So this was intended to keep everyone updated while Alan and I were on our honeymoon. I have however decided to continue it. Life has changed.... in a good way, and will always morph into something new, exciting and challenging.
With that said, we are totally in the honeymoon phase of our marriage. And I love it! It has been a long time since I can say Alan and I were in a honeymoon phase of sorts. I get more affection than I know what to do with. Its been fabulous. For instance, a quote from Alan:
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Things to come
We are extremely tired and ready to be home. Who knows what is to come in the future.
Short term we are off to Michigan for a wedding this weekend! We are very excited for Courtney and Jason. Oh and very glad it is not ours!
Mr. & Mrs. Green
Short term we are off to Michigan for a wedding this weekend! We are very excited for Courtney and Jason. Oh and very glad it is not ours!
Mr. & Mrs. Green
Day 11
Today is the final day of our honeymoon and it is strictly travel.
We woke up at 5am, got ready and headed to the metro. We took the metro to the train station. We scurried through security, customs and ticket check to board the TGV to London. This is the same train we took to get to Paris at the beginning of the trip. We had a bit more leg room because there was only 1 person across from us. A travel note on the TGV if you are traveling with 2. Book seats across from each other, not next to each other. It is better for your legs.
We disembarked in London, found our way to the the Underground. It was a zoo. At first, it seemed a bit unusaual until we realized it was the 6th anniversary of the London Underground bombings. We were going through the station in which the bombings originated from and at the time the bombings occured. Obviously, security was extremely tight. There was a memorial set up for people who wished to observe.
Alan got in line for tickets while I waited with our baggage. He got our tickets and we headed to our tube line. We boarded in the chaos of rush hour with all our bags and were off. It was about an hour tube ride to Heathrow. We got to the airport, got ourselves through the most convoluted lines at an airport ever and settled. We had a couple hours to kill so we got some food at a cafe. I had a giant club sandwich and Alan had a burger.
We are sitting in Boston Logan airport doing the final post, waiting for our flight to Columbus.
Mr. & Mrs. Green
We woke up at 5am, got ready and headed to the metro. We took the metro to the train station. We scurried through security, customs and ticket check to board the TGV to London. This is the same train we took to get to Paris at the beginning of the trip. We had a bit more leg room because there was only 1 person across from us. A travel note on the TGV if you are traveling with 2. Book seats across from each other, not next to each other. It is better for your legs.
We disembarked in London, found our way to the the Underground. It was a zoo. At first, it seemed a bit unusaual until we realized it was the 6th anniversary of the London Underground bombings. We were going through the station in which the bombings originated from and at the time the bombings occured. Obviously, security was extremely tight. There was a memorial set up for people who wished to observe.
Alan got in line for tickets while I waited with our baggage. He got our tickets and we headed to our tube line. We boarded in the chaos of rush hour with all our bags and were off. It was about an hour tube ride to Heathrow. We got to the airport, got ourselves through the most convoluted lines at an airport ever and settled. We had a couple hours to kill so we got some food at a cafe. I had a giant club sandwich and Alan had a burger.
We are sitting in Boston Logan airport doing the final post, waiting for our flight to Columbus.
Mr. & Mrs. Green
Day 10
We woke up this morning, not so late because we did not shut the blinds all the way. We made breakfast again, and headed out to the catacombs. We stood in line for 1.5 hours to see some bones. The catacombs are underground caves filled with bones from the 18th and 19th centuries. As Paris expanded they decided to empty the cemetaries in order to build and help control some of the disease that was spreading.
After walking the catacombs we went to the Louvre. We had packed our lunch to have a picnic and just needed to pick up a baguette. We wandered for a bit trying to find one, which seemed odd because it was Paris. We found one. Along the way, discovered our final tourist scams. This one involved a person pretending to be disabled and/or deaf. They try to get you to sign their form or give them money all while they are in your belongings rooting. There were multiple people doing this in one spot so it was a good distraction if you weren't paying attention. There were people who bought this one big time.
We continued back to the center of the Louvre gardens where the famous pyramids are, found some steps in the shade and sat down. We ate our meats, cheeses and bread while relaxing. This random guy came over with his bucket of water bottles trying to hide from the police. He then wandered off to the roundabout in front and ditched his bucket in the bushes and walked off. He obviously didn't want the ticket that he would have been written.
We headed back down to the underground mall to get our tickets and head in. The lines were chaotic and long. We got in a line, which we later discovered was the group line and became members of an Arkansas Music group. We walked right in, no problems, their tour guide instructed us to put our bags through the security scanners and we continued on while they organized themselves. It worked wonderfully.
We headed up to see Mona Lisa, which was chaos to the max. I am not quite sure that Alan really understood how chaotic it would be. He was tired and did not want to fight the crowds. We turned around and headed towards the french paintings. It was on the 2nd floor, which was like walking up to the 5th or 6th floor. We stopped at the 1st floor and sat on a bench. That is as far as we got. We sat for a while and decided to head home. We got home and napped. After napping, we got ready to go to the restaurant we mentioned in the previous post.
Upon arrival, Mr. Allemoz recognized us from the previous night, let his wife know who we were and the first thing she asked us was if we wanted champagne. Of course we did. She sat us at our table and brought us some olives. I don't typically like green olives but these were very good. We pondered over the menu because we weren't very sure what we wanted.
Alan had the eggplant caviar, steak tartare and chocolate cake. I had fillet of duck. All was outstanding. We were not sure about the steak tartare to begin with, but went on the strong recommendations from Sacha. We are glad we did. We drank wine, and relaxed for quite a while. I also had an espresso with milk. Boy howdy, it was strong.
Once home, we finished packing because 6am was going to be early.
Mr. & Mrs. Green
After walking the catacombs we went to the Louvre. We had packed our lunch to have a picnic and just needed to pick up a baguette. We wandered for a bit trying to find one, which seemed odd because it was Paris. We found one. Along the way, discovered our final tourist scams. This one involved a person pretending to be disabled and/or deaf. They try to get you to sign their form or give them money all while they are in your belongings rooting. There were multiple people doing this in one spot so it was a good distraction if you weren't paying attention. There were people who bought this one big time.
We continued back to the center of the Louvre gardens where the famous pyramids are, found some steps in the shade and sat down. We ate our meats, cheeses and bread while relaxing. This random guy came over with his bucket of water bottles trying to hide from the police. He then wandered off to the roundabout in front and ditched his bucket in the bushes and walked off. He obviously didn't want the ticket that he would have been written.
We headed back down to the underground mall to get our tickets and head in. The lines were chaotic and long. We got in a line, which we later discovered was the group line and became members of an Arkansas Music group. We walked right in, no problems, their tour guide instructed us to put our bags through the security scanners and we continued on while they organized themselves. It worked wonderfully.
We headed up to see Mona Lisa, which was chaos to the max. I am not quite sure that Alan really understood how chaotic it would be. He was tired and did not want to fight the crowds. We turned around and headed towards the french paintings. It was on the 2nd floor, which was like walking up to the 5th or 6th floor. We stopped at the 1st floor and sat on a bench. That is as far as we got. We sat for a while and decided to head home. We got home and napped. After napping, we got ready to go to the restaurant we mentioned in the previous post.
Upon arrival, Mr. Allemoz recognized us from the previous night, let his wife know who we were and the first thing she asked us was if we wanted champagne. Of course we did. She sat us at our table and brought us some olives. I don't typically like green olives but these were very good. We pondered over the menu because we weren't very sure what we wanted.
Alan had the eggplant caviar, steak tartare and chocolate cake. I had fillet of duck. All was outstanding. We were not sure about the steak tartare to begin with, but went on the strong recommendations from Sacha. We are glad we did. We drank wine, and relaxed for quite a while. I also had an espresso with milk. Boy howdy, it was strong.
Once home, we finished packing because 6am was going to be early.
Mr. & Mrs. Green
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Day 9
Day 9
We began day nine a bit later than we had planned; the place we are renting is owned by an airline pilot for a US airline thus all the windows have TRUE blackout shades. Needless to say, we did not wake up until 11 as we could not see ANY daylight whatsoever. Oh well, it’s our honeymoon right?? We began the day by having a nice breakfast of a fried egg, croissant and jam and some water; all had on our cute little patio here at the apartment. Since we slept in so late, we decided to change our days around a bit.
We started out by Ile St Louis, known as the Latin Quarter; it is the island in the middle of the Seine River just east of Notre Dame. We had some ice cream, shopped a bit and just strolled. It was quite the picturesque little area in Paris.
We then walked up to Notre Dame, pictures do not do the place justice. It is truly magnificent. We have been using Rick Steves’ books for our trip and Jessie was guiding us through. The only problem is that there are five Notre Dame churches in Paris and she was reading the wrong one, we did not notice this until we had already left the cathedral. We did get to see some relics of Richard The Lion Hearted and a huge statue of Charlemagne. We also found the central point of Paris which is on the square in front of Notre Dame.
We then decided to find a little neighborhood known as Rue Cler, also a street in Paris. This area is just east of the Eiffel Tower and Rick Steves raves about it. We decided to find a café, have some wine and a small snack. We split a goat cheese salad which was absolutely amazing! We decided to head back as tonight was going to be another fancy dinner at a restaurant which is owned by family friends of friends of ours, Chris and Sacha (former NetJets coworkers). We arrived and only the husband (Mr. Allemoz) was there and his English was very broken. He was able to convey that they were fully booked but could get us in tomorrow and his wife would be there and she was much better at English, thus it was a date!
We strolled down Termes Ave in search of somewhere else to dine; we sat down at one place but could not get service to die for, so we left for another spot. We ended up at a nice cozy little café. Jessie got some eggplant and squash pasta and I had the beef Carpaccio. I had never had raw beef before but it was simply to die for, even Jessie liked it!! We were tempering ourselves for the following night Sacha told us that their family friends’ restaurant had the best steak tartare in all of Paris. We headed back to the apartment for a relatively early night, Jess started packing/organizing the apartment while I wrote some blog stuff. We were prepping for our last day in Paris which was going to be a VERY long one.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Day 8 Part II
Well, Paris is a lot to deal with but we have been making the best of it and it has been a blast!! My wife forgot to post the pictures from Montmarte so those will be included in this post. Last evening was our big dinner at the Eiffel Tower. We got all gussied up and ready to go around 6PM, a full three hours before seating; the Parisians like to eat late, much later than we stupid Americans do. We took our Metro ride down towards the tower; in the process, Mrs. Green decided heels were a very bad idea and that was before we even got to the tower! Once we got to the general area of Eiffel Tower, there were Africans EVERYWHERE selling cheap little Eiffel Tower replicas "One Euro, One Euro"; we just kept walking at everyone. There were three different lifts that went where we needed to go, we were both unsure which one to go and the lines were HORRENDOUS!! I decided to seek out a reception booth for some further info. I found and the nice young woman told me to go across the way and check in; at this point it was about 810PM. The man at the booth across the way checked me in and gave us our passes and told us where to go from there. At about 830PM, we were instructed to get in a certain line and were whisked up the lift momentarily. While waiting, Jessie was worried that we were over dressed; she was wearing a lovely black silk dress and I had slack, shirt & tie, and blazer on. Once I looked at our invitation, I let here know that everyone was just severely under dressed. I so wished the maitre'd would have turned away anyone wearing tennis shoes or denim as the invite stated. Oh well, we were seated at a cozy little table on the second floor of the restaurant. Seems many people who dine at this restaurant are part of tour groups, which sucks. Those groups have a much smaller menu to choose from with no options once they are seated. They are pretty much corralled like cattle, not either of ours' style. Jessie ordered the cold creme corn and popcorn soup, Veal fillet and chanterelles, and chocolate cake and mousse for dessert; I had the seared jumbo tiger prawn with avocado, cucumber and grapefruit, Salmon fillet in a beure blanc sauce with pureed carrots, and profiterole with hot chocolate sauce for dessert. It all was 100% amazing. Along with a bottle of rose wine, we had an amazing evening. After dinner, part of the tour group sitting at the table next to us mentioned Ohio; Jessie asked them as they were leaving if they were from Ohio. Of course they were, they were from Loveland which is a suburb of Cincinnati. She mentioned I went to X and conversation ensued. Truly a small world!!
After dinner, we walked around the Eiffel Tower and snapped some nice evening photos. We ran into yet another tourist scam of people trying to shove roses into a young woman's hand (Jessie's in this case) then making me pay for it. Luckily I have a smart wife that knows better so we were not fooled!! We headed back towards home and Jessie decided that the heels had to go, so she proceeded to do the rest of the trip barefoot. We made it home safely and hit the bed hard. And to Miss Lisa Jones Mitchell, there is a picture included on this post just for you, I will let you decide which it is.
After dinner, we walked around the Eiffel Tower and snapped some nice evening photos. We ran into yet another tourist scam of people trying to shove roses into a young woman's hand (Jessie's in this case) then making me pay for it. Luckily I have a smart wife that knows better so we were not fooled!! We headed back towards home and Jessie decided that the heels had to go, so she proceeded to do the rest of the trip barefoot. We made it home safely and hit the bed hard. And to Miss Lisa Jones Mitchell, there is a picture included on this post just for you, I will let you decide which it is.
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