when even the Post Office has limited hours! I mean, I can accept our favorite Boulangerie taking off for the month like everyone else and I really miss my cheese guy at our local market. But the Post Office? I guess since most of Paris goes away for the month, there's no need to deliver any mail. No one is home to receive it! Ah, the life of the Parisians. Can you beat it?
We will finish our vacance d'ete on Saturday with a week in Annecy, Menthon-Saint Bernard to be exact. We have rented a little apartment on the lake and plan to DO NOTHING for the week except eat, drink, swim, hike, and relax! I guess that's not a whole lot of nothing but it'll be great and I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be a trip for just us Fischers after sharing lots of vacation time with friends and family.
Since we last spoke the Fischer gang had just returned from The Netherlands to a houseful of college roommates and the grandparents. Although it may sound crowded, it was very fun to return to Paris to all our friends and family. Thus started the Tour de Paris/France/Barcelona avec mes amis and mes parents. It was great to be in Paris again and fun to see it with friends and family. I enjoyed returning to the parts of the city that I had seen before and exploring others for the first time. I could probably go to the Musee Rodin a million times, (I've been six times now in our year of Paris, free entree to the jardin avec enfant!!!!), and still discover something new each time. That's true about every part of Paris. Nothing gets old and nothing is ever the same twice. I feel like you can never capture any one part of Paris so I feel so lucky that I get to go back to places so many times and discover them all over again. The Musee Rodin, The Arc, Elise's Tower, none of it ever gets old! Thus, exploring Paris and being the master tour guider with all our different guests throughout the summer never got old and only enhanced my feelings of amazement that I actually live here. I'm a lucky lady!
So, Paris. We saw lots of it. We also returned to Normandy and The Loire Valley. It was so so great! I got to take my parents to Normandy which was super cool since my dad is really into war movies and documentaries. Seeing the beaches, the bomb craters at Pointe du Hoc, the cemeteries, and imagining what it must have been like for the soldiers is quite simply unbelievable. I wish I could better describe the mind blowing experience it is to try to re-live D-Day. You are left breathless.
We returned to Paris where the site seeing continued. We had a list of places to see in Paris during the few days we had between our Normandy adventure and the next vacation, Barecelona. We made it to Elise's tower, Sacre Coeur and the special stairwell, and the Arc de Triomphe. I loved playing tour guide for my parents and was once again fascinated with this city I call home. The wonders, the sites, the fun are never ending and so great to share! But ah, there's also Barcelona!
We got to spend a fabulous week in Barcelona in a great apartment in El Born. We ate great food, sat on the wonderful beach, shopped/ate in the fantastic market of La Rambla, and caught a few sites. It was nice to relax and not try to be crazy tourists in the city. Between my parents and me and Brian we took turns watching the ladies and also having great quiet adult time. I got to go shopping all by myself! It was glorious and I got a great new skirt! :)Upon returning home to Paris, we accomplished some of the final goals of my parents vacation: we ate Le Menu avec entre, plat, et desert that included some escargots and duck confit. We also finally got them to the Lebanese sandwich shop, (a must for all our visitors!). It was such a fabulous visit and I'm so so glad they made it out here for the month. The ladies loved having them here and played so hard with them. Thanks to gamma, Elise has been thoroughly schooled on all the princesses of the world and is in love and awe. She wears her "princess" dresses all the time and always wants to know, "what is Cinderella doing? Where is sleeping bleauty?". It is very sweet and my lady has a new obsession. It was a great visit and the Gamma and Pops are the Best!
I loved Annecy! They have these cool motor boat tours of the lake; you get to the boats from the lover's bridge in the park. The lake is so cool (and cool), I wish that I could have spent some more time there, although I did come in through the train station. You can see my pics on my blog (prepcroquemadame.blogspot.com)
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for you to get home so that we can compare notes; I loved what you said about Paris - I can't get enough of the city either.