Abroad Book 1

First:  Paris!  It has been 11 years since we were here and we were super excited to see this beautiful city again, especially in the spring time.   We had perfect weather, got in to a lot of the sights, mastered the art of riding the subway, savored their amazing food and enjoyed the French-way.   Here are some of the places we went:

The Louvre at night.  Pretty awesome picture with my so so camera!  We spent a long afternoon/evening here enjoying the art and checking on the Mona Lisa.   She’s good,  even though her painting had been moved to a larger so she is all by herself now.    Below picture of two men in contemplation…

The little French town of Auriel we stayed in a few miles from the center of Paris…so French! 

The Notre- Dame, we got there at 6 just in time to hear the organ play and a boys choir sing for mass,  it was pretty spectacular.   I can never get over how LARGE this church is!  What the….who is that, some sort of bush man?  The  Army Museum and Crypt of Napoleon.  Guy heaven with all the war memorabilia.  It had war display’s up until World War 2 which was interesting being that Trent’s Dad was here serving then and participated in liberating France.   Loved this museum!   A must see.

  The Champs de- Elysees is a fun stroll full of people watching, big stores and the best were the police were on rollerblades, sounds fun right!  The Arc de Triomphe is in the back ground. 

“Sup” we loved this sign in the subway because Ben and Jay always say “Sup”?  As in WHATS UP!!  It made us laugh every time we saw it… The Palace of Versailles was in one word:  WOW and a LONG walk around the palace, garden’s and two miles thru the estate gardens was the home of Marie Antoinette.  Our feet hurt by the end of this day but it was worth every second…so much awe it was hard to take in.      Snack time before returning to Paris by train.  We lived on French Baguettes and Nutella…

This is the Sacre’-Coeur Cathedral which is one of the most photographed images in Paris besides the Eiffel Tower.  It sits way up on the highest hill overlooking the whole city of Paris. It was built as a memorial to the 58,000 French Soldiers who were killed in the war of 1870.  It also has a huge famous mosaic tile of the Coming Christ in the front of the cathedral which one cannot take photo’s…except we don’t read very well and sort of took one and sort of got TOLD “no-photo’s”  It was too dark in there so it didn’t turn out anyway!    

MADRID

Next stop was Madrid.  We loved Madrid.  It has the coolest train system underground and above, has amazing art museums, palaces, people everywhere in the streets at night and the jamon hanging in all the little deli’s.  The people here eat lots of aged ham/tapas/olives/bread. This was our hotel/hostel in the heart of Madrid you can see me on the balcony of the 5th floor.  A  Spanish family rents out 5 rooms in their apartment home it was fun seeing how they lived and Trent had fun talking to them.  In the afternoon and at night the people walk the streets it is PACKED like in this photo below, this is on a Saturday night and everywhere you look the streets look like this.  There are street performers everywhere. 

The Manhattan side of Madrid. 

 MALAGA, NERJA AND RHODA SPAIN Caves in Nerja Spain on the Costa del Sol.  Largest Stalactite  Caves in the world.Fell in LOVE with Paella.  Made over a big fire at a beachside restaurant called Ayos.  Costa del Sol.   We met Trent’s brother Craig and his wife and their friends Luann and Don Hunsaker in Malaga.  We spent the next seven days exploring southern Spain.  We made some really fun memories of getting lost, windy roads, beach towns, white villages, old towns etc. 

Cathedral in Malaga.

Now we are exploring a really cool town really HIGH up in the mountains called Ronda.   

This road sign was posted BIG all along the winding roads we took from Ronda to Gibraltar…pretty clear that if you are on your “bike” better watch out!!!

GIBRALTAR

  We hired a guide to drive us in his van to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar.  It was the most amazing  tour and the view from the top was beautiful you could see Spain, Africa and Gibraltar.  Gibraltar  is owned by England so it is English.  We loved exploring this town and buying good English candies and chocolates at the English grocery store ! The view from the top and if you are scarred of heights, this is not the place to be!  Below is a naughty little aggressive monkey who was trying to climb in Trent’s window.  The monkeys were everywhere and would literally make a running leap and jump on you….Jay warned us!