Everyone is Always Eating Baguettes Here

We've made it to Paris. It's our last leg of the trip and I am having a very difficult time believing that it is almost time to get home! I am excited to come home to see everyone but I am loving traveling and non-stop time with husband is pretty excellent as well.
We have 8 days here in this romantic city, so we got to have a full day of just exploring the city. We saw the Eiffel Tower, which did not disappoint. It is enormous!!! We are going to go back later this week so we can see it at night!
This church, Sacre Coer, is built on the tallest part of Paris, on a hill called Montemarte and has some of the best views of the city anywhere. Sadly, we went there on a cloudy/rainy day, but it was still amazing. The church is made of gypsum, so it just gets whiter with age. I thought it was sweet!
We climbed over 300 claustrophobic stairs to reach the top of the dome. Eric wasn't even breaking a sweat.
The top of the dome served up 360 degrees of amazing views. You could see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
We got bored of just standing at the top of the dome, so we decided to go for a little flight. It was breezy.
Paris is a city full of chimneys. It seems like every building has at least a hundred chimneys on top.
We also got to pay the Louvre a visit. It is massive, the biggest museum in the world! We didn't accomplish the whole museum (only about a third of it) but we were in there forever and saw a ton of amazing art.
I was pretty impressed by the giant pyramid.
Yep, we saw Mona...and she's no model or anything, but it was still cool to see.
The crowd around Mona was way more fun to watch. I don't understand why there are constantly hoards of people surrounding Mona taking pictures? Eric and I got a spot to view her at the very front and just stayed there for 4-5 minutes (listening to our dorky audio guides). We got a few dirty looks, but hey...it's MONA!
This was my favorite thing at the Louvre...Winged Victory. The things they can accomplish with stone is sweet!
We had a fun-filled ART day and loved every minute. We went to D'Orsay museum too...it was full of Dega, Monet and Van Gogh. I fell so sophisticated...ooooh la la! ...Katie

My wonderful return to Chamonix

We finally made it to Chamonix. I have been looking forward to this our entire trip. I have actually been looking forward to coming back here since I came in highschool with Mr. Donahue and my Mom and Aunt. It is one of my top 3 favorite places on the planet. Our trip this time was a lot less sunny than our planet. We didn't pack to well for this leg of our journey. We kind of thought that by May everything would be nice and warm in Europe so we didn't worry about packing heavy sweatshirts or heavy jackets. Well we got a very cold surprise when we arrived in Chamonix and it was snowing. Knowing that we would freeze, we decided that we had to go up to the top of Mt. Blanc anyways. There were people at the top wearing full on winter coats.

I love to eat snow. I was more than happy to take a huge bite out of the side of the mountain.

This was a tunnel they had to build down one of the walkways because there was too much snow to just plow it out of the way.
The view looking straight down the side of the mountain off the deck we were standing on. Just sharp cliffs and then you disappear into the abyss.

We also made our way back over to Mer De Glace. It is a beautiful glacier that snakes its way down the mountain. Every year they carve tunnels into it and make a kind of museum of ice sculptures in it. It is pretty cool because they have to make a new one every year due to how much it moves
The S curveKatie enjoying the view
This shows all of the holes from previous years

Mer De Glace from Eric White on Vimeo.

....Eric

Chamonix - Mont Blanc

We are in Chamonix, France at the moment...one of Eric's favorite places in the world! It has been raining off and on the whole time we've been here, but every now and then we get an amazing view of these impressive mountains! Chamonix sits in a little valley and is surrounded on all sides by these crazy, jagged mountains. Right now, there is still a lot of snow and people are still skiing and snowboarding. We are very jealous!
Eric and I had a quick snack in the streets of Chamonix. I had a delicious over-priced mini cake and coffee.
This is on the tram ride up to Mont Blanc! We were headed right into the cloud.
This is what we came up on when we reached the top of the tram! Mont Blanc in all it's glory. It is the tallest peak in France and was stunning. The clouds played tricks on us, but we got to see the face 3 times. Mont Blanc is 15,780 feet tall and makes you feel so tiny.
These are some of the skiiers and snowboarders. Right now, there is only technical riding left and they have to deal with avalanches and slides all the time. They seemed so hard core, they were all wearing harnesses with shovels and beacons...I'm a little too scared to do that!
It's funny to think that 2 months ago, we were dying in over 100 degree heat and now we are dealing with snow and we're freezing. Mont Blanc was incredible. I will never forget it or the feeling I got when the clouds opened up to this amazing mountain face. We have a lot more pics and will be posting them soon. ...Katie

More Fun in Munich...Can't Get Enough!

We had such an amazing time hanging with our friends in Munich, I thought I'd put up a few more pictures. It was so fun hanging out with locals who could show us around town! Anna and Diar are the best hosts in the world!!! Love you guys!!! We had a couple dinner picnics in their apartment...this one is complete with wine, fruit salad and french toast.
Anna and Diar thought it was necessary to show us to a real Bavarian dinner! We had schnitzel and raedler (beer mixed with sprite). It was delicious...I'm thinking about becoming Bavarian.
Just wandering around Freising, Germany (where Anna is from)! It was such a cute town.
Anna and Diar being the best tour guides in the world. They knew everything about Germany...not really, but they made everything sound amazing! We love you guys and we miss you a ton...come visit soon!...Katie