Yesterday’s itinerary included a visit and climb up the Arc de Triomphe, a visit to the Musee Jacquemart-Andre, a stroll through Luxembourg Gardens, and a tour of the Pantheon. The day started off with a little bit of luck! I had us on the correct Metro train but going to the wrong stop. We realized that the stop I had us going to would be going outside of the zone with which our tickets were good for so we hopped off to purchase the correct tickets. Then we realized that we had hopped off at the station directly outside the…
Paris, France: Day 2
We forced ourselves up this morning despite the fact that we both wanted to keep sleeping. We are trying our best to switch to our new time zone as quickly as possible! We set off to find a patisserie for some breakfast. Today we were a bit smarter and brought our phrase book with us! I had been memorizing how to say “We would like…” all morning. Now was the big moment! My palms were sweating, my mouth went dry, and I prayed that my pronunciation was close to correct. I stepped up to the counter and tried to act…
Paris, France: Day 1
We arrived at the airport, exactly according to plan at 4:20 in the afternoon, our flight, with Icelandair was scheduled to depart at 7:20 p.m. However, the volcanic eruption that occurred in Iceland earlier in the week was still delaying flights. The flight didn’t leave until almost 8:30 p.m. We settled in for our 5 1/2 hour flight that we were hoping to sleep right through. Sadly, the best laid plans are often disrupted. We dozed off now and again for the first 2-3 hours of the flight but then something happened that we didn’t exactly expect… The sun was suddenly…
A Change in Plans
We had originally wanted to book our apartment in Chamonix through a website called Home Away. When Home Away put us into contact with the individuals who own and rent the apartment we had chosen, our experience took a turn for the worse. The individuals only accepted bank transfers which meant we were going to incur additional transfer fees from our bank and possibly of the bank we were transferring to. They also didn’t supply me with all of the necessary information needed and when I contacted them asking them for the other information it took them a week to…
Rail Europe
We decided that it would be really fun to take a train from Paris to Chamonix so we could see the beautiful countryside we would be traveling through. We started looking into purchasing tickets and found several options at the Rail Europe’s website, http://www.raileurope.com/index.html We found many options including high speed trains and night trains. Because we wanted to watch the country side fly by we decided that the high speed train fit the bill perfectly. I started researching tickets several months ago and discovered that tickets weren’t available that far in advance. I was disappointed and concerned about how I…
Preparation for France Trip 2011
Bobby and I are planning our 2011 trip to France and are very excited! When we decided to embark on our first European adventure together we sat down and discussed what are goals and expectations were for a trip like this. We found that we had very different ideas… I had decided that I really wanted to see the big tourist sites, experience the people-made wonders of the world. While Bobby had decided that he really wanted to experience nature in other parts of the world and have outdoor adventures! After we discussed the benefits of each of our goals…
Mount Whitney: The Climb up to 14,505 Feet!
With no training or any real idea of the challenge that lay ahead of us we climbed to the top of Mount Whitney (14,505 feet) the tallest peak in the continental United States. Looking back at it, we sometimes feel like we cheated since the horses carried us up to almost 11,000 feet the day before the actual hike up. We camped at Guitar Lake, a popular stop for hikers looking to climb Mount Whitney. It’s popularity wasn’t lost on us as groups of hikers began flooding the area and level, non-rocky campsites were becoming scarce. It was a sadly…
Horseback Riding in the Sierras
Once at Cottonwood Pass, we weren’t mounted on our horses and mules and ready to set off into the unknown wilderness that lay ahead for several hours. The horse I was given was a dapple gray named Ears. Ears was aptly named considering the fact that his ears flopped sideways and swayed in time with the his gait. He was a horse that was prone to falling asleep the minute I dismounted and greatly enjoyed apple cores. Bobby was given a mule named Sweeper. She had lovely eyes and used them to size Bobby up pretty quickly. Lets just say…
Horseback Riding in the Sierras, Travel Day
After years of Bobby hearing about my horseback riding adventures in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana he decided that he wanted to join me on a horseback adventure through the wilderness. We looked at a variety of options including riding in Yellowstone, the Sierras, or doing the same trip I’d already done in the Bob. We decided to go with the Sierras trip for several reasons. Firstly it was the most affordable of the trips we were looking at. Secondly, in order to get from the airport to our rendezvous point we would get to drive through Yosemite, a…
Cruise 2010
In January of 2010 we took a belated honeymoon cruise. We were married in June of 2009 but because of work obligations were unable to take a honeymoon immediately following the wedding. We researched prices of several cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Norwegian. At the time, Carnival seemed to not only give us good bang for our buck, their website was easy to navigate, and it seemed to align most closely with what we were looking for in our cruise vacation. We booked over the phone and had a very helpful sales associate. However, after you book one…