July & Farewell to France

July was a month of good-byes. Seeing friends for the last time, visiting Paris for the last time, seeing our favorite sights and taking final pictures. We started the month by having a picnic with some friends who have been wonderful to us. Their youngest was in the same Gymboree class as the girls. Her mom was so great to pick us up and give us a ride every week. (Saving us a train and a bus each way.) We often ate lunch at McDonald's together after class and she graciously let me do my grocery shopping and lugged us and our groceries back home. Truly a great friend.

Fourth of July is obviously not celebrated here but we donned our red, white and blue and took on the city anway. We have never been more obviously tourists than we were this day. We spent the day in the heart of Paris on the Ille de Cite and Ille de St Louis. The girls had never been to Notre Dame (we had taken Andrew on our house hunting trip last year) so we started there. We took a picture in front of one of the classic art deco Metropolitan signs to remember the many, many trips on the Metro. We visited the prison La Conciergerie which we had never done before, saw Marie Antoinette's cell and the courtyard where they loaded prisoners on their way to the guillotine. Had ice cream at the best place in Paris, Berthillion then caught the Metro for lunch at Breakfast in America. (The only place in Paris celebrating the 4th.)

Later in the month, I traveled home for the auction of my grandparents household and belongings....not a situation I would wish on anyone. As I stated in a previous blog, my grandfather did not include everyone in the will and there was a lot of resentment and ill feelings between family members let alone the stress of having to bid on anything that you would like to have as a memory. While I was in Missouri, our friends from Rotterdam came in for a quick visit. Anthony did not take many pictures--shame, but they had a ball spending the day at Luxembourg gardens.

The kids have loved the mild summer weather and spent as much time as possible outside. Andrew continues to climb his beloved apple tree and Brooke just likes to soak up the sun.

We took some final pictures at the Eiffel Tower to remember our year abroad. Many trials, but also some great experiences. Wouldn't trade it for anything but am glad to be going home. We are returning to our same house and looking forward to seeing friends again. As of now, I am not planning on continuing this blog so....Au Revoir Paris, Farewell France and HOWDY TEXAS!

French Riviera

Our last trip was to be the French Riviera and planned for July. However, the last few months the exchange rate has been hit hard and we found our travel fund not where we expected it to be. I really did not want to give up our trip to the Riviera (too many years watching Cary Grant and Grace Kelly movies...) but we had to shrink our planned expenditures.

Luckily, my cousin Christi said she didn't mind watching the kids for a few days while Anthony and I ran down there alone. (Saved three plane tickets and took a day and a half off of the trip just because we could move faster without the kiddos.) So we got a little get away out of it too.

I was still hacking and feeling miserable from our Italy trip and by now was also totally deaf in one ear...never had an experience like that before. Illness was not going to keep me from seeing the Riviera, so off we went. Only when we were airborne did I realize the impact of my illness. My ear was in excruciating pain the entire time we were in the air...but luckily we landed. Nice has the neatest little airport you ever saw. Certainly, my favorite one in all of Europe. We had arrived before noon so still had plenty of day to see the sights.

We started by strolling the Promenade des Anglais (4 mile long boardwalk), LOVING the weather, and gazing at the most gorgeous water I have ever seen in my life.

Then we jumped on a boat and took a cruise along the coast. Our tour guide loved pointing out all the homes owned by the rich and famous. We saw Sean Connery's home, as well as Bill Gates, Tina Turner and numerous others. We loved all the boats in the ports and even saw an amazing 3 mast wooden ship.

After the cruise, we spent several hours in "Old Nice" enjoying the architecture, shopping a little and eating ice cream (which is all my throat could handle).

I am including a couple of pictures here of the water. I hope you can see the very definite dividing line between the two colors of blue. Our boat tour guide told us that the lighter blue is where the fresh river water flows into the Mediterranean. Amazingly beautiful!

We had dinner early and headed back to our room. We got extremely lucky on our hotel, stayed right on the beach and looked over the Promenade. Anthony sat on our balcony, enjoyed a glass of wine, the water and people watching while I went to bed.

The next day, I wasn't any better but we headed out to Monaco. Only one euro and a thirty minute bus trip and we were in a different country. We saw the Palace, the Guard and the Cathedral and I was BEAT. I really could not walk another step. So we got on a mini tourist train for a tour of Monaco. This worked perfect! We saw the Hotel Hermitage, the famous Monte Carlo Casino, amazing ships at port and enjoyed an informative commentary along the way.

After the tour, I had recovered enough to walk down to the port where we had planned to eat a late lunch. We ate at an American themed restaurant called the "Stars & Bars" and found a new favorite. In fact we shared a meal called the "Texas Tower". We then caught the bus back to Nice and enjoyed another evening along the Promenade before going to bed early.

The next morning, I woke up just miserable. We were also planning on flying home late that night and I was very stressed about the pain I knew would hit again. The hotel called in a wonderful doctor for us and he listened to my chest and looked at my ear. He declared I had a severe case of bronchitis that had spread into my ear and caused a major ear infection. (Now I have had just about as many ear infections as a person can have in a lifetime and I had NEVER been deaf from it before--so this freaked me out a little.) When Anthony asked about flying that evening the doctor got a horrendous look on his face and in his limited English asked if we could change our flight--inserting the words "BIG PAIN". Oh great... Five prescriptions later (four of which were the same as Bella has been taking for the last 5 months) we headed out for our last day of sightseeing.

We trained about 30 minutes to a small hillside town called Biot. Biot is known for it's beautiful mouth blown, bubbled glass and I wanted to take a piece home. Unfortunately, the guide book was not clear on how far we had to walk from the train station. Roughly three miles later we found what we were looking for-La Verriere de Biot. Talk about a whipped puppy-ugh! At this point you shouldn't be surprised that I didn't get one single picture from this entire day. Luckily the showroom also had a wonderful lunchroom and terrace so we were able to rest and relax for a couple of hours along with our shopping. I bought a beautiful turquoise bowl to bring home and Anthony asked me if it was worth it...no comment. Three miles back to the train station, some more souvenir shopping in Nice and we caught our plane home. Three days was quick and busy but we saw and did everything on our list and I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Amazingly, instead of suffering severe pain as I expected, my ear unplugged and I could actually hear for the time we were in the air. Of course, when we landed I was blocked again and it would take almost a week to get my hearing back. I honestly don't think the antibiotic worked on me at all...

Paris Highlights w/ Christi

My cousin Christi was able to stay with us for two weeks after we returned from Italy. Unfortunately, I had ended our trip with a hacking cough that continued to develop into bronchitis (which I didn't find out until our next trip) it racked my body and totally drained me of all energy and fun. We did get out a couple of days so she could at least hit the highlights of Paris.

We spent a day at nearby Versailles, she tried her first crepe and we took a "drift" on a rowboat which Andrew has been wanting to do everytime we visited.

Anthony kept the kids one Saturday so she and I could go in without the munchkins and we got quite a bit done. Arc de Triomphe, Concorde, Opera Garnier, a little shopping, Louvre and Notre Dame.

On another day we hit Pont Alexandre III, the Eiffel Tower, a Seine river cruise and the Catacombs. This is the first time I had been in the Catacombs. The MILLIONS of bones that go on for MILES are simply to difficult to describe. Quite an "aweing" experience.

(For those of who don't read French, the sign says "Stop, this is the empire of the dead".)

I had very little energy and was a total drag as a tour guide, I only hope she will remember the sights and not the company.