Anybody who tries to tell you that the French have mastered the Art of Living has not spent enough time in French bathrooms. Nothing throws this fact into sharper relief than crossing the border into Germany. Even in Trier, an 1,800-year-old wine town just over the line, the contrast is startling. With a nod to the tired old "white people dance like this / black people dance like that" stand-up comedy formula, here's an overview of the contrasting approaches: The bath-tub In France, the bathtubs are all about three feet long. This may be because the French are all so short. Seriously, seriously short. I stand at nearly 6'4" and Ashley's 5'10", and we TOWERED over Paris, almost like . . . er . . . you know, some sort of Parisian tower thingy. We felt ... read more

...and we're in Reims, France, about an hour northeast of Paris. It is a gorgeous little town of about 200,000, and it feels good to be here after three nights in Paris. Not that Paris wasn't a great scene, but Reims offers much of the same French urban experience -- charming sidewalk cafes, good wine, quaint shutter-and-wrought-iron-laden buildings, grandiose Gothic architecture, shopping -- with more hospitality and lower prices and without throngs of obnoxious tourists like ourselves. Plus, this is where they make Champagne with a capitol C. You don't save any money on it by coming to the source, but it's exciting to drive through small agricultural villages whose whole economy is devoted to creating New Year's Day headaches. Yesterday afternoon and today we broke out the Ford Fiesta (that's how we roll) for a ... read more

Ashley here. I think I will leave the eloquent posts up to Dan and just give an update on our weekend. We spent Saturday resting in our hotel/flat. We were both tired after Friday's tour of town. On Saturday evening we went out to dinner at a Greek restaurant near the Tate Modern Art Museum. The Tate Modern has late hours on Saturdays, so we slipped in hoping to miss the crowds. It was fairly crowded, but not as bad as the National Gallery the day before. It is a fun museum and they had a good display of modern art. I think we were still a little tired because we only looked at one floor. We will have to go back. On Sunday we took the tube out to Kew Gardens. It was a beautiful ... read more

Hello All, Ashley here. Well, I spent all of Thursday in the British Museum. It just fascinates me and is only a few blocks from Dan's classes, close enough that we can meet for lunch. I've taken many pictures, and I will post a few here. The Museum is the perfect place to hide from the hot weather. It has continued to be around 30 C which is about 86 F. London is just not designed for this type of weather, and there has been a smog alert issued for the first time in three years. We are supposed to have some rain come in today and over the weekend, and we are hoping this will cool things down a bit. Talk to you soon, Love, Ashley.... read more

Hello All, we were very lucky on Wednesday, Dan was given the day off from school, as well as a free ticket to one of the London double decker bus tours. We spent the entire day doing very touristy things, and it was very fun. We discovered that our new flat is very close to Hyde Park, and we caught the bus there. We then rode through town and hoped off at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was beautiful. We spent a good amount of time wandering around, and we made our way up to the whispering room in the dome, so called because a person can speak toward the wall and someone on the other side of the dome can then clearly hear what was spoken. Dan was brave and continued up further into the Dome ... read more