Friday 13 May 2011

SB 2011!

This Easter break I was very lucky, because I had 2 more visitors that came to France to see me!  My best friend from high school, Lindsey, and her boyfriend Sanjay came over for a week during Easter.  

They wanted to stay in France for the whole trip, so we decided to spend 2 days in Paris, then one night in Reims so they could see my apartment and try some delicious champagne, and spend the rest of the trip in Alsace, because after Lindsey saw all my pictures from the last two years she really wanted to see the region. 

They arrived early in the morning and on the first day and, as all my guests are, were troopers!  We did sightseeing the whole day.  Lindsey's requirements were that she liked parks and she didn't like museums.  That gave us a lot of down time, hanging out in parks and wandering around Paris.  They have both been here a few times before so the trip was very laid back, which was great!  They even showed me a few new things in Paris, including a great "steak frites" place called L'Ecurie, and my new favorite park, Buttes Chaumont.  Thibaut got us a really nice hotel price through his company too, so we stayed in a 4 star hotel right in the centre of Paris. 

After a few days in Paris we headed onto Reims, and we had a great surprise in the train!  My friend Colin and his Dad met us on our train and headed up to Reims with us for the day.  He's a flight attendant for Delta and does a lot of Paris-Boston flights, so I gave him our train information and seat numbers and told him it'd be great if he could meet us.  I didn't think he was going to make it, so I was really happy to see him!  So many visitors in one day, I was overwhelmed.  We went and visited the champagne caves of Taittinger, and learned about how champagne is made. 

The next day we headed off to Alsace, and we stayed at Thibaut's parent's house for the rest of the trip.  They were out of town for the weekend, but they left us the house and car for the week, which was so nice of them!  I got to show Linds and Sanjay around the region, and it was really nice to have a backyard and a kitchen to spend time relaxing on Easter sunday.  I also really enjoyed showing them around the place where I lived for 2 years, all my favorite villages and places.  I was really happy to be back for a little while, I really miss it there! On the last night we headed up to Strasbourg and had our 'last supper' and sent them off on the train at 6am the next morning!  I was really sad to see them go, but we had a really great time.  We had perfect, sunny weather every single day of the trip, and it was just really nice to see some familiar faces from HOME!  I'm counting the days until I'll be back in Cleveland, just over 4 weeks!

Luxembourg Gardens. 
Amazed to see flowers... they definitely didn't see any of those in NYC yet this year

eating macarons on the champs-élysées

 Sacré coeur


Montmartre artists square

Picnic in Buttes Chaumont

drinking wine in the metro


La Tour Eiffel

onto Reims! Colin's dad Tom, Sanjay, Linds and Colin

champagne tasting at Taittinger 

Colmar!

The Easter markets

Schwendi, across the street from my old apartment in Colmar

Alsacian food, sauerkraut and sausage

took them to visit my favorite village, Eguisheim


dying easter eggs


bowling night in Colmar, boys and girls were tied 

strasbourg on our last day

our last night :( come back soon!

2 comments:

Shannon said...

I can't believe how perfect your weahter was! Must have been because I wasn't there. Or, looking back at the last few trips, that no other Fuller's were there.

lkgnyc said...

I keep wanting to "like" your blog. blogger needs to get with it!