friends are leaving this summer; the goodbyes are not over.

So I guess now we have a choice, as we so often do no matter where in the world we find ourselves (and by "we" I mostly mean "I"): to focus on the loss or to focus on the goodness of God. I'm so thankful that He's not going anywhere.

Normandie

Well, Jason has already written a post about our time in Normandie - and I was just planning to add my pics to his post. But when I saw how serious & well-organized his post was, I decided that I needed to do a post too :-)

We left Paris Monday morning and drove the 3 hours to the coast to the Normandie area. We stayed at a wonderful B&B called Le Mas Normand that was recommended by a friend who used to live in Germany (thanks, Karen!). It was a wonderful place! They served us delicious breakfasts with homemade bread and jams (and coffee bowls instead of coffee cups!). The owner is a gourmet chef, so he also fixed us a several course meal the 2nd night we were there. It was delicious! (and yes, there was more French cheese :-) ) The B&B was right next to a babbling brook & a field of cows and they had chickens and geese on the property as well. I think it would be a wonderful place to visit again when the weather is warmer and one had more desire to stay outside :-).


One of the highlights of the stay was the owner's dog, Granade (which means pomegranate in French). Granade is an 18 month Golden Retriever puppy and she was a delight! She reminded us so much of our Rosie. Katie loved playing with her and was hardly inside if we were at the B&B. One morning Katie looked out our window to see Granade staring into the breakfast room, longing to go inside w/ the people. Katie said "The only thing that will make Granade happy is if I go out to play with her." :-) I definitely see another big puppy in our future! :-)

We got into Normandie on Monday afternoon, and headed over to Gold Beach which is one of the beaches where the British landed. Jason mentioned in his post how they had constructed a temporary port a little ways from the shore to aid them in bringing their men and equipment onto land. Most of that port was destroyed by the weather, but you can still see the remnants of it out in the bay. The 1st pic is us on Gold Beach, then the remains of the makeshift port, then the beautiful town of Arromanches that lies next to Gold Beach.





Next we went to see Omaha Beach. By then it was getting very dark but we charged ahead :-). (The 1st pic here is Omaha Beach in the daytime on Tuesday) There are still German bunkers near the beach as well as several monuments to the soldiers who landed there. Having such vivid images in my head from the movie Saving Private Ryan, it was very surreal to be on that beach and to try to imagine what it must have been like. They call it "The Longest Day" and I think that is an understatement. Of the landing beaches, the fighting was the worst at Omaha Beach, partly because of things that went wrong in the execution of their plan. At the beginning of the day, the casualty rates were unbelievably high. By the end of the day, they only succeeded in securing small sections of the beach - a "small toehold" - after such a terrible, fierce day. Unbelievable what those young men sacrificed for our freedom. And unbelievable the success they had against seemingly insurmountable odds. They kept going in spite of the horror - and they succeeded. It took them several days to accomplish the goals of D-Day, but they persevered and succeeded.

Tuesday morning we headed to the American Cemetery. They have an excellent museum which we really enjoyed. It put faces with many of the names we were about to see outside. Then we went out to the Cemetery. I have been to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C., another place where the crosses (& stars of David) go on & on. But this place is different. The vast majority of those men buried here died within a few short months of each other - June, July, August, September 1944. And there are nearly 10,000 graves here! These crosses also only represent a small fraction of those who died - and only the Americans. It is truly overwhelming and truly difficult to explain. Almost impossible to wrap your mind around really. I'm so glad that we had the chance to see it.





When we decided to go to Normandie, I began to worry about how Katie was going to take all of this - I mean, it's hard to sugar coat a place like Normandie for a 5 year old's ears and eyes! But thankfully there was nothing too graphic in anything that we saw. She probably heard more bombs and gunfire from the videos than she's ever heard before, but she seemed OK with it. The other day she began asking where Rusty is buried and if we can go visit his grave when we return to Texas - so I do think more of it sunk in than she's said. As with all of these experiences she is having, I just hope she remembers being there where all those those brave soldiers are buried. Having to explain it in simple terms to her also brought it home again to me - how terrible were the things that Hitler was doing and how fortunate we are that our country joined those who were fighting to maintain our freedom.

Finally, we visited Pointe du Hoc, the top of some bluffs that were scaled by the Army Rangers to destroy German guns firing on Omaha Beach. The casualties here were 60%! Unreal. This place was most undisturbed in the 65 years since D-Day, and you could still clearly see the craters and destruction from the bombs.


Something I didn't expect from our time in Normandie was glimpsing the liberation of France from the French perspective. Given the current opinion of most of Europe about America, it surprised me a little bit to feel the gratitude in Normandie. They remain deeply grateful to the British and Americans for rescuing them from the Germans. And they paid a terrible price as well for that liberation.

There are other wonderful things to see in Normandie - we just didn't have time. We had to head back to Paris on Wed to catch our flight back to Madrid. On the way to the airport, we stopped briefly to see the Tapestry in Bayeux, which is a medieval tapestry telling the story of William the Conqueror. It was very interesting and is 230 feet long! Fortunately they had an audio guide so we could listen as we looked :-).

What a great trip we had in France - and our week of vacation was not yet over! Tunisia is up next :-)

WWII France

On our recent vacation, we spent 3 days visiting the WWII landing areas of France. There were several landing points along the beach. American troops landing at Utah, Omaha and Pointe du Hoc. British and Canadians landing at Sword, Juno, and Gold Beaches. I could write many, many things about these landings... but if you´re interested, you should read about it on Wikipedia. Excellent article here

I will say that the British landing area of Gold Beach is impressive. They created a series of structures to build a shallow-water port capable of bringing equipment on land. Very interesting and apparently this was a key success factor in the Allied advances in the early days of the war. Unfortunately, there was a terrible storm a couple weeks after the D-day that destroyed the equipment and made the port inoperable. In the time they had the port established, they brought many things on shore. It was a 24 hour/day operation. Amazing.

This trip was one with special significance for me. My Grandpa, Iloe Collins (my Mother´s dad who died several years ago) was a soldier in France during WWII. In the early stages of the war, he was in a logistics unit. Essentially doing mechanic work and truck driving. He entered France at Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day.

Here.








Most people say that their relatives never talk about the war. I´m thankful to say that the one time I asked him about his time there, he told me a few things. His job was to drive a fuel truck. It held diesel for the tanks and other support equipment for the troops. He said most of the days were unexciting for him... simply loading and delivering fuel to different areas that needed it. He was typically well behind the line and not involved in the fighting, for which he was thankful. The one problem for him was that his since his truck carried fuel, it was a nice target for the enemy. You can imagine that logistically speaking blowing up a fuel truck caused both a nice explosion (immediate damage) and destroyed important resources that your enemy needs to advance.

He told me a story once of a call they received about a unit that was in desperate need of fuel. They were in an area that was being contested by the enemy, so it was particularly dangerous. He was sent out to resupply them. They sent infantry soldiers with him in the truck to help protect him. He was on a small road with hedgerows on each side. As he rounded a corner, there was a clearing and a German Panzer tank sitting in a field, all alone. They saw one another at the same time and the tank began moving their gun to fire on him. He was desperately trying to move the truck back to the hedge and find protection when an airplane flew over and dropped a series of bombs all around him and the tank. The tank was destroyed and he was uninjured. I remember he told me he was shaking like a leaf and it took several minutes to regain his ability to drive. However, he continued on the task to deliver the fuel. He said that after the delivery, he parked the truck and found “enough drinks to make the shaking stop”. My Grandpa was surely not a fighting man by nature!

As we drove through the roads around Normandy... he was often (constantly) on my mind. Did he stop in this town or that one? Did he see this old church? Are friends of his buried here in this cemetery? Did the grandparents of these people serving me lunch know him? Maybe silly questions... but it struck me how many regular people, like Iloe, spent time in here to help these people improve their situation.

The American Cemetery will forever be in my mind. Over 10,000 graves there. Roughly 3400 people died on June 6th alone. As you walk along the rows... you see June 6, 7, 8, 9 over and over and over again. It´s both a beautiful and terrible place.



The museum at the Cemetery is excellent and one of the men profiled inside was a man named John Ray. He was an Army Paratrooper who jumped into France on D-Day. He and two of his peers were caught by their gear and stranded on a big church building, unable to get to the ground. As he was freeing himself, he was shot by the enemy and mortally wounded. He fell to the ground and (while dying) used his weapon to stop the attackers who were about to kill his Army buddies still up on the church. His friends lived that day. He died. I found his grave outside and took this picture. What courage.

I consider myself to be a patriotic person. This place overwhelms me with pride for how much America cares about freedom in the world. The British and Canadians couldn´t have freed Western Europe without our help. While America has not always made the right choices in our attempts to help others... sometimes we get it perfectly right.

Put this on your list of important places to see. (and ask us about the wonderful Bed and Breakfast we stayed in!)

Bonito?

I can't remember if I've mentioned it, but we have a new canary!

As a birthday present last year (2008), Jason had told me that he would buy me a canary when we got to Spain. It was very sweet since I was so sad about leaving my doggies behind in TX. Well, we got here and were traveling so much and had so many other things to figure out about living in Spain that I just never bought a canary.

Well, this year on my birthday, Jason gave me a canary again :-). And this time, he took me the very next Saturday to pick it out so he was sure I would use his gift :-).

So we named him Bonito, which basically means Beautiful Boy in Spanish. There is always a bit of uncertainty in buying a canary b/c only the males sing and it is always seems a bit of a guess as to whether you actually have a male or not. But he has been singing like crazy and has been such a delight! I put him up high on top of my bookshelf and I think he really likes being up high above the bustle of the living room. I think it makes him feel safer and happier and thus he sings more.

Well, this weekend, Bonito laid an egg. Hmmm......

At least she sings. :-) Jason keeps suggesting we teach her to sing "Dude Looks Like a Lady."

A Day at Disney

Day 2 of our vacation was spent at EuroDisney! This was very reluctantly on our must-see list because Katie really really really wanted to go there. We had intended to go to Disney World last February 2008 (to try to hit an "off" time before Katie gets into school) but instead we moved to Spain. :-) Many of Katie's school friends here have been to EuroDisney and many people told us that it was really doable in a day. So when Katie stopped sucking her thumb shortly before her 5th bday, we decided it was a good time to go, partly as a reward for being such a big girl. Here we are in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle. (Disney World has Cinderella's castle) BTW - Rich decided to stay in Paris another day :-)

It was really fun :-) (of course!) Katie was soooo excited and had her princess dress picked out weeks in advance to wear on the big day. It was really cold, so we had to layer the princess attire. :-) We rode the train to Disney, counting how many stops we had to go the whole way! When we got there, Jason headed off to buy tickets and I decided to lag behind with Katie to get some pics. (I mean, they have shrubs shaped like Mickey ears - who can resist a shot of that?) My 1st rookie Disney mistake of the day! I had so many people tell me how much smaller this Disney is that I wasn't too worried about how I would find him again. Well, smaller or no, it was still rather difficult to figure out where he was since we had NO plan where to meet and he had no phone. I really can't imagine how crazy it must be in FL! But thankfully he was watching me wander around trying not to panic that I couldn't find him - so we did connect again soon :-)

Our main priority of the day was to meet some princesses - so we headed 1st to wait in line for the princess meet & greet. I don't know how it works in FL, but in Paris you pretty much only meet those characters who you stand in line to meet. I was actually a bit surprised at that. But the long wait (45 minutes) was worth it! We were really impressed with Snow White & Belle and their princes. They were very kind and got down on the child's level to talk to each and every one. They had flawless English (and French, of course) which was very nice (we were a little curious how that would work!). Cinderella & Ariel were the 1st princesses to meet, but by the time we got up to the front of the line, Snow White & Belle had taken their places. We probably enjoyed watching Cinderella and her prince the most as we waited in line - they were so engrossed in their parts and the prince escorted Cinderella everywhere she went.

When we got up to the front of the line, the assistant told us that Ariel & Cinderella were about to come back in about 5 minutes and did we want to wait for Katie to meet Ariel since she had the Ariel dress on. Well, we had been waiting forever and we hadn't done anything else in the park yet. So I said no, this was fine. Unfortunately, I regret that decision! Katie loved meeting Snow White & Belle, but I think she really would have loved getting her picture with the princess she was dressed like. As we were exiting the stage, we saw Ariel & Eric coming back and here is Katie showing off her flipper to Ariel. It was very sweet! Oh well - we'll know better next time! I guess we could have stood in line longer to meet the other "set" of princesses... but no. We tried to go to lunch with the princesses later, but it was 57 Euros for each adult and 42 for Katie (that's like $80 & $60). YIKES! Is the character breakfast in FL really that much?? BTW - I think one of the things that the day at EuroDisney made me feel is really inadequate to ever have a successful trip to Disney World! :-) It was crazy complicated enough to navigate this "small" park!

Really the only other character Katie would take a picture with was one of Cinderella's mice. We also saw Abu the monkey (from Aladdin) and Alice & The Mad Hatter (from Alice in Wonderland), but she didn't want her pic with either of them. We also saw these other characters pretty early in the day - after lunch they all disappeared!





Finally we headed over to some rides! I think Katie was really the perfect age for everything we saw. She didn't think any of the "little" rides were too small for her - it was great! We went on "It's a Small World" first. I really enjoyed this ride because if we've learned anything this year in Spain, it's that it truly is a small world after all! Plus, it just really felt like home. :-) Katie got so excited when she saw the section for Spain and then even more when she saw America. It was really cool and I kind of wish we had ridden it again! Isn't that a great face?!?

We rode Casey Jr's train (from Dumbo), a boat that took us through little models of several stories, went through the maze in front of the Queen of Hearts castle (Alice in Wonderland), traveled on some crazy cars through the story of Pinocchio, and rode on the flying Dumbos. (Katie was kind of crazy driving us up & down in our Dumbo!) Of course we rode on "Lancelot's carousel", and Mom & Dad even got to ride since it was "free". On the carousel, I enjoyed singing along with all the songs (in English of course) and Jason enjoyed hearing everyone around him sing all the songs in many other languages!


While there weren't very many people in the lines in the morning, by afternoon we were waiting 30-45 minutes for each ride. (they did have FastPass there, but only for some of the "bigger" rides) We were also getting extremely cold since we were just standing in line instead of walking around. (though we did have another gorgeous sunny day!) So it was definitely time for a little treat. You would think cotton candy is cotton candy wherever you are in the world. But somehow the French food effect applies to cotton candy too - it was the best cotton candy we've ever had!

The highlight of the day after the princesses was the afternoon parade. They had floats from many of the popular movies and it was just really well done and fun. We were right on the curb and could see great as the floats passed us by. Katie especially enjoyed seeing Peter Pan & Wendy. Sadly, though, this is the closest we got to Mickey & Minnie!

After the parade we were just really worn out and chilled to the bone, so we headed home. In our time spent at EuroDisney, we actually didn't make it out of Fantasy Land - we never even set foot in Adventure Land, Frontier Land or Discovery Land! Granted, Katie's interests are more the things in Fantasy Land, but again, it surprised me a bit that we couldn't even "finish" this "small" park in a day. I don't know that we'll be going back to hit the rest... we'll see. It was definitely a day well spent.

Valentine's Day in Paris!

Katie recently had a week off school - they call it "semana blanca" or white week because many families go skiing during that week. It's kind of like spring break, except that she also has another week+ off in April for "semana santa" or holy week. We decided to check some things off our list of must-see places in Europe! It was fun to take a whole week of vacation since we hadn't done that since June last year. First up was Paris! Yes, we've already been to Paris, but we had several things we still wanted to see there - besides the fact that we are just hoping to cram in as many days there as possible. :-)

Well, what a day it was :-). As a friend of mine pointed out: This is something many people dream of doing sometime in their life - and we had the amazing opportunity to do this! And it really was an amazing day, maybe not so much that it was Valentine's Day but more that it was Paris :-). Though here is the requisite romantic Valentine's Day pic of us on top of the Eiffel Tower :-)

We got to stay in the same hotel that Jason & I had stayed in 10 years ago this spring when we 1st visited Paris. It was very fun and it brought back many memories of things we had done then just by being in the same place & area of town. Best of all was that the patisserie we visited every morning 10 years ago is still there and is still wonderful! Actually, let me correct that - a close tie for best of all was that in the intervening 10 years, the hotel has realized how important it is for a hotel catering to tourists to employ English speaking receptionists :-). (When we stayed in this hotel the 1st time, every time we called on the phone an English speaker could be found. When we got there in person, not so much. Most memorable was when the receptionist was trying to tell us to leave the key at the front desk when we left the hotel - a concept completely foreign to us. She kept saying the same thing over and over again in French, each time with a different inflection and a little bit louder. This did not improve our ability to understand French :-), so eventually she had to act out what she was trying to say.)

So after enjoying a nice quiche from our pastry shop, we headed out to see the Eiffel Tower. Jason's dad, Rich, was with us still for this trip and he had never been to Paris. So we were very hopeful that the weather would be nice enough to go up in the Tower and see the view. Originally when we checked the 10 day forecast for the days we would be in Paris, they were predicting 30 degree temps and SNOW! What a pleasant surprise to find a beautiful sunny day in Paris! (yes, it was still quite cold, but at least it was pretty - and they had not seen the sun in weeks!) So we stood in line and went up to enjoy the view of this beautiful city. Rich went all the way up to the 3rd level and said the views were outstanding. We enjoyed the view from the 2nd level. This last pic is the location that we now have for a pic of Jason & I 10 yrs ago, the 3 of us last May, and now with Rich too!




Afterwards, we had the pleasure of meeting a new friend. Deb is a friend of a friend from Flower Mound who moved to Paris last summer. She & I have corresponded a bit by e-mail and on Facebook, but had never met. She lives very close to the Eiffel Tower so she came over to say hello. It was really a delight to meet her and put a face to her name. She was very kind and totally came to serve us and see if she could help in any way to make our day better. She even brought me a gift (!) and took us to a good place to eat lunch. Thank you, Deb, for brightening our day!



The street Deb took us to is called rue Clare, and it was a real highlight. My French friend, Helene, has been teaching me about French cheese and one of my desires for our trip to Paris was to find a real fromagerie to buy some real French cheese. (my understanding is that they don't pasteurize their dairy, which makes their cheese oh so yummy. Sadly I also heard that the US no longer imports some French cheese for this reason.) Well, the restaurant that Deb brought us to was right next to the fromagerie Helene had told me about!! I was just a bit excited :-). I had this amazing salad w/ exotic greens (i.e. I don't know what kind they are since it wasn't iceburg or romaine :-)), French cheese & French ham. Very simple but extremely yummy! The whole street just seemed very French to me (vs being touristy) - beautiful flower shops, shops w/ homemade jam, a wonderful patisserie. I think I could have stayed there all day! And yes, I bought a big hunk of French cheese (comte') to bring home that I'm still enjoying!

After dragging me away from rue Clare, we headed off to see Sacre Couer. Here it is as seen from the top of the Eiffel Tower. (with Rich's super duper zoom :-) ) This beautiful church is a bit away from the central part of Paris, so we had never made it up there to see it. It is really worth the trouble to get up there! The church was beautiful and the view was amazing. Katie enjoyed a ride on the carousel (of course :-) ) - it was a double decker one!


Sacre Couer is in an area of Paris known as Montmartre which we've heard is usually full of artists. (probably due to the view, at left) Guess it was too cold - there were no artists when we were there. Street performers, but not artists. We also hiked over to see Moulin Rouge. It barely deserves a mention, but there it is. Apparently they have shows there too, but not the sort of family shows that we would care to see. But we can now say we've seen it :-)




To cap off an amazing day (can you tell I had a bit of trouble finding new & different adjectives for this post?), Rich offered to babysit Katie so Jason & I could go out for dinner by ourselves - in Paris!! On Valentine's Day!!! With each thing that I've told you about that we did this day, I have been tempted to describe it as my favorite part of the day - but then I realize that the next part of the day was equally wonderful and it's really hard to pick. But a date with my hubby (something we get too infrequently here in Europe!) in our favorite city in the world.... wow. And the food was great too (yes, complete with more French cheese - the most amazing roquefort I've ever tasted!) Sadly, I neglected to get a pic of the 2 of us on our date, so here is Notre Dame that we saw while we were out :-)

Just to state the obvious :-): Paris continues to be our very favorite city in the world. There is just something magical about it! We definitely hope to get back there for another weekend soon! We are so glad that it is close & cheap to travel there from Madrid :-)