A Piece of Paris

Bonjour, my dear blog readers!

After a 2.5 hour train ride, Beth and I arrive in Paris. After getting lost in the train station (give us a break, it's huge and all in French!) we finally found the lockers to store our bags for the day and set off to tour the town.

Beth has dreamed of visiting Paris since her French class in 7th grade, so this trip has been a long time coming. Here she is, living her dream at Notre Dame!

The Eiffel Tower is just as gorgeous as you would imagine. It's almost surreal to see it after its many appearances in movies.

Word to the wise ... it's an absolute zoo getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower - a "goat-roping festival" as my husband would say. Long lines with pushy tourists, squished like sardines into tiny elevators, and a bit anti-climactic peering at tiny white buildings below through a metal cage. In our opinion, not really worth it. (Sorry if I've crushed your dreams, but seeing it from the ground is breathtaking.) Here we are at the top!

After a long first day of "playing tourist," we met my friend Sophie at her apartment in a suburb of Paris. Sophie and I lived in the same dorm while studying in Copenhagen, so we were able to stay with her for the weekend. So nice to avoid the hotels and get a little local flavor. She and her husband Ced recently had their first child, Alexandre, the chunkiest little baby ever! SO adorable! And pretty hilarious to hear his little toys speaking French - they sounded so refined.

I didn't even realize, but Sophie worked at P&G ... the same company Beth works for! It was fun that their P&G lingo translated across the pond and we even swung buy to get a picture in front of the P&G Paris Office.

Our second day in town was May Day, a holiday in Paris, so most places were closed. We strolled along the Champs Elysees (famous shopping street,) saw the Arc de Triomphe, and ate lunch in a charming square with artists, called Montmartre. As most of my family and friends can attest to, I'm a bit slow at making decisions ... so after close to an hour wandering around the square deliberating about which painting I wanted to purchase, I came back to my favorite artist, only to see my favorite painting being purchased before my eyes. That darn lady came out of nowhere! Here's a face Kyle is probably familiar with ... (I learned it growing up as the baby in the family!)

We went out to dinner with Sophie and Ced to a fancy restaurant on the Seine River. So fancy, I got to inspect my lobster before they dropped him in the boiling water. Poor Beth - she's a vegetarian but held up very well as I said goodbye to my soon-to-be-dinner.

Mmm Mmm Good ... Good thing I lived in Boston for a year so I knew how to eat a Lobsta!

In thanks for hosting us for the weekend, Beth and I covered the tab. Let's just say, if I knew how much that bottle of wine cost, I would not have left two sips in my glass. :)

Our last day, we visited the palace and gardens of Versailles, home to the monarchs of France prior to the Revolution. (Louis XIII and all his Louis successors) The gardens were expansive, but we were surprised they only included hedges and no flowers. The fountains were gorgeous and the skies that day looked like a painting.

Here is the busy Hall of Mirrors, the most famous room in the Palace.

We shared a cab to the airport with Ced the next morning, as he was traveling for work. We scheduled an early early flight so that we could take advantage of as much time as possible for our one day in Barcelona. What happens next? A three hour delay! The French had a lot more patience than I've seen from any American passengers with a ridiculously delayed flight. Very short on updates, but we finally made it out of Paris.

Thank you to Sophie, Ced and Alexandre for an amazing weekend in an amazing city!

Join us next in Spain - Barcelona and Valencia.

The Tale of Two Cities

Kyle and I flew to London for the last couple days of Kyle's adventure. While we loved the location of our hotel, just along the northern edge of beautiful Hyde Park, it felt like one of those tiny rooms on a cruise ship. Here I am, touching two of the walls at once.



Our first mission was to hunt down some delicious fish and chips. I know us Americans get a bad wrap for our french fries, but I'd bet they eat more "chips" in Europe than we - seriously, they are a side dish for just about every entree in some countries.




We explored all the major sights and really fell in love with the city. Kyle did not expect to like it because of its size, and I didn't remember much of it besides seeing Big Ben and the Doc Marten store on my high school trip ... but we were both pleasantly surprised and wished we had more time here.

I know what you're thinking, "cute picture in front of London Bridge." And you would be right that this is a cute picture. But, we are actually standing in front of the Tower Bridge. Very common to mistake the two. At least you got the important part right. :)

Here we are in front of the London Eye - aka a ginormous ferris wheel. We didn't find time to go for a ride.

Kyle in front of Big Ben and a famously British phone booth. Really, people still use those things? I think they just keep them around for tourists like us to take silly pictures.

Kissing my Prince Charming in front of Buckingham Palace.

My favorite part of our visit, surprisingly, was the Churchill Museum and War Rooms. Clearly, not a place I would have seeked out but it was on Kyle's list so I obliged given that I had two more days here with Beth. It was just so surreal to be walking through the underground hallways and rooms where Winston Churchill and his men developed their strategies during World War II. We even saw Churchill's private room with a phone that would call direct to President Roosevelt. Very interesting visit.

Here is one of the underground deliberation rooms used by the British during the war - so crazy.

Then it came time for my dear hubby to head home. I jumped on the train to head to the airport with him and got him checked in with both of our bags. I was now going to live out of my backpack for the next two weeks. We had such a wonderful time together, and I have to admit, I shed a few tears as he walked through security to his gate. It brought back so many memories of our days dating long-distance, where we had to go through those goodbyes much more often than I care to remember.



Like the professional traveler that I am, I took the train to another airport in town to pick up my college friend, Beth Blue. Since Kyle didn't have enough vacation time to stay longer than 2 weeks, she came over to tour around with me for another 2 weeks, visiting friends from my study abroad days in Denmark. This was her first time in Europe so we packed every last minute. So glad she was able to join me! We decided we are BTB's - Best Travel Buddies. We've been to Boston, New York, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, and twice to Orlando together. We added 5 countries to our list, and plenty more destinations to come!



We hit up some of the same sights while riding a double decker bus - then we added some girly flavor. An afternoon tea party on the top floor of a high class department store, Fortnum and Mason. I do say, we had a lovely time. Just splendid!







We even caught a musical in Picadilly Circus ... Billy Elliot. Breathtaking show - literally. I thought the show started later than it did, so we were literally sprinting to the theatre and crawling over people to get to our seats during the opening scene, completely out of breath.



London was a beautiful city, and we lucked out with much nicer weather than the norm. I was lucky to get a man's view of the city (visiting war museums) and a women's view (with tea parties and musicals.) It really was like two cities for the price of one.


At this point, it was goodbye to my husband and hello to Beth and a jam packed 2 weeks of travel ahead. Next stop: Paris.

18 lbs of Pure Sugar

WE INTERRUPT THIS EUROPE TRIP REVIEW FOR A SPECIAL REPORT:

Memorial Day with Vaughn!!!

We hit the road last Friday for the 8.5 hour trip to Austin to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Kathleen, and their adorable son, Vaughn – our favorite little nephew!

I did most of the driving to give poor Kyle a break as he hits the road for Minneapolis this coming weekend. (It never ends.) While the drive was long … it was all worth it when we saw him smile at us for the first time. Are you kidding me?!?! I could feel my heart melt right then and there. I’m just in awe at this little munchkin – who turned into a little man since we saw him last February. He's literally double the size ... 5 months going on 15!

Vaughn rockin' his baby ear protection for all that live music he's going to catch in Austin.

Bonding with Uncle Kyle ... I mean, is he cute or what? Vaughn is adorable, too. :)

Skyping with Grandpa back in Cleveland. He's been doing this for 5 months already, so he's clearly a pro!

The Mulhausen kids squeezing into the webcam shot for Grandma to take a Skype picture.

I took the liberty of branding our little peanut ... I think he needs to do commercials.

Continuing with the theme of dressing him up like a doll, here is Vaughn in his new kilt from Scotland! (He wants to be like Uncle Kyle) It's for 2 year olds so he'll have to grow into it.

Sitting at the table for family breakfast, praying for a bite of waffle!

Hanging with Aunt Tracie and Uncle Kyle.

In the midst of all the baby fun, Jeff took us to see a Roller Derby match. My dream since I watched the movie Whip It and was enamored by this quirky sport. Dusty Doublewide was my favorite … I am unable to share some of the other names as I’d like to keep this blog clean.

Kath and I even found time for a pedicure, while the boys watched Vaughn. Spoiled rotten and loving every minute of it.

Kyle and I got to enjoy some trashy beers at Freddie's Place on our last night in town.

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We had to drive back on Monday and with traffic, it took us close to 10 hours. All the while, little Vaughn was enjoying his first pool party! He really is a sweet, smiley baby - 18 lbs of pure sugar and boy do I have a sweet tooth!