Au revoir Sweet Paris

Well I'm sitting on my deck drinking this:

There are over 15 ice cubes in this!  AND this is probably ~32 oz off water!  :) lol. 

TOMATOES COMING IN!

Speaking of which the boys were telling me about how when they come to America people look at them like they're crazy when they don't want ice.  lol.  ALSO, Jan was telling me how when he comes to Cedar and it's snowing and ice is everywhere and he's freezing to death and they set a glass of ice water down in front of him. lol.  I couldn't quit laughing.  I never even thought about it being -30 degrees and not drinking water w/ ice in it. lol.  ha

Well, I took off Sunday AM from Paris and everything went smoothly.  I flew from Amsterdam to Chicago in one of the largest planes I've ever seen in my life.  I wish I would have had a sec to take a pic.  It was unbelievable.  I was a little concerned when I first got on about it making it over the ocean.  I can't understand how they get the regular size ones over the ocean let alone one w/ four engines I could stand upright in.  !?!?  This is truly and amazing world we live in.

This was a pic I found on the internet of it:  Doesn't even begin to capture the enormity of this aircraft.

Nancy found a new perfume in Paris and gave me a sample of it that I have on now, it's reminding me of Paris.  I think that smell will forever be Paris to me.

I saw so many beautiful sites in Paris and Amsterdam.  They're beautiful countries w/ lovely people.  But getting off the plane and seeing my husband was the sweetest thing I'd seen in days.  It made me teary too.  I was happy to be home.

I feel so blessed sitting here typing this.  Thankful for friends that wanted me to see the world and places they loved.  Opened their homes, gave of their time to help me along that journey and then to come home to friends and family here.  It's nice to live in a world where no matter where you live, caring and kindness for people really looks the same everywhere.

It was funny when I was in France and Amsterdam.  It was hard not to make comparisons, but mostly it was hard not to find similarities.  For example, when people are arguing, you don't really have to know what they're saying to know that they're unhappy.  That boys fist bump each other when they see each other.  That when people get to speed traps they slow down and when they're thru them they speed back up to where they were before.  :)  People pick their nose when they drive.  People are addicted to their cell phones and crackberries and they live with them everywhere and turn them on and start talking on them as soon as they can on a plane.  What can you say, some things are just human nature. 

I will say Parisians make American's look a little manic.  They live in a sort of organized chaos.  American's like they're structure compared to Parisians.  The relationship of the cars, motorcycles and pedestrians are a prime example of this to me.  No one follows the rules to closely (even tho if they're pulled over their driving punishment would probably be stronger than in the U.S.).  Also, the airport was like that.  They'd ask all the business class/elite fliers to come first and then everyone and their brother would walk up and board.  It was hilarious.  Also, American's hate budgers and you have to get over that too, the rest of the world doesn't seem to care. 

Adults would walk down the street and their kids/dogs would be way behind of or in front of them.  I'd watch and they'd never check on them.  They all just walked along together.  I watched a dog I thought was alone and then saw him run around the corner to his boss who was 1/2 up the next street.  He ran our ahead of him then.  It was just seemed... easy. :)

Also, I'm sure they exercise, but I also found that interesting.  When we were in New York there were runners, when I get off work the streets are filled w/ runners.  In Paris if people were running they were American or unhinged ;)  J/K, but they were not the norm.  I probably saw 6 people non-American total running and then I saw 3 Americans running, so either way, the numbers not to high.  I could be wrong, but it felt like Parisians lived a little more balanced.  Health was part of AM - PM, not 45-60 min 5 days of the week.  I might have that wrong, but that's how I saw it. 

Most were in great shaped and were well dressed.  But that's always a little harder to assess in the city.  American cities tend to be that way as well.  Although I will say, the European city boys know how to dress.  They're not afraid of color and it's very well put together.  Back to the shape people are in, I think living in a city lends to more walking (both because it's more accessible to people, but also because everything is so costly).  Additionally, I think the smoking could also contribute to the lower weight as well.  Which reminds me, I need to change my nicotine patch.  I think all the 2nd hand smoke I inhaled made me addicted to cigarettes.  ;)  I'm pretty sure I saw a pigeon and a Jack Russell terrier smoking at one point.  ;)  lol. 

Final thoughts, no one was rude.  Didn't meet one person who was unkind.  I'm sure there are some, but I didn't meet any.  I didn't eat anything I couldn't live without or wasn't as good as I'd had in Cedar Rapids (I'm sure that sentence is killing some of you who might be reading this :).  The women were skinnier then skinny.  I was worried some of them didn't have enough Euros to buy a bite to eat.  ;)  But in all honesty, the majority is skinny. 

So, at the end of the day, the story is basically this.  I was born here and love it, but if I was born there, I'd love there.  It's a beautiful world God's given us.  I'm happy I was able to see a little more of its beauty and its people. 

Au revoir.

A few additional pics from phone camera of Versailles:

Going to be adding additional video here in the next few if you're interested in checking any of that out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/eltimmer79?feature=mhee

If Louis XIV lived today he'd have a "grill"

Side note: I don't know if these people are still fighting some kind of war... but all the clocks are on military time.  I spend more time counting things out on my fingers trying to figure out what time it is. 

Nancy graciously let me sleep in a for a few hours today.  The few nights have been beyond late.  Got myself up and moving and out the door, but not before we stole breakfast from a business group at the hotel. There breakfast was all laid out waiting for them and we sat down and had at it.  Ooops.  We didn't realize what we had done until we were sitting there with mouths full of food and the people walking by were disgusted w/ us.  Hey!  We're Americans!  Don't leave food laying around. After we made a quick get-away from the hotel, we walked from the hotel to the train station to grab the train to Versailles.  Nanc had other plans for today, so I met up w/ Laurence (she lives in Versailles area).  The funny part was as we were walking I had to stop and take a few pictures, I'm pretty sure I past everything before, but everythings so beautiful sometimes you need to get a shot of one more thing.  The way home was like that as well, my camera battery died midway thru Versailles so I couldn't grab any on the way home.  It really is a beautiful city.  And the Parisians feel the same way about it. Le Michigan Ave was very quite.  I haven't seen it like that once since I got here.

My beautiful friend Nancy with the Rockwell bag!  :)  Still on our way to the train station.

Got to the metro and Laurence greeted me and we were off!  Versailles is spectacular and I had a great time w/ Laurence as well.  It was nice to spend some time getting to know one another.  We had prepurchesed our tickets in hopes of a shorter wait, but the que was miles long.  It moved pretty fast.  She said that Paris is the number one visited city in the world.  Not surprising.  Everywhere I went there were thousands of people from all over, and 90% of them were at Versailles w/ us.  :)  The weather was perfect!  It was the first sunny day we've had in Paris!  So happy I got to spend it at a place painted in gold! 

PS - It's a good thing I'm going home tomorrow.  I'm out of adjectives to describe things in Paris.  Starting after this if I use an adjective and it has an * by it, I used the thesaurus on it.

It's amazing to think of all the things that happened in those palaces, the number of people they would have needed to keep it up and running.  Candles to light it!  The peasants coming to ransack it and then drag the king and queen into town to behead them.  That palace has seen a lot of crazy days.  :)  They said they're on a quest to track down the original furniture from the palace that was taken when the riots happened.  How they would even know where to start w/ something like that is beyond me.

Everything was opulent.  Gold, gold, gold, mirror, mirror, mirror, crystal, crystal, crystal, oh yeah and there was some gold.  They apparently touch it up from time to time - including the paintings on the walls and ceiling.  If you think about what most of those paintings would have been painted with (egg whites and powdered pigments I think) it's crazy.  The ceilings were astonishing*, most had paintings that were telling the story off the greatness of France or the king or the queen.  Usually thru the use of mythological (real word?) creatures.  Needless to say, the art was more then a little boastful.  :)  They weren't trying to paint the picture of a couple people that were just down home. 

The masses of people shoving from room to room was a little overwhelming*.  It was nice to get out of the house and into the garden.  The garden was vast* and wiggedy wack (I came up w/ this one myself)!  It went on forever and was so beautiful.  Everywhere you went fountains and statues and flowers and architected trees.  Mazes of forest.  We sat and had lunch in this area and had a great time talking w/ Laurence.  It was just a perfect day. 

(most of these pictures are on my phone (battery in my good camera died) that I don't have the cord w/ me to download, the ones I did take from the window aren't really the garden, but a taste of it.  Will have to upload those at a later time.)

We wandered around the grounds a bit more and then Laurence helped me get back on the train to Paris and I popped up out from under the ground at Invalide (it sounds better if you say it in French, otherwise it sounds like your injured or you're invalid, no one wants to feel like that).  Ta da!  Thankfully too, there were some Italian mid-school aged children that had taken over the train w/ goings on.  Then I immediately went the wrong way and had to whip my map out.  Then I was on my way and got worried I wasn't so I turned around and walked back the other way and finally whipped my map and had to walk back the way I had come.  And then I was on my street Le Michigan Ave and couldn't get my bearings even tho I was looking at the arch, but decided to go for it anyway.  Thankfully it was right.  So, while this story ends well, I think it also shows us that I'm not going to be leading a tour group thru Paris anytime soon.  Poor people - that would be a fun ride (no comments Kevie).  "If you look to your left, oh wait... I think I'm going the wrong way."  Anywho. 

All the people had returned to Le Michigan Ave.  The crazy man in his priest robe, the begging girls, the crazy group dancers, all of them were back home!  And so was I! 

I gave the begging man some money and he was VERY happy.  I think he had lost hope in me.

Nancy has plans to grab food in the Jewish area tonight, so I'm looking forward to that.  Let me tell you a secret about Nancy. She can work like an American, party like a Parisian and eventually she runs out of gas.  You tuck her in, turn out the lights, take her phone calls for 1.5 hours and that girls back in business.  It's unstinking believable.  That's what I love about her.   Seriously, if you could bottle her love of life and sell it there would be some amped up people in this world.  :)  She says she'll sleep when she's dead... me, as much as I hate to admit it, I want to sleep while in the current world. :)

Just a few other shots worth seeing:

Ceiling where mass is performed.

Pipe organ in the church:

Links to a few video I uploaded:

http://www.youtube.com/user/eltimmer79?feature=mhee
I GET TO SEE NICK AND JACK TOMORROW!  

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz

I’m beat tired!  Sitting in the airport in Amsterdam waiting for my flight back to Paris.  Airport security has been pretty easy around here, not too much to complain about.  Probably shouldn’t have wrote that out loud, I’ll be strip searched when I try to leave Paris for home now.  Speaking of which, when we were in New York it was amazing the number of police officers.  There aren’t as many in France and I think I remember seeing one police car in Amsterdam.  However, when I was a few places in France there were police w/ automatic weapons here and there.  Not a lot of them, but they were all so young, which was more of a concern to me.  Anyway, I guess the point I’m making is there were way less then you’d see in the US, but the four of them could do a lot of damage. 

I slept like a rock last night.  Not sure if was the 13 mile bike ride or the sea air or what it was, but I was drunk tired.  The kitty kitty slept w/ me last night. J  Made me miss Jacky boy!  Ready to make him sit in my lap against his will.  J  One of my favorite things to do.

We were up and adam and out the door and to the office around 9:00am.  Purchased my ticket for Versailles (decided to purchase no matter what) while Jan-Marie worked on a few things and then we were out the door to the boat tour. 

First, I have to tell you, the clouds here are BEYOND!  They hang so low and they’re huge.  They’re just beautiful.  I spent most of the trip hanging out the window looking at them.  I probably have roughly 4 million pictures of them – just to guestimate.  They made me a little teary too… maybe I need to see a psychiatrist…   Anywho, they’re just great.  Reminded me of the pictures you’d see the Dutch artists painting of the sea and the boats.  Would have loved to have gotten to an art museum while I was here.

It reminded me of a Vermer painting... amazing... the clouds are the same after all these years:

The day was rainy and cold, but the boat was covered and the rain wasn’t too hard and was off and on, so it worked out fine for taking pictures and hanging out the side of the boat.  Homes that are on the canal are a premium.  It was fun to see the swans on the water near the windows of the homes.  Swans can make anything beautiful.  Can you imagine looking out your window and there’s a swan floating around.  Hard to imagine. 

Space is a premium in the Netherlands, so anything associated with taking up space is usually going to cost you it sounds like.  You wouldn’t believe the bikes we saw.  Everyone drives one.  Cars are expensive in Europe as is parking.  Jan-Marie said she makes a sport of the weekends and tries not to even use her car, which she finds quite easy to do.  As I’ve mentioned, all of the animals are ginormous here, but that’s about it (other then the clouds).  Most of the homes are connected due to a lack of space and are very small.  During the boat tour, the water was lined w/ people living in boat homes.  They said that they’re often bigger than most of the homes in the Netherlands.  I’m not sure how I’d feel about living on the water and boat tours going by all the time.  We saw a guy rising and shining in his boxers, just getting the party started I guess. 

The homes were beautiful, all styles of them were very neat.  The area we were in was 1 kilometer under water (the airport area is 5!! – not sure how this compares to somewhere like New Orleans).  Henk (Jan-Marie’s boss and an old colleague – meaning we’ve known each other a long time, not that he’s elderly ;)) was explaining how they dug canals, pumped the water out and built the dikes and then began building – it’s difficult for me to get my head around.  So, the land here is like river bottom – apparently great for growing (flowers/bulbs are a top export) – but maybe not the best for building, especially near the canals.  The homes were built on wood pileons (sound it out – I’m not sure if I spelled that right) and now these pileons are rotting/eroding and the homes are leaning.  It’s a big problem they’re dealing with.  For other reasons, you’ll notice a lot of the homes have huge hooks at the top of them because they couldn’t get furniture in the front door because everything was/is so narrow, so they would hoist the furniture in thru the top window.  I tell ya, moving is a big enough ordeal, let alone putting stuff thru the window. 

From the boat tour we jumped off and hit the “Dam” as they call it.  Kind of a square where all of their parades and events take place.  It was pretty busy even while we were there, but mostly with tourists.  There is also shopping in that area, so there were several people out and about doing that.  As I mentioned, the Europeans are all excited because of their one week sale.  The prices are just crazy here, I still can’t get over it.  AND I never even thought about the taxes, which are 19%, which as far as I can tell about undoes the sale.  I can’t imagine what would happen if these people were let lose in a TJ Maxx.  It would probably be like the Tickle Me Elmo doll phase with grown women whipping each other around by their hair for a Michael Korrs purse for a mere $100.   Jan-Marie lived in America for a while and she talked about how it is easy to get caught up in materialism in America because so much is available for so little.  Which I agree with.  There really is something to be said for the way they live here.  I think between the lack of space and the high cost of things you live more with what you need and less with what you think you need.  It’s a little bit more grounded way of living if you ask me, but no need to preach a sermon here.

AND on that note, I bought three awesome new pairs of tights at the European sale!  Lol.  Ha ha.  I’m such a hypocrite.  Lol.

Now for the good part!  We were walking back and we grabbed us some fritas w/ mayo!  I had just watched a Rick Steves (PBS) on somewhere where they did this – can’t remember if it was Amsterdam or not, so I was excited to have some.  And they hit the spot!  The sky had cleared, my beautiful clouds were back and I was eating mayo on fried potatoes… I dare you to tell me I wasn’t living!  Plus, she had made me petal that bike for 13 miles the night before, I ate those fries and looked at the sky and rejoiced in the city that was Amsterdam.  J 

We jumped on the train (I think it was the train and not the metro) and headed back to the office to finish up a few things.  Jan-Marie had a run tonight she was going to, so she had approximately 150 things she was juggling.  I laughed a couple times, she’s a maniac and when she’s in a mode, you don’t mess w/ her.  She can get anything done, and that’s not a joke.  She was making calls, taking care of the boys, throwing me things, answering e-mails, etc. etc. Also on that note, people in Paris don’t seem to exercise like America.  American’s would be all over running in parks and places, but not in Paris.  The Netherlands was more like America on crack with regard to that stuff.  The entire city is built for bikers and pedestrians.  If you look at the picture of the bike rack, that will make sense.  If cities in America were laid out like Amsterdam, I’m guessing it would be about the same.  Not in Paris tho, they just eat heavy whipping cream on crab, smoke, don’t drink water and look amazing.  And they do look amazing. 

Back in the office Jan (said Yan) and I called my sweet friend Stacie to wish her a happy birthday!  It’s today!  J  We didn’t catch her, but we left her a voice mail wishing her well.  And then Jan was back to his meetings!  And I was off to the airport.  Looks like the flight is going to be delayed, but I need a rest, so I’m not too worried about it, although, with a phone that doesn’t work in Europe and no internet access, I’m not sure how to let her know this.  Something to do w/ my spare time I guess.

Purchased some internet at the airport.  I tell ya, the airport is quite the little monopoly going.  Maybe that could be a business for me to open – the airport that doesn’t rip you off and has free internet access.  Seems like that would be a good draw.  Anyway – purchased the time and dropped Nanc a note to let her know what time I’d be in.  She sent a note back to say we had reservations and we’d be getting going as soon as I got to the hotel.  Phew… Did I mention I’m exhausted already?  J  So, jumped out of the car, ran up and changed and ran out the door for dinner.

There are a few people hear still working the show – tomorrow it is open to the public.  They have been here a long time!  I’m sure they’re ready to go home.  It was nice to have them at dinner with us though.  A few things made me laugh and laugh.  It could have been sleep deprivation.  AND I got to talk to Nick!  It’s been a couple days so that was lovely.  J  Missing him! 

Well, enough is enough for one day.  I’ve been getting to bed around 2:00am every night for one reason or another, so I’m ready to wrap this up!  J

See you tomorrow.   Hopefully Versailles works out perfectly.  It would be a lovely cherry on top of a lovely cake! 

Love to all.

The middle building is a "coffee" house.

The largest glass of water in Europe.

Not sure why this screen was up, but thought it was beautiful.  Went on for quite a while.

You can see 6 bridges all at once.  Well... probably not at this size you can't.  :)

Love the pink car, but it's really about the tiny strip between the two buildings.  It's the tiniest house in Amsterdam... We actually saw the guy coming out of it, so I assume he lived standing up in there.  Make sure you don't miss it - look close.  It's the grey one w/ white trim around it.

There were two hotels next to each other - both Botels. 

A Sexmuseum right next to a pasta bar... this place is just like Cedar Rapids!  ;)