We’ll be gone a month. Wish us luck!

We’ll be posting the latest and greatest baby info here as soon as the little one arrives!

In case you not aware, French people have no fear about pushing their way through a queue or a crowd. We figured we would wait until the 3rd bus so that we wouldn’t have to force our way on. Wrong. Realizing we were never going to get on a bus if we didn’t get gutsy and push our way on as well, we put outside our good manners and made it on board (Kevin told some Asian girl to move so that I could sit down: “She’s pregnant”). A short trip later and we ended up as some station that had the name Versailles in it, but was not where we expected to be. With a little help from a friendly train person, we found our way back onto yet another train for a couple more stops to Versailles. It dropped us somewhere further from the chateau than we could see on our map, and by this time, though we had a pain au chocolat at CDG, we were starving and grouchy. So, our first stop was to the crepe cafe recommended by Rick Steves. It was warm and cozy and very French. And DELICIOUS. Savory crepes for lunch and then we each had our own dessert crepe. So totally worth it.

Versailles…on the other hand…not so much. Despite arriving there at after 3pm, there were hoardes of people and you literally could not walk anywhere of your own accord. You just had to follow the course of the crowd. And it was still raining. And it was expensive. And there were these really stupid artworks in most of the rooms of the chateau. For example, a golden status of Michael Jackson and a monkey, in the middle of an opulent sitting room. WHAT?????

Check out the pics:

From Versailles

Anyway, we headed back after a couple of hours. Our hotel has the best bed of our trip and it’s still rainy and cold outside, so we had a very nice (and expensive) dinner here at the hotel as our last meal in France. Then we walked upstairs and are now getting ready for bed.

The perfect ending to a perfect trip.

From Cochem Adventures

Here are some links to photos from:

1. Koln
2. Cochem Adventures

Talk to you soon!!

We are safe and sound, and sleeping lots.

From Bruges, Westvleteren & Antwerp

Here are some pics:

1. our night trip up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (I was too chicken to go to the top…pregnancy vertigo??)
2. the Louvre
3. night cruise down the Seine and dinner near the Sacre Couer (Basilica)
4. Bruges day 1
5. Bruges, Westvleteren & Antwerp

Monday morning we got up, had our delicious hotel-provided breakfast (yummy!!) and headed out to do the Rick Steves walk around Bruges. We saw the primary sights and had a snack before leaving. A Belgian waffle with strawberries and fresh whipped cream. I highly recommend our hotel. The proprietors were very nice and the place was immaculate: Hotel Patritius.

Then we went to Westvleteren to pick up 72 bottles of the best beer in the world. The beer is made by Trappist monks in case you didn’t go look at the links describing it. And so we had to pick it up from their monastery in the middle of Belgium. It was very beautiful countryside and as serene a locale as I’ve ever seen. Everything went very smoothly and we loaded the 3 cases into our trunk.

At that point we were starving so we stopped in the nearby town to get some lunch. Kevin decided it was time to try……STEAK TARTARE!!!! Ewwwwwww. You can see some pics of that meal. Needless to say, he ate most of it and didn’t die. He didn’t even throw up and now feels a sort of pride in having conquered such a beast. Eww.

Back in Bruges, we had a lovely little stroll as it started to sprinkle rain. It didn’t stop raining until this morning, Wednesday. Tuesday was mostly a driving day, which was good since it was raining fairly heavy all day, even when we got here to Koln. We’re just here for one night on the way to the Mosel Valley. We figured since it was just one night we would stay at the cheapest Hilton we could find. Turns out that the Hilton is right in the center of everything, a few blocks from the Dom (the primary sight to see in Koln). Today we will go have breakfast (free!!) and then trapse around Koln before heading off to the beautiful and castle-laden Mosel Valley for 3 nights.

Kevin is also posting pics on www.kev-mo.com if you are interested!!!

Yesterday we reluctantly left Paris for Bruges.  We spent 4-5 hours cruising the French countryside crisscrossing innumerable French villages in our stylish Hertz-provided Prius.  Bruges is ridiculous. Every little alley leads to a new medieval scene worthy of a postcard. Awesome beer and amazing chocolate.  Anna has grown a half inch.

Ridiculous

Today we go to the Abbey of St. Sixtus to pick up the world’s best beer.

It’s about five in the evening on Friday.  Anna is taking a nap and I am answering emails and playing with videos.  Early this morning, we took the metro to Notre Dame.  I am typically bored at cathedrals but Notre Dame was amazing.  The history and the iconography of the building was very interesting.  Most interesting factoid: across the middle horizon of the building are statues of the 27 kings of Judah.  During the French revolution, the revolutionaries mistook the kings as French kings of old and, in grand revolutionary style, beheaded the statues.  A local school teacher, secretly collected the heads and buried them in his back yard.  In 1977, nearly 200 years later, an excavation unearthed the heads.  A video and few pictures below and more here.

Two Lovebirds on the Seine

Anna at Notre Dame

Pregnant Anna at the Seine

Inside Notre Dame

Kevin at Notre Dame

Anna and the Crepe

Our first meal:

Our First Meal. Crepetastic