Toy trains,end of the world train stops, France's biggest secret & dress up parties

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Verdun is a small town where World War1 took place. It is France's biggest secret, a sparsely populated peaceful community of tiny villages, many walking distance apart, set in idyllic rolling hills, that nature has reclaimed since the war and the rest of France has forgotten about. It is so peaceful here that if it was not for all the shell craters everywhere, it would be difficult to imagine that almost 900 000 soldiers died horribly here in a war that lasted the longest in recorded history - almost 11 months!!! We did not even know about this place until Ben(our host in Verdun) saw my post about our travels in Europe on the family welcome group on Couchsurfing and invited us to visit him and his family for a few days on our way from Paris to Luxembourgh as it was only three hours by train either way. We did not know what we were going to do in Verdun as it was really not part of our itinerary. We were just excited to meet Ben and his family and I planned the trip in such a way that we could get an impression of both the city and the countryside in each country we visited. We had to change trains at Chalons-en-champagne station, where we had to take this really cute little train with only two coaches, as Verdun is a really small town and not many people travelled here.

We arrived at the train station in Verdun and thought we were going to be lost as the station was just one platform halfway on the road somewhere at the end of the world!!! But lost we could never be because waiting in the icy cold, with the warmest smiles on their faces, were Ben's wife Isa & daughter Lorraine. They had come to meet us at the station and drive us back to their home which was at least an hour away. Isa couldn't speak much English but Lorraine was great.
The Agostini's home was lovely. We had our own little quarters attached to the side of the house and it was really cosy. Ben was preparing an early dinner for us as they were going to a birthday party and we were invited too. The instant we met Ben and his family, we loved them and it was like we'd known them forever!!

It was Anthony's (Ben's CS friend) birthday party and it was at his parents' home in a town called Metz,which was an hours drive away but in the thick snow it took us almost three hours to get there. The house was awesome and the party mmm..so so. We had to also sleep over at Anthony's place. The theme of the party was to dress up as whatever we loved the best.

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Photos

Dressed for the party
Kee-strawberry, Lorraine-apple pie Kris coconut

We had to dress as what we loved
Isa-cabbage, Cindy-icecream

Her passion was christmas
so she was a christmas tree

fun
Ben & Isa

Lorraine
was just too cute