From the USA to Germany to Paris all in 48 hours!

We made it to Germany!  We had an uneventful 6 hour drive from C-bus to Baltimore to catch our flight, and we slept through most of our overnight flight to Germany.

Here's a picture of us with Emma before the flight

And here is a picture of Emma in her crate.  We were happy to find out that the plane had a temperature controlled cargo area for pets, so we could enjoy the flight without worrying about her.

In the weeks after Sam came home from deployment he had been talking about some sort of surprise that he was planning for me.  I've been trying to figure out when this surprise would happen, since we had so much to do before we moved.  I thought maybe on our trips to visit family, and since it didn't happen I had begun to think he had not actually planned anything.  But instead he surprised me 30 mins out of our flight landing in Germany.  He handed me a piece of paper and said "here's your surprise"!  It was a train ticket to Paris!  I assumed we were just going the following weekend because we were supposed to in-process as soon as we got to Wiesbaden.  But Sam told me to look again, and it was dated for the following day until July 15th!  Craziness!  It was funny because the night before we left for our flight I had mentioned how sad it was that now he would have to go to work and our fun time together would be ending.  The best part was that he planned every single thing from the travel to get there, to the kennel that Emma would stay at in a foreign country that we barely knew, to the apartment we would stay in for 5 nights!  This was heaven, because I had been overwhelmed just with ending my fellowship, moving out of our house, planning visits with family, and every other little thing on our to-do list.  So, yes, I am the luckiest girl on Earth to have married such an amazing hubs!  This was the second best surprise of my life (of course, the first being our engagement).



Here's Sam enjoying a much needed beer after all of our travel and finding the kennel for Emma.

We took a stroll after dinner to see our new city.  We knew we belonged here when we saw this sign

We stayed in a hotel in Wiesbaden overnight, and the next morning we woke up at 5AM to hike down to the train station.  We didn't have a clue where we were going or what any of the street signs meant.  We quickly learned our one phrase that would save us in this foreign country "Sprechen sie English"?  We made it to the train station and got on our first train.  We had to navigate a few more stops before we were on the ICE train.  This train can reach speeds up to 226 mph!  It was awesome!  And the German countryside was beautiful.  The next stop would be Paris!  Here are some pics of our awesome time in Paris!

 This is where we stayed.  The bed came out of he wall!  Look at the cool table and chairs; can I keep them?  What about the light fixture, please? Aggie you would have loved all 300 square feet of this place!

 We stayed a block away from Moulin Rouge

 First stop:  Tour de Eiffel

 We went to Notre Dame and just so happen to be there for noon mass.  It was pretty cool to go to mass there...even if it was in French.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the bridge at Pont des Arts.  Here lovers put a lock on the bridge and throw away the keys.

Sam wanted me to point out to everyone that the boat was called Don Juan (Joo-waan).  Only a few of you will get this reference.

 Next, we walked to the Louvre.  It was amazing and we could have stayed in there for weeks.  We had fun viewing all of the paintings and learning a lot of history.

Aphrodite

 Mona Lisa and her smile

The code of hammurabi

Outside of the Louvre is the beautiful Jardin des Tuileries.  I'd like to say that we made-out in the garden along with all of the other french lovers, but you know how we are with PDA.

We stayed near Montmarte.  Which has an impressive Basilica called Sacre-Coeur.  It is the highest point in Paris, which means lots of stairs to climb! But the view was totally worth it and what do you know, we also were there in time for mass (two masses in one week on vaca; we're on a role even if we had to make up our own homily in our head).  

We also took a train out of the city to the Palace of Versailles.  Getting lost in the gardens was my favorite part.

 The hall of mirrors!!

The gardens were breathtaking

We were lucky because they only run the fountains on the weekends!

Do you think I can make this in my garden?

I'll leave you with a video of the fountain show choreographed to music.  I could watch this for hours, enjoy!

XO,

Michelle