Monday, October 27

Wow - I can't believe how close to the end of October it is getting...The leaves here are such great colors, but quickly falling off the trees. It rained all day today, but I was too tired to want to go out today anyways :-) I spent Brenna's nap time today getting the pictures from Paris organized - I can't believe how great digital makes it to take a ton of pictures. Hopefully, we will all get caught up on our sleep soon - we all seem a little grumpy today. Dustin has a nasty head cold (although I wonder if he may be affected by allergies more since generally Brenna and I don't seem to get the same thing). We'll cross our fingers that we don't end up getting the same thing.

So, here are the "few" pictures that I selected from Paris. It was really hard to narrow this down to just a "few". I finally had to go into Adobe and resize the pictures smaller to start saving room on the blog. My big pictures were really starting to eat up a lot of space. There is so much to say about our Paris trip that it is hard to figure out where to start. On Friday, Brenna and I went to Paris Disney by ourselves since Dustin had to work. This was a great option since there wasn't a lot to entertain a two year old with at the hotel or really the surrounding area. We had a great time and Brenna loved riding the rides (that we went on) - I couldn't believe how excited she was to get to go on the carousel and teacups. The picture of us is from the carousel (thank goodness I have such long arms to take this picture :-) Disney was all decorated for Halloween - this was a great thing for Brenna and me as it isn't really celebrated in Germany. Also, it was nice (and sort of odd) to get to hear announcements in English as well as French (it was odd from the standpoint of how much we have been hearing and listening to German). I was able to find Brenna and me rain hats in Disney (which is great since I hear it may rain at times for days straight here in Germany). Hopefully, I can get a picture of us in our rain gear for you all soon (maybe for Halloween - I'm thinking about letting Brenna raid my closet on Friday for dress-up).

I was able to get a general understanding of the train system on Friday (thank goodness for the kind people who helped us on Friday - as I said in the last post, the French were very nice to Brenna and me - one couple even made sure after our first train to point out the second train that we needed to ride on :-) That really helped make it easier for Dustin and me on Saturday and Sunday to get around Paris and take advantage of all of our time. It was very interesting on Friday that Brenna and I went back to the hotel at Paris rush-hour. The train was so packed, that you could not lift your arms if you had the down at your sides. Two French ladies helped entertain Brenna on the ride home with their necklaces and scarves. Thank goodness for the kindness of others :-)

On Saturday and Sunday, we all went into Paris and walked around the sites. It is amazing that you can start at one end of the Seine River (like we did at the Notre-Dame and walk along it to the Eiffel tower). There is just one cool site to see after another. Brenna loved chasing the pigeons both at the Louvre and at the Eiffel tower. I would highly recommend to anyone to just walk about Paris if you can find the time (and money) and enjoy all the great historic and beautiful buildings. We found a great Cafe that we all loved - Bert's. It was right off of the Avenue de New York. The croissants there were excellent and they had fresh fruits and sandwiches and very affordable prices :-)

The train ride to and from Strasbourg was nice - unbelieveable smooth (and very fast) compared with the trains in and out of Paris. Brenna said she was done with trains after the last one - hopefully, that statement won't last long :-) I had fun taking pictures of the cars in Paris (and trying to use a technique called "panning" - several cars came out cool - but I liked this car the best).

Hope you all enjoy our pictures :-) Take Care!!