Lots to Tell!

Hello everyone, it has been quite awhile. I've obviously not been good about keeping you updated, but I've been away from my computer the majority of the time, keeping busy traveling etc with Nick. Many exciting things have happened over the past few weeks and this entry is going to be a long one, so I suggest getting a nice cup of coffee, perhaps some mixed nuts, or just plain cashews to help you get through all of this!

So, let's start with the night before I left Nantes to meet Nick at the airport in Paris....The date was Feb. 9th. I was so excited and anxious for the next day to come that I went through and super cleaned EVERYTHING. Scrubbing, folding, sweeping, you name it I did it. I actually cared about my apartment appearance, a very rare occurance; however this is becoming more and more ingrained in me, you all would be proud! I had all my bags packed, had triple checked everything, and laid down to find an illegal copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to help me fall asleep because I knew it wouldn't happen immediately. Even though I would be aking up around 4:30 to catch a 6:30 train, it was likely I wouldn't get much sleep. Nick called me during the movie to inform me about an already 3 hour delay from Chicago O Hare to Paris. He hadn't even left Omaha yet. So that was sad to learn that I would be waiting around the airport for 3 extra hours or more in Paris. Always Chicago O Hare, ALWAYS! Anywyas, after much broken sleep, I got up, got ready, and caught the first tram at 6 am to take me to the train station. The stupid tram sat at a stop 2 stops before the train station and I was afraid of missing my train; luckily it got there and I booked my behind to the platform. Of course, it was incredibly windy that morning and I didn't even feel my ticket fly out of my mitten covered hand 2 minutes before the train's departure as I boarded it. Great. It's a 60 euro fine if you are caught on a train without a ticket, so I was so nervous the whole time while on the train, yet luck was back on my side: no conducter ever checked my ticket and I got a reprint at my connecting station. I made it to the airport just fine and set up camp near the rendez vous point. I busied myself with a variety of things, doing my makeup, eating a sandwich, reading Gulliver's Travels (which I can't seem to finish), and just a lot of sitting and staring. Finally, Nick's plane arrived, but I swear he must have been the last person to get off that damn plane and the last person to get his damn luggage. It was just like a movie when I saw him, two parted lovers finally kiss in the middle of the airport. It was magical. My roommate Lauren would have loved it.

In Paris: 2/10-2/13
After our long awaited reunion, we took a train into Paris to find our Hostel, the Peace and Love Hostel. It was a cute little place with a jumpin bar on the bottom that seems to be a favorite among strange men in their 30s from the neighborhood, but what was even stranger was the fact that they had contests with the bartender on who could chug a Smirnoff Ice fastest. Smirnoff Ice? Really? That label should have a picture of me from high school. (sorry Mom and Dad) Anyhoo, we treked up the 7 flights of stairs as there was no elevator with all of our luggage and poor Nick messed his knee up due to those stairs; this would bother him for a big chunk of our travels. Our first day we went through the Notre Dame, and then on to the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees, ate a light dinner, and enjoyed some drinks back at the Peace and Love. The next day we headed out to Versailles, where I was welcomed right out of the train station by a lovely Starbucks. This made me happy. Versailles was really impressive. The palace is huge, but the best part are the gardens. They go on forever and ever. My favorite part of the gardens was the area that Marie Antoinette had taken over. Apparently, the lavish Austrian girl enjoyed the simple life. Therefore, she built a mock village so that she could walk around it. It's all inclusive, really fat pigs, goats, cows, ponds, a lighthouse, little cottages, a windmill, a gazebo, two "mini" palaces, and a ton of other things. The gardens hold some awesome fountains, including the fountain of Apollo, which I really liked. After Versailles, which took about 4 hours, but could have been 10, we headed back to Paris and got ready for some dinner and entertainment in the Latin Quarter. We dined at a mediocre/overrated French restaurant which served Nick a chicken breast with curry sauce (?) and then went on to a piano bar that my parents and I went to two years ago. We were delighted to have many lovers around us. Including, two 19 year olds who consistently made out, or for my older readers, making whoopy, for an hour, non stop, with the girl eventually sitting on his lap and his hands down her pants. I took a video of it none the less. After a beer, we decided to head back to the hotel and hit the hay. The next morning we went to the oh so loved Louvre. Unfortunately, Nick's knee was making him limp, so we cut our visit there short, but saw the Italian art, some Egyptian stuff, some French art, basically the main exhibits. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and went up to my favorite place, Montmartre. After going through the Sacre Coeur cathedral for my third time, we went through the little artistic district and sat down for a crepe. Nick's first. Wasn't as good as Nantes crepes, but it sufficed ok. After that, I walked Nick through the red light district and on to the Moulin Rouge before heading back to the hotel and then on to dinner. We ate at a great little restaurant that we found near us called Chez Papa, and it is by far some of the best French food that I've had. Nick discovered veal and warm goat cheese salad. Which he adores now. The next day we got ready to head to Munich after a long time of sitting in the train station in Paris waiting around to go. We got up to buy snacks and sudoku, and lunch through our 3 hours or more of sitting there. I had started feeling some pink eye coming on and Nick's knee was bad, so we went to the pharmacy to buy some things for that as well. Finally, it was time to board our train.

Munich: 2/13-2/17
It was an f-ing LONG train ride to Munich. 6 hours to be exact and I couldn't finish one damn sudoku puzzle because my smart thinking self bought the difficult level. I can attest to the fact that I have completed difficult sudoku successfully before, however, the French sudoku is not solvable. There's no way. Boy, it's sounding familar. Something not accessible or solvable in France? Hmm.... Anyways, we got to Munich in the night time, and were welcomed with a completely different temperature and snow. I had been practicing my German for, "Do you speak English", however the Germans are so smart that they know who to speak English to right away, so I never really got to say much except danke and guten tag and guten aubend. Our hotel was easy to find and we headed downtown to find some food. Oddly, we found ourselves at one of the major beer halls, Augustiner, where we tried our very first REAL pints of German beer. They are massive. And of course, as one of the German teachers told me, nothing goes with a beer like a beer pretzel. Nick and I filled ourselves up so much on beer and pretzels that we no longer felt the need to make our stomachs any bigger. The next day, which was Valentine's Day, I was surprised by a really nice perfume set from Nick as my V day present. We headed out later in the morning to join our tour to the castle of Neuschwanstein, about 2 hours away by train. I was a little perturbed to discover that the price I had been quoted on the internet was significantly less than the actual price I had to pay that day. I argued for a little bit with the Irish and/or Scottish man there but was not successful at knocking the price down. We were in a group of people from all over the world: Dubai, Colombia, Brazil, and the South Africans, a mother and daughter, who sat across from us on the train. I learned that South Africans speak Afrikant (not sure on the spelling) and it sounds a lot like Dutch. Of course some how we got on the subject of the apartheid in SA, knowing me, and I decided that they were really racist and didn't really want to talk to them anymore. The castle was absolutely magnficent. It's set in the Bavarian Alps with a goregeous view, yet the inside was only 1/3 of the way finished because King Ludwig died before its completion and had only lived there for a total of 120 days. It was really pretty with all the snow and the surrounding forest. Another great thing about the castle tour was the tour guide in the castle. He was THE CREEPIEST and STRANGEST little German boy ever. He would make strange faces and slow gestures and of course his accent truly added to the whole experience. I truly thought he was a vampire and the entire group had the same feeling. After he did his introduction, Nick looked at me and we both had the same face and started laughing. The castle was really pretty inside, but it's a shame that so little of it was finished. The trip there and back took about 7 hours and we got back to Munich to get ready for dinner. We had reservations for a place that I read was good and it was a cute restaurant. However, my pink eye had been acting up once again because I wore my contacts because I didn't want to wear my glasses to Valentine's dinner. I solved the problem by just ditching my right contact on the floor of the restaurant. Leaving my mark so to speak. After dinner we went to another beer house, and I can't remember which one, but it was big. :) The next day we went through the Residenz, the palace of Maximillian, I think. It was extremely big, however only a very small part was the original and the rest had been redone after being ruined in WWII. That's a slight issue with all of Munich and Germany in general, so much had to be rebuilt because of WWII, so the historical parts are more limited. After the Residenz we walked around Munich since we really hadn't seen that much of the actual city up to that point. The city is really quite beautiful. I loved it because it was CLEAN. No litter, no broken glass. No dog poop all over the ground and I never once saw a beggar until we hit a cathedral and there was one man. Compared to France, that's extremely surprising. Speaking of cathedrals, I can't remember which one it was, but one of them had this weird site. I was approaching one of the little side chapels that they usually devote to a saint and I slowly came up to the gate blocking it off to see a box with something creepy. It was a skeleton wrapped up in jewels and had a crown and it was laid on some velvet or something. It's skeleton hand was holding a sceptre I think and it was just kinda scary. Above it was another skull in a box and if I'm not mistaken it still had the eyes in it and you know how skeletons with eyes have that really wide eyed, surprised, staring kind of look, and this one definitely did and it really creeped me out. Nick and I have been meaning to see who it was, I'm assuming it was a saint relic or a bishop or something. Some of these European cathedrals have the weirdest things on display. It can be spooky. Anyhoo, we kept exploring, taking many pictures of course, hit a couple more beer halls, and ate some authentic saugsage and potato dishes for lunch. I wasn't too keen on the sausage, I never have been, but it was ok. Later on that evening we went on a bar crawl with a group of college kids that were studying abroad in Italy and of course there was a kid from U of Iowa and Iowa State. I don't think Iowans like staying in their state too much... I won't go into much detail on the bar crawl, except the fact that Nick and I felt really old because we couldn't party all night with those kids and left the bar crawl at 11:30 or something ridiculous. We went back to the hotel and zonked out. Unfortunately, I woke up the next morning with a fever and body aches and it got continually worse all day long and I stayed in the hotel all day while Nurse Nick took care of me. He even went down to the pharmacy and got me medicine and the little grocery store to get me snacks. I ended up getting sick enough that we decided to just go back to Nantes the next morning and skip our trip to Milan. :( We were sad, but it was necessary. The day after we got back to Nantes, I went to the doctor to discover that I had strep on my right tonsil and I got some big ole pills of Amoxicillan for only 6 euros! Woo hoo for my socialized health care!

Nantes and on
So the days in Nantes are a little blurred, so I'll just give you a quick list of everything we've done. We had a few days on our own in the apartment before Lauren got back and then the next week I had to start work again. :(
Food: I took Nick to my American burger place here where he was greeted by the owners as the boy "they've heard so much about!", we went to crepe places of course and he really loved the chocolate vanilla ice cream crepes, we went twice to my friends' and my's favorite Italian place for massive plates of pasta and undercooked pizza, I made him some of my premiere stove top meals, and of course, Kebab. As for drinking, Nick had hated wine up until now. Thanks to moi and la France, he drinks wine now. He even knows what Pinot Noir is. :)
Activities/Tourist things: We saw the museum of fine arts here, which is quite unique with a mix of contemporary and classical art in all its forms. I took him to see the elephant, unfortunately it was running, so we didn't get to ride it, we went through the cathedral, saw the movie Milk with John and Graham, I got him hooked to Big Love and have watched every episode up to season 3, went through the castle, went out with friends of course, he came with me one day to work and talked about business and peace, IE I just made up an excuse to have him there to tell the principal, took him to the famous Sunday market, went to the famous IKEA, showed him where the library was so he could hang out there while I was at work, and went to the gym. The gym was interesting for Nick, I introduced him to spinning class and along with that came the weirdo instructor who winked at him. Once that night and once the next night. I giggled.
Side trips
We took two different side trips. Our second weekend in Nantes, we rented a car with Lauren and April and headed to Mont St. Michel. It's a big abbey built in the 1100's or something on a mountain-island-marshland thing. It was just like old times riding in a car with Nick again, except adding in the round abouts, he took no time to freak us all out with sharp turns and speed. All in good fun....so he says! Poor Lauren almost had a heart attack in the back seat. We stopped in the town of Rennes, which I've heard is something special, it's not. It's a small and less pretty version of Nantes. We got back on the road and made it to Mont St. Michel. It was beautiful. The island is really small, probably less than a mile round, so we got around it pretty quickly. We hiked, and I mean lots of stairs type of hiking, up to the abbey to tour around it. It was ok, a lot of empty big spaces made of stone. After that we just mosied around the toursit shops and cafes. I even met some Iowans in a snack bar. I'm telling you, my state is going to be empty when I get back! We also walked on the marshy sand area where I successfully got my shoe stuck in the quicksand stuff where Nick had to come to my rescue and pull my mud covered shoe out. It was cool though. We ate crepes for dinner and stayed in the car to watch the sunset, and headed home. We were all exhausted when we got back and Nick and I watched a movie or Big Love or something before going to bed.
Our second side trip was this weekend. Friday, I cut out of work early, cause I'm a baller (a badass), and we rented a car again to head out into chateau country. We stopped in Angers to see the medieval fortress/castle there, as well as their big cathedral. I really liked the city, it's really pretty. After Angers, we took a long scenic route along the Loire towards Orleans. We saw the great French countryside, some castles and cute little villages from afar. We got to Orleans in the evening, ate dinner at a horrible excuse of a Mexican restaurant, you just can't get Mexican here, and had a drink at a cozy little pub that had game night. Board games, card games, classic antique wood games, etc. Nick even taught me how to play gin. I was quite tired, so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we head back out into the castle country and hit up the following: Chambord, Blois, Loches, Azay le Rideau, and Villandry. We only got to go inside of the first two, but it was cool all the same just to drive there and see all tht we did. Chambord was awesome, it's considered to be a "hunting lodge". Geez Francois the first, greedy much? Just be sure to check out the pictures, it's awesome. The grounds of Chambord are the size of Paris proper. HUGE! The only thing that happened that kinda got scary was we almost ran out of gas on the interstate because the French for some reason don't feel the need to build gas stations in the cities. We were lucky to find one, I'll just say that. We got back around 10 last night and went out for the last time in Nantes with my friends.

Right now I'm on a train finishing this long awaited blog towards Paris to spend my last night with Nick before he flies home tomorrow. I'm really sad to see him go, but I also know how close I am to coming home in May which gives me some ease. I really miss home, I'll be ready to get back to Iowa in May. Luckily, Margaret and Andy get here next weekend and they're staying for a week, so that will be fun and make time fly. Nick has gotten a good idea of what is so dang frustrating about this country and he's ready to be in the American system again, and he wants to put me in his suitcase. Europe is a really magical place and I've got to do so much here, but there's no place like home and there's no place like Panchero's and China Star in Old Capitol Mall and Los Portales in front Hy-Vee and of course all my people there. I hope everyone is doing well, not getting too bogged down by end of the year finals and plays, crappy bosses at work, or that yearning for the month of March to be over to bring on more of the spring weather. I miss you all very much. Till next time. xoxo

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