Almost time for Brussels!

I forgot to answer this question on the blog: we have been in Strasbourg since the 25th, we leave tomorrow 30th, and we will be in Brussels for 11 days (until the 9th). Then we leave Brussels and are in Paris about a day and a half, we leave for home early in the morning on the 11th and we arrive home that evening (time warp). Strasbourg has been really nice, we bought lots of French books here, a bunch of bookstores and book sellers. Clark has read (with my help) about 700 pages of manga Dragon ball translated from japanese into French, we're both learning a lot, slightly fatter, and have drunk a bit too much (found a really nice bar out of no where today with all kinds of beer) and visited the Kronenbourg (1664) brewery for a tour. We picked up a guide book about Brussels since we are going to be there for so long. It also has some Dutch common words in it, but it is kind of hopeless since I can't seem to sound it out. Brussels seems to be the capital of chocolate, beer, speculoos, and BD (comics) so I'm pretty excited. I wouldn't mind visiting a few museums while we are here too since we haven't done any sightseeing expense (except for the brewery) since Paris. We will be staying at a BnB when we are there (even though we booked from hostel bookers.com). Pretty excited for breakfasts, the croissants in Strasbourg are pretty lame to average.

Update finally

It's a nice night here in Strasbourg even though it poured most of the early evening. We arrived in Strasbourg from St malo on Monday, the city is very cool. It is like a German Annecy but more city-like. They have a bunch of canals and squares and bike paths, but they have more malls and bookstores and cafes. The food has a lot of German influence and is really good. I Like the choucroute (sauerkraut) and the beer. Tonight we had mussels though, which weren't bad, but after eating a whole pot of them, it was a bit too much for me.
Today I had my only junk breakfast since I arrived in France. We bought croissants from a boulangerie, but I'm not sure that they can really be called croissants - just because it is made of bread and butter and slightly crescent shaped doesn't make it a croissant. So tomorrow we will need to venture more into the city (we are on the outskirts of town) for a new boulangerie. Unfortunately there aren't boulangeries every block like there are in Paris.
Today we went to Germany and it was funny because I know absolutely no German. It was hard to order a beer. I thought most German people spoke English so when the waiter came up and started talking German I tentatively asked, English?, but he just said something about not understanding and he walked away. Fortunately he came back and Clark ordered for us in broken English, especially broken French, and pointing. We then went to McDonalds since Clark needs to go in every country, I made Clark order. Muahaha. Ordering at McDonalds is very hard for me in French since the items have mostly English names. It is really confusing. I didn't want to try ordering from a German menu using English German and French, Clark managed using broken English, really broken French, and pointing... muahaha.

Paris, La Rochelle, Annecy

Last week Tuesday, Christy and I left paris, our home town away from home. We spent five days in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast and the weather was great but it was pretty boring there. There wasn't much to do without spending loads of money to go on a boat tour or similar expensive activity. We walked around the harbor area looking at rich peoples boats. Christy got some reading for school done and I learned more French. We went to the beach but it was way too cold to get in the water. There were some kids in the water, but I was too much of a wimp. 

On Sunday evening we got to Annecy. It's beautiful here. The lake here is warmer than the ocean was in La Rochelle. We've been going to the beach and sunbathing. We even rented a paddle boat and explored the lake. We leave the day after tomorrow but neither of us are ready to go. 

Our next stop is Montpellier. We will be there Friday through Monday. On Sunday, le Tour de France will be going through Montpellier. We're pretty excited to see the cyclists. 

Photographic Documentation

I have uploaded some pictures of our trip thus far into two albums. The first one is just a general photo album containing lots of stuff and can be found here:

France

The other album is titled "Adventures With My New Bike" and has all my bike related stuff. I bought a cheap bike and we have been riding it around town. I have also been playing a little bike polo on it too. The link can be found here:

Bike suff

Life in Paris

So, here we are, a whole month into the trip. Where has the time gone? I've been putting off updating the blog for over a week now but I finally decided to share. 

Christy and I are pretty settled in to our Parisian lifestyles: Wake up; walk across the street to the nearest boulangerie (that's a bakery) and buy our days worth of croissants and baguettes; eat breakfast; walk or take the metro to the days attraction (museums, shopping malls, cemeteries, etc); find a nice cafe for lunch/drinks; meander through the streets of Paris back to our apartment; make and eat dinner; and if we still have energy after that, go back out to a cafe and drink beer and people watch. 

It's a pretty good life. I never thought that not working could be this tiring. 

Last night was the "Fête de la Musique" or "Festival of Music." It's something that's been going on in Paris for like thirty years where a whole bunch of professional and amateur musicians setup in the streets and play music all night. We went for a walk around town, it was a zoo. There were people and bands everywhere. Some places were playing music really loudly till this morning. 

Tomorrow we are going to Versailles. It should be cool, but I've gotten pretty sick of looking at art. After having been to over half a dozen museums in the last month I've kind of gotten tired of it. Did you know that half of the population of Paris died from the Black Plague in the mid 14th century?

We went to a play last night. It was in French, and because it was a play, there weren't any subtitles. I understood four words of the entire two hour play. Needless to say, I was bored out of my mind. Christy really enjoyed it though. One of the actors kept saying funny things and it seemed like I was the only one who wasn't laughing. 

In less than two weeks we leave our Parisian home for La Rochelle, a city on the Atlantic. I'm excited to see other parts of France. 

A tout a l'heure! (see you later)

Bus trip

So the last 24 hours have been really fun. Last night after we made dinner we walked down ave Montaigne near the Champs-élysées, which is a super rich district. We stopped and had too expensive drinks by this large boulevard where we could cruise and see the seine and Eiffel tower. The waiter was really funny, he went to go for a smoke break so he rolled down the street on a little pink scooter (the kind you peddle with your feet like a skateboard).

As it got dark we walked down the seine towards the small statue of liberty, then we headed back towards the base of the Eiffel tower so that we could see it all lit up, it was really cool. There was also a huge thunderstorm brewing, so the flashing of lightning near the eiffel tower was pretty spectacular as well. We then speed walked home and watched the pouring rain and lightening out of our window, some guy across the street in another building watched as well, in his underpants and a tshirt.

Today after we woke up and had our daily dose of croissants and butter, we read our books for a bit then decided to take a bus adventure. We walked to the louvre, then we got on a bus that took us to the cemetery Pere Lachaise. We had a nice lunch nearby then spent a couple of hours searching for famous people's graves, which wasn't very easy even with a map.

To take a scenic ride home we got on the bus going the wrong way, then we got on the one going the right way, which was crazy busy. After we got off near the Gare St. Lazare, we were going to transfer to a different bus, although it ended up having a long wait time. While we tried to figure out what to do, the French rappers Black Mesrimes and the Senegalais guy from the group I listen to all the time (Sexion D'Assaut) walked up the street right past us to get in a taxi. It was so cool, my first star I've seen and they are French. So cool!

New apartment

So after two weeks of eating like kings, having lots of fun, familiarizing ourselves with the city, walking like crazy and practicing our French (mostly with ordering food, like croque Monsieur), my family has left and Clark and I have transferred from the lovely latin quarter to rue ponthieu near the champs-élysées. Clark played bike polo with some French guys (who drank Perrier and Badoit and chain smoked) last Saturday, I hope to start being a bit more integrated with the people here for this next month, so polo should be fun. I also have to read a lot for school, maybe I can find a book club, lol.
Today is Sunday, a day of rest. The streets this morning were deserted even at nine in the morning and there was much barf on the streets and the metro cars. Saturday is apparently the night to go out. Today once we settled in I mostly slept the afternoon away, I'm sure all the French tennis fans are watching the French open today. A bientot!

Paris

So, Christy and I have been in Paris for ten days now and we've mostly adjusted to this extremely foreign (to us) place. Her parents and sister have been here with us and they will be here till Sunday.

We've hit all the major tourist spots: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Pantheon, the Siene, the roadside creperies, etc.

We've been to four museums, Walked thousands of miles, We've eaten baguettes every day, we've eaten stinky cheese and we have even eaten snails. We have taken a taxi, a bus, a train, and we rode bikes. They have a public bicycle sharing program here called Velib (www.velib.Paris.fr) You pay for a membership and they have 24,000 bikes in service around the city with a station every couple blocks. You check out a bike with your bike pass from a station and you return it at a station near your destination. It's pretty cool.

The sun doesn't set here till after 9:30, which is weird. Doesn't get dark until about 10:15. Paris is a lot more touristy than I thought it would be. Paris is called the "City of Light"... I haven't been outside after dark yet. I got another five weeks here though, I think I'll manage to get out.

Le premier jour

After over 29 hours of travel clark and I arrived in Paris. Yippee. I spoke French with the cabbie and the doorman. Driving in Paris is so nuts. Anyway it has been really fun so far. The hardest part is knowing what to do in certain circumstances. For example, I didn't think it would be so hard to figure out how to eat breakfast. Clark and I woke up too early this morning and nothing really opened until about 7:30 or 8. We found a cafe to eat in but we weren't sure whether to sit down or go to the bar. Everyone seemed to be at the bar. After I asked, we sat down and ordered le petit dejeuner, it comes with une boisson chaud (a hot drink) but I mentioned how Clark isn't to big on coffee so I asked for just a water (I forgot that tea is also a hot drink), so the waiter said, only a water? And I said yes, but then as he was walking away I realized that he meant ONLY a water (and not the rest of the meal) so I made sure to correct that. It would have been really funny if my yummy croissant and cafe au lait came out and Clark only got a glass of water. After le pd (petit dejeuner) we wandered around in search of an apple store which was near the louvre somewhere, it took a while to find, apparently it was IN the Louvre. The louvre had wifi near the apple store and for some reason Clark's iPad wifi finally started working. We got in trouble for sitting on the ground, then we left and got baguettes with camembert after having walked for 3.5 hours. Later we are going to buy dinner from some of the markets and see where the apartment is located where we will be staying in a couple of weeks.
Our hotel has French tv, awesome, last night we watched "enquete la violence souterainne", it was like french cops, but less dramatic, they try to catch thieves or harassers or whatever in the metros.
The Notre Dame is gorgeous and the Seine is amazing. The sky is clear and the weather is fresh.
Whoa, long post about random stuff, but we are so excited!! Clark doesn't understand a thing, but people said I spoke good French :)

T-Minus 2 Days 8 Hours and Some Minutes

My wife Christy and I will be on a plane headed to Paris early Wednesday morning taking almost a whole day to get there.

In December she graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in French language and literature but she has never been to France. She now has the opportunity to go and I get to tag along. I speak very little French so I'm going to have to put my life in her hands.

We will be gone for three months and I am going to attempt to document as much of it as I can on this blog. The next post I will make will probably be from France. Hopefully I will be able to convince Christy to write up a post or two while we are there.