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Published: October 26th 2008
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Tour de France
I'm wearing the yellow jersey under my jacket... Sitting in Egypt writing a blog about France and Germany one word really comes to mind: refinement. When the French and Germans develop a liking to something, they refine it to a sharp point of perfection. Weather it's crêpes on the street or café & cuchen, champagne or beer, museums or markets, or looking "fashionable", and socializing and having fun, these two cultures know what they like and they do it well. It's definitely not to say that they don't charge you for enjoying the things they have perfected, but none the less Kels and I followed suit and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest while we were there.
The flight to Paris from Vancouver on Air-TransAt was relatively painless as we slept the whole way there. Although they did manage to serve the worst meal possible "Presidents Choice Microwave Chicken Korma Dinner", now I know why I stay out of the frozen aisle of the grocery store…
Then we touched down in Paris and took the metro into the city and checked into our favourite miniature-hotel, right in the heart of the Latin Quarter, Hotel St. Pierre. Our first priority was a drink so we went out and sat
I know this one, I know this one!
Self portrait of Van Gough at Museum d'Orssay down at a café and ordered a glass of wine and a small beer. We relaxed and watched the Parisians go about their business and when the bill for 18 Euros ($27) came, we knew we were in Paris! Over the 3 days in Paris we … did a great bike tour around the city with Fat Tire Bike Tours (Thanks Trey!), went to the Museum d’Orssay, and cruised around our area stopping into cheese, charcutiere, and wine shops along the way.
After we got our fill of Paris, we packed up and took the train from Paris to Trier, Germany, which is located along the Mosel River, very close to the Luxemburg border. Trier is actually the oldest town in Germany, used for a time by the Romans thousands of years ago as their main city (even above Rome) when they were conquering the continent (think about the first battle scene in Gladiator when they beat down the Germanic Tribe…yeah that was Trier…). We checked into a hostel in the centre of the small pedestrian-only area and knew we were going to like this place, as it had a small farmers market in the middle of the town
The Avenue of Diamonds & Rubies
Champs d'Elysée - not just because of LV & Cartier, but becuase of the headlights (Diamonds) & brakelights (Rubies) square and a small tent that poured wine by the glass from local vintners. Trier has all sorts of old sights including the Roman Arch, the Roman Bridge, the Roman baths (you get the point…) and a beautiful cathedral built around the turn of the first century, and the town itself is very charming. The next day the sun was shining and we rented a couple bikes and rode along the shores of the Mosel & Saar Rivers, zigzagging our way through vineyards of Riesling and small villages until we arrived at the fairy-tail-town of Saarbourg for schnitzel and struddle which was well deserved after the 30km ride! This is an amazing place to go cycling and wine tasting, and compared to some of the places we saw in France in the Spring, the price is right too!
Following a day of rest, we then traveled by train to Düsseldorf to visit our Aussie friend Lovie (Mark) who I met playing rugby in Melbourne, who now works for a UK company based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It was totally awesome to see him again and to visit Düsseldorf for the first time. And what a good time we had! It
Tour Eiffel en Nuit
Yeah, that means "Eiffel Tower at Night"...mon amies! was Saturday afternoon when we arrived and what seemed like half the city was out along the main street leaning on high tables at one of the “ump-teen” bars lining the street with a beer in their hand…I thought the sign said Düsseldorf when we arrived, but apparently we were in Beer Drinking Heaven! The beer servers were pretty funny too…every time they came out of the bar they had a tray of about 40 beers (each 250ml) and if your beer was less then half full they would drop you a new one, put a new mark on your beer coaster and sprint off to the next half-empty glass…you don’t even have to say anything… you just gotta keep up! Some of the places only served beer so Kels was right in it too! That night we also gorged on very a very traditional German meal of boiled pork knuckle, baked pork knuckle, bratwurst, weiswurst, ham, potato salad, and for veggies…sauerkraut! We should have just called it the pork and beer celebration night! It was all very good!
The following day was a fuzzy one, but we did go down to the banks of the river Rhine in
Ain't she pretty...
The Eiffel Tower doesn't look so bad either! the afternoon to see the Dussledorfers out and about along the promenade (still eating, drinking and singing!) and we also checked out some of the architecture of some of the new buildings which was creative to say the least!
Then finally our “lay-over” in Europe was over and the next day we packed up again and made our way to Frankfurt by train. Since we had a lot of time we decided to take the cheaper regional trains that required a couple connections, but would get us to Frankfurt airport with plenty of time to spare, or so we thought… Our second train was 25 minutes late, which forced us to buy new tickets for the more expensive fast train which got us in to Frankfurt ‘only’ 3.5 hours before our flight. When we checked in the lady told us that we were ‘relatively late’ and because the flight was oversold we were on stand-by for our flight to Egypt! What?!? Anyway we talked about it and thought that this could work out for the better since if they bumped us to the next day’s flight, they would put us up in the nice Sheraton hotel at the airport,
Biking in Paris
Fat Tire Bike Tours! Good times at the Louvre! feed us, and give us a credit towards another flight ( which is what we spend most our money one these days anyway!) After waiting in the departure gate for an hour, chatting with the attendant, waiting to see if we’d be flying or staying, we were issued tickets to sit across the aisle from each other (not bad…) so I graciously thanked the attendant for all his hard work and for getting us these seats next to each other and then Kels and I qued up and waited to board the plane (no flight credit this time…) but just as we were about to hand over our boarding passes, we hear “Herr Stiefvater, could you come here please?” So I duck out of the line, thinking maybe we’re now staying the night, but the attendant says “I have better seats for you.” I joke and say “First Class?” and he says “I’m afraid not…Business Class.” (Yippee!!!) Kels and I are totally shocked, looking at these two boarding passes, but none the less board the plane and settle into our MASSIVE seats, which actually require reading the instructions on how to use them! We were two kids in a candy
Kels on the Metro in Paris!
Still smiling even with that massive bag on the back, and another on the front! shop drinking our pre-departure champagne and messing around with our chairs. We both asked if the pilot could fly slower to stretch out our time in the high-life, but with-in 4 hours we touched down in Cairo! It was a beautiful time in Europe, enjoying all the finer things in life, right up to the flight out! And now our Africa adventure starts and we are so excited!!!
Lots of Love to all our family and friends!
Until next time…
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Lovie
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Nice one, guys! Great to see you again, hope Africa is going great guns!