Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Living in Paradise

So we left off in Dijon...while in Dijon we had great company with our couch surfing host Stephanie (thanks A LOT) found a great market and had a nice picnic and hung out French style in a cafe for the evening. We made a side trip to Beaune where we went to three caves, where they store the wine under the city - there are hectares of wine (thousands of bottles) stored under the city as it has been for HUNDREDS of years! There are bottles that are over a hundred years old! We went on three wine tastings, the first we tasted 13 wines, although some guy follwed us around he didn't speak much and we referred to him as the "mole" since he lived underground and scuttled around very mole-like, the next a girl read everything to us that was posted on the wall while we "experienced" wine through our five sences...we listened to a popping tape of wine being made, saw the different colours of wine, smelled many different things, touch different materials and finally tasted 5 wines, our last tour was hilarious - it was with a big group of old people from Whales plus a couple of couples from Canada and America and our guide was awesome and the tour was great, the old people were laughing and talking so much by the end we were holding up the tour behind us and they were kissing all us young couples and we ended up going for this amazing dinner with the Canadian couple. Denis had escargot and beef tartare and I had beef bourgonon (the area's speciality) and nuggat ice cream for dessert - and some great wine, the service was great the chef even came to check on us twice!

We left Dijon the next day and headed off to Avignon to stay with Denis's aunt - they were so nice. They took us on some hikes to old ruins and to this area where there is red soil and rock formations similar to hoodoos, they cooked AMAZING food and made their own orange wine and nuggat, and they took us to the best ice cream place so far. We went the city of Avignon for the day and saw the Palais de Papes where the Popes lived and Christianity was centered for a few hundred years, it was pretty big and they were pretty lavish, there was an audioguide but it was pretty boring. We saw the Pont de Avignon (the bridge that only goes half way across the river and then hung out French style in a cafe for the rest of the afternoon. We also went to Fort Andre and an old monastery for amazing views of Avignon. Our last day we went to Aix en Provence and saw a church that has been there since the 5th century and has been added onto almost every century...it is a mis-mosh of every style of architecture...but there is a very important carving there which is very old and we got a tour of it and all the sculptures were explained...very interesting.

We left Avignon on Tuesday and headed for Monaco! We are here now and spent all day on the beach! Yes it is that hot! We are staying with Denis's cousin Christian who has an apartment five minutes from the beach with an amazing view of the sea.

Everything has been going so well so far except I fell on the stairs and scraped my knee today but I guess if thats our biggest problem we are doing okay! We are off to explore Cinque Terra, La Spezia, Bologna, and Venice next.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

So Far So Good!

SO we arrived in Paris last week and have been having a great time, enjoying great cheese, great wine and meeting lots of great people...its been great!

In Paris we managed to stumble upon a free walking tour (in English) around downtown Paris, after we had our bearings and better knew where we wanted to go and what to see...including Notre Dame, Louvre, Arc de Triumph, Tour Eiffel, Les Invalides, L'ecole Militaire (where Napoleon went to Military school), St.Michaels Square. The first day we didn't go in anything just walked around and got all the trips and info and lots of history. The next day we went to Chateau Versailles, and it is AMAZING! The gardens are beautiful, we packed some bread and cheese and oranges and had a picnic in front of where the royalty lived! And then we went to see the Sacred Coeur - if you come to Paris - go here! There is a beautiful view of the city and the church is breath-taking and the area around the church is full of small cafes and beautiful houses and cobblestones and the Moulin Rouge, and we saw the Eiffel tower "sparkle" when thousands of little white lights flicker all over and it is really nice! Then we went to the Louvre...well there is a lot in the Louvre and although we saw the Mona Lisa there were many more other interesting things in the Louvre. We stayed with Denis's aunt just outside of Paris and she was very kind and we had dinner with her two daughters and Bernard and their son Baptiste and they were all very kind.

We left Paris on Saturday and went east to Strasbourg, which is also very beautiful although much more relaxing than Paris. The pace of life in Paris is quite fast and the traffic is crazy but in Strasbourg it is much smaller and quieter and perfectly fit the image of France I had in my head, there is a Gothic Cathedral de Notre Dame which was INCREDIBLE and we walked all the stairs to the top for a birds eye view of the city, went on a river boat tour complete with lockes that change the water level so you can continue on different parts of the canals. We had our first couch surfing experience with Pierre and it was GREAT, he was very generous and kind and introduced us to his friends...one of whom offered to let us stay with her in Dijon, where we are now exploring the Cote D'or wine country...the vineyards aren't quite blooming yet but there is lots of wine to drink! We had a fabulous dinner with our host Stephanie last night and ate the region's fare.

Next we are off to Avignon, Marseilles, Nice and Monaco before we head to Italy!

Hope to hear from you all soon

Sarah and Denis

Monday, April 09, 2007

MARCH

Hello everyone!

So March went buy so quickly! We are now in Canada and are leaving for Paris tonight to start our four month tour of France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain and Morocco.
so our last month in Japan was amazing and very sad, it was very hard to say goodbye to all of our friends and students and we will miss everyone very much and look forward to seeing you all in Canada or some other part of the world! Although we didn't travel anywhere in March, other than a quick trip to Tokyo, there were a lot of karaoke parties and a lot of eating and drinking which makes for good pictures :) and great memories.

Our two weeks in Canada was great, after an excrutiating 30 hour trip from the time we left our apartment in Japan to the time we cleared customs in Canada, we tied up some loose ends in Calgary for a day and then drove to BC to see my mom, sister, Phil and the newest addition to our family my sister's baby Olivia! She is a very happy baby who loves to smile and very aware that she is so cute and almost never cries - my sister is very lucky. And after we were blessed with good weather in BC four 3 days, on the drive home it started to snow and continued to snow in both Edmonton and Calgary for the next week - NON-STOP! We spent some time in Edmonton visting friends and family and Denis was introduced to his brother's Nintendo Wii...he was a little additiced to bowling of all things but that will have to wait. Then we came back to Calgary and ate and ate and ate...I discovered our lives in Calgary revolve around food and since I couldn't drink because I had to take some meds to clear and infection I realized how much I normally drink too, sometimes in the middle of the day or even before then :) So I was the DD by default and Denis fully took advantage of it...but I traded not drinking wine in Canada for drinking in France so I think it will be a good trade. We had our fill of Tim Hortons, well Denis is sick of it but I am still going strong with one or two X-Large steeped tea double-doubles!

So thank you to everyone who hosted us back in Canada and to everyone who spared some time out of there busy schedule to make us feel special! And thank you to everyone who made us feel so at home in Japan - keep in touch!

GARY, RAY, SVEN, LEIGH...you buggers better email us - we miss you terribly! Take care of each other!

So we are off to France and I hope that I can keep up on the blog...I promise to return emails though so tell us what is happening in your lives! Happy Easter everyone!