Bonjour Paris, c'est moi encore! - Europe Tour 5.1

Ahhh Paris, I don't know what it is but I absolutely love this city. So many people, so many places to see, so much history, so much life everywhere. I love it. This is now my third time here and I feel like everything is brand new, I want to absorb as much as I possibly can while I'm here. And so far, James seems equally as infatuated as I am.

Relatively Smooth Sailing into Paris - Europe Tour 5.0

The train ride from Montpellier to Paris was quick and comfortable. It was a TGV so in about 3 hours we were on the other side of the country. I had found an apartment for rent that was listed on craigslist that sounded too good to be true. View of the Eiffel Tower in one of the better areas of Paris for only 49 euros per night. The owner, Antoine also offered to pick us up from the train station at 1:30am since the metro wouldn't be working. A little hesitant of what we would encounter, I decided to book it since there really wouldn't be anything close to that price.

It never rains in Montpellier! - Europe Tour 4.3

Apparently we have some very unfortunate timing. As Malcolm Scott Thomas (a Scottish bartender we befriended) summed up, "It's sunny in Montpellier 300 days of the year, the streets aren't even made for rain!". Well in a place that sees rain approximately 15% of the year, we saw it for over 50% of our stay. Not just drizzle either, we're talking flash flood, wake-you-up-from-sleep thunder storms. We didn't let it ruin our trip though, luckily we had gotten the majority of our walking done during our first day.

So That's What Tartare Means! - Europe Tour 4.2

Even though the sky was not on our side, I still really wanted to say we'd gotten to the Mediterranean on this trip. We had hoped to go to Sete, recommended to us by the nice ticket agent at the train station, but it didn't seem worth the effort now. Instead, I discovered that there was a beach only 20 minutes away by bus. With no better options, we decided to give it a shot. The ride took a little longer than normal - the door on the back of the bus malfunctioned and the poor bus driver was finally able to close it after struggling for almost 15 minutes. We arrived at our destination, Perols, which turned out to be a nice harbor with an area full of restaurants, creperies, ice cream shops and souvenir stores. Of course the majority of them were closed until high season, but James and I were hungry and decided to give one a go.

Like I've been saying, my French is very rusty, and there were so many words on this particular menu that were not ringing a bell. The waiter came over a few times while we tried to figure it out but we weren't having much luck. I decided to play it safe with a Nutella waffle and James went with the "tartare du beouf". I knew it was beef, but didn't quite know what the tartare was all about. We were about to find out.

Framerica...the perfect place! - Europe Tour 4.1

Day two in Montpellier was another day of exploration and discovery. We found a different hotel (the first one was great but way out of our budget), got some laundry done (a challenge in itself) and still managed to get outside for more walking. The hotel we're at now, Citea Coupole, is a little bit away from the city center so we're getting a feel for the train system. It also has small kitchens in the room so we will be able to save some dough and cook a few meals.

Figuring it out one step at a time - Europe Tour 4.0

As the old saying goes..."No Pain, No Gain". Waking up this morning was quite painful since we only got about 5 hours of sleep, but the train ride was quite memorable. For most of the journey, we followed the coastline with amazing views of the water. We also went through gorgeous countryside with fields and cottages just like those you see in movies. Despite my battle with extreme fatigue, I stayed awake for most of the 4 hour ride, except the last hour when my eyelids simply got too heavy to hold up. My slumber didn't last long though, James quickly woke me up to point out a castle we were passing by.

Bye Bye Barcelona - Europe Tour 3.2

Our final day in Barcelona was just what the doctor ordered. We'd been running around like mad dogs trying to see everything over the last three days so today we decided to take it easy. We still did some more sightseeing, but mainly wandered wherever our eyes took us. Sometimes when you're traveling you get so focused on seeing all the things, you don't really take time to observe the lifestyle or absorb the energy of where you are. I've decided that Barcelona is a city I could get used to, definitely one I'd like to see again. Maybe next time I can learn a little Spanish before I come.

Relay for Life

For those of you who don't know, every year I participate in the Relay for Life which raises money for cancer research. I'm happy to say that, as of today, I am in the top 5 for fundraising so far. I hope to keep that up. If you would like to donate or join my team, view my personal page.

This year I am proud to be a co-captain of my team, Fish Poop Soup, along with my friend Jen. I was recently interviewed and my "Reason for Relaying" was included in the latest Relay newsletter. Read the story

Rain, Rain, Go Away! - Europe Tour 3.1

Today was a poopy day as far as weather went. It was pouring pretty much the entire 24 hours. Sightseeing was another story - we perused the Park Guell created by Gaudi. I'm surprised by how much I am enjoying his work because I normally like very simple, clean art and architecture. Gaudi is nowhere near simple - his temple is said to be one of the most enigmatic structures in the world. Maybe it's because his work is so unique and unlike anything I've ever seen before that I like it so much.

This is more like it - Europe Tour 3.0

We started our first day in Barcelona with a "quick stop" at the bank to change money. The "quick stop" ended up taking about 45 minutes because only one person was actually working the line while the other 2 people were busy with something else. Patience is truly a virtue when traveling abroad! With replenished wallets, we hopped on the metro to see what our next hotel had in store for us. Thankfully we were pleasantly surprised by the Hotel Catalunya Park Putxet. While not in the center of the city, it was only 4 stops away from the action and was in beautiful condition. Thank you Priceline!

Complications Arise - Europe Tour 2.2

Our last day in Valencia started at about 1pm - we just cant seem to shake this jetlag - with some incredible crepes at a little creperie near our hotel. It was a Sunday so almost everything was closed, but we were quite happy to have discovered such a gem. We had done our research the day before and found out that trains to Barcelona left pretty much every hour, so the plan was to find an internet cafe, book a hotel and hop on the train so that we would arrive in Barcelona before dark.

Well, things didnt work out quite as easily as we would have liked. We were unsuccessful in finding the internet cafe that our concierge said was "only a 10 minute walk from the hotel". All we managed to do was get ourselves completely frustrated and doubting our map reading capabilities. At that point I really wanted to get on a train and at least get to Barcelona so we could find a hotel before dark, but James felt more comfortable having something booked. Back at the hotel, James decided to pay the outrageous 6€ per hour fee for internet and tried to book a room. Not finding anything that fit our budget and/or expectations, we headed to the train station and decided to take our chances in Barcelona.

The train ride was very pleasant, we both caught some z's, and we arrived in Barcelona before we knew it. With only about an hour left of daylight, we decided to hop in a cab and head to the nearest hostel. It was full and since we had just used our last euros for the cab, we started walking (with luggage!) towards the city. We spotted another "hostal" (which I put in quotes because it was really more of a motel that tries to attract tourists by calling itself a hostal) and deemed it good enough for one night. It was clean and had internet, but there's not much more to say about it except that we were more than happy to check out and move on to the next hotel.

Quite a day! Well, half a day - Europe Tour 2.1

We got off to a late start on our first day after waking up at 3:30pm. Yes, that's right, PM. Luckily Valencia is a fairly small city and we were able to hit most of the tourist spots before the sunset. Our walk started in the park near the Music Hall fountain where teens practice their skateboarding and tired feet get much needed rest. There were so many people everywhere doing their own thing seemingly oblivious to what other people thought. That's one of my favorite things about Europe' there's so much room for individuality.













Our walk continued and we were human sponges soaking up as much culture as we could. Both of us really enjoy looking at architecture so we were having a field day. There were beautiful bridges, a tower that used to be the entrance to the city (it still has damage from wars fought before the US existed) and many gorgeous churches. We even wandered into one that had a wedding going on. Dont worry, we didnt cause a scene, the public was allowed to roam about (pretty cool!) and enjoy the ceremony for as long as they pleased.

A little while into our tour, James had a craving for french fries, so we stopped at a McDonalds. The woman was trying to tell James something about his order (maybe there was a minimum?), but neither of us speak Spanish and we couldnt figure it out from body language. She eventually gave up and James got his fries. We marched on victoriously to a few more churches and, much to our satisfaction, realized that the sun doesnt set until about 8pm. Good thing since we had just barely woken up!

Night finally came around and we found a nice plaza area to have some dinner. James had pizza, I had vegetable paella and we split a cinnamon/sugar crepe for dessert. Our server was very friendly and spoke some English- so far I havent felt like a total fish out of water for not speaking Spanish. We also scored some live entertainment when a martial arts group decided to perform in the plaza. Then we headed back to the hotel after what turned out to be an action packed 8 hours.

Ode to jetlag - Europe Tour 2.0

Hola Spain, we have arrived! James added it up and figured in total it took about 20 hours to get from John Wayne to our temporary home at the Holiday Inn in Valencia. Plan A was to hop on a train from the airport but we would have had to wait almost 12 hours. We nixed that idea and opted for the bus. A nice lady directed us to a shuttle that took us to the bus station - which turned out to be the wrong one - so we hopped on the subway to the right one. About 2 hours later we were en route to Valencia on what turned out to be a surprisingly nice bus ride. I caught a few hours of sleep and before I knew it, we had arrived.

Needless to say, we didn't have much wind in our sails upon arrival but it was only 5:30pm and we needed to start adjusting to the time change. We got our second wind after some nice, hot showers and decided to grab dinner and explore. Except for Google Maps on James´s Blackberry (which oddly didn´t jive with the street signs we were seeing), we were mapless. Fatigue was beginning to rear it´s ugly head and manifested itself in a few snappy exchanges, but we ended up having a nice dinner at a Chinese place after strolling around the port area. That´s right, our first dinner in Spain was Chinese food!

It´s now 6am and I´ve been up for about 4 hours wishing I could get back to sleep like my partner in crime is doing. I´m cursing myself for sleeping on the bus but I do remember this same thing happening to me the last time I was in Europe. Oh well, at least I´m finding the time to write these blog posts. :)

Ahhh, the joys of international flights - Europe Tour 1.0

After only 2 weeks of being back at home, James and I now find ourselves on a journey across the Atlantic to see what Spain and France have to offer. It is James´first time crossing an ocean (woohoo!) and will be my first time setting foot in Spain. I studied abroad in Paris back in 2004 (wow, has it been 5 years already?) and am very excited to see it again. Except for our general itinerary and hotel at our first stop in Valencia, we don´t have very much planned at this point. Between unpacking from the road trip, catching up with everyone and handling what life threw at us each day, we just never found the time to nail things down. I guess it will add to the adventure and make for a more interesting blog!

Our first flight was from John Wayne to Atlanta and, due to extreme weather, we had to alter our course a bit. There was also quite a bit of turbulence which got me searching for the infamous barf bag. It wasn't there. Luckily just when the visions of me having to high-tail it down the aisle with hand over mouth and a green complexion started to become a real possibility, the pilot announced that we were descending. Crisis averted!

Now we are enjoying our second leg from Atlanta to Madrid - I forgot how great it is to fly internationally! Headsets, pillows, blankets and eyeshades were waiting for each of us and flight attendants even handed out ear plugs. Recent movies, current TV shows, music and games were all available on the touchscreen installed in every seat. (On a side note - I watched Slumdog Millionaire and highly recommend it!) I guess now that a bag of peanuts has become the highlight of a domestic flight, I feel spoiled to have so many creature comforts readily available. We even got to eat food!