Paris 2, Dublin, Home Saweeet Home

Cassandra again :) … here to fill you in about our final days in Europe. So yes, one of our last blogs...I’ll try to make it real juicy ;)

I’m actually surprised that D (aka Darin) didn’t fill you in about Moulin Rouge because as he said “It was better than Wicked.” Of course, I don’t agree, but it was still pretty sweet. We went to the 11:00 pm show on Sunday night, hit up some dinner before, and then waited in line for an hour or so before getting in. The place was packed with people sipping on champagne and being mesmerized by the flashiness of the dancers, singers, costumes, acrobatics, ventriloquists, and the scantily clad dressed women. It was pretty late by the time the show was over so we headed back to the hotel and chilled there.

Monday:
Exploring Paris - We slept in a little and then ventured to the Louvre. We moved through the museum pretty quickly (determined to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo) with some stops for interesting photo opportunities along the way. Straight down the street from the Louvre and mini Arc de Triomphe is the real Arc de Triomphe, so we trekked in that direction. Stops for shopping were a must, but we eventually made it to the Arc where we climbed to the top to take in another gorgeous view of Paris. The rest of our afternoon consisted of:

-Banana and Nutella crepes…YUM!
-Finding the bus station we need to go to in the morning
-Grocery shopping for dinner that night
-Realizing that it was very inconvenient to carry around the 8 bottles of wine we had purchased so as true tourists do, we stopped along the side of the road, pulled out a map, and then continued to walk through Paris and ride the metro juggling our wine/groceries/shopping purchases and receiving looks from everyone we passed

And now for what might possibly be my all-time favorite evening of our entire trip……………..
***Picnic by the Eiffel tower…Menu: sandwiches made on fresh baguettes from some random bakery, French wine, parmesan cheese, and chocolate.
***Watching the Eiffel tower sparkle for 5 minutes on the hour at 10:00 and 11:00….BEAUTIFUL!
***Seeing the end of a World Cup game…there was a huge TV screen by the tower and the place was packed with Brazil fans cheering, shouting, blowing horns, etc.…it is crazy awesome how stoked people get for the World Cup!
***Soaking in our final night in Paris….

Tuesday:
Traveling to Dublin in a daze (well I did anyways since I had decided that we weren’t going to sleep while in Paris :) ) - The morning began with a not-so-patient, unnecessary wait in various lines at an airport outside of Paris. Also, Joe has some issues passing security due to a corkscrew that Darin has secretly stowed away in Joe’s bag (not on purpose of course). Eventually, we made it safely back to Dublin, where to our surprise….it wasn’t raining! Dublin did its best at redeeming itself from our initial bad first impression at the very start of our journey. The boys and I spent the day shopping, walking along the river, searching for an Ernst and Young building, eating fish and chips, and napping.

Wednesday:
Traveling home – Not a whole lot to say…breakfast, flight to Manchester, layover with lunch, flight to Philly with 2 meals, layover, flight to Chicago, bus to Rockford. Yeah that’s right, between the getting up early and the time changes, we managed to have 3 meals before noon. Boom. And it doesn’t stop there! We had all been craving TACOs for days and since high-quality, fast-food tacos are non-existent, I decided that a classic Happy Joe’s Taco Joe pizza would be the perfect first meal back in America :) Besides eating the entire day, we basically spent our time in the air sleeping, watching movies/TV, completing crossword puzzles, and enjoying our final hours with each other.

Thursday:
Home, laundry, transitioning from living our adventure to reflecting on it, adjusting to reality, & visiting with all our wondering friends and family (you!).

Signing off for the last time...all my love,
Cassandra

Paris - Part 1

We incurred our biggest "hiccup" on our trip while trying to get to Paris. We reserved our train a day before, but our first two options for trains were completely booked and we ended up arriving in Paris around 5 PM instead of the 1 PM that we were hoping for. Apparently we were pretty lucky because the French rail workers were recently on strike and there were no trains to Paris earlier in the week.

Upon arrival in Paris we found our hotel, which was a nice change compared to the random hostels. There was little price difference between cheap hotels and hostels in Paris, so we enjoyed having our own room. After settling in, we walked to Sacre Coeur, also known as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It's basically a huge white church on top of a hill which provides for a great view of Paris. We walked around the area and went inside, then proceeded to hang out on the steps outside of the church and watched the sunset over the city. We could see the Eiffel Tower from the steps, but we were a few miles away, so after the sunset we took the metro there to get a better view. We didn't have much time because we knew the metro closed by 1, and we left around midnight and ended up catching one of the last few trains back to our hotel.

Sunday, June 27th started with church at one of the most magnificent venues that we have ever attended mass, Notre Dame. After church we went on our 3rd Fat Tire Bike Tour of our trip. Just like the other bike tours, we heard some interesting stories about the city's history and tourist attractions, and we better understood the layout of the city.

After the bike tour, we had some free time and I could think of no better way to spend it then to go to La Defense, the financial district. Yes, I may be a little weird, but all three of us did think it was pretty cool once we looked around. It is completely traffic-free, so it's not congested like the downtown of any other city. After La Defense, we headed back to the hotel to relax and get ready for Moulin Rouge!

Darin

Interlaken

Interlaken is a small community high up in the Swiss Alps that provides tourists with a lot of extreme opportunities. When we got there, we had to determine whether we wanted go skydiving, bungy jumping, canyoning, white water rafting, canyon jumping, paragliding, or ice climbing. We settled on rafting and bungy jumping.

Rafting began with a 15 minute ride up into the mountains to the start of the rapids we were going to navigate. Upon arrival, we had a quick lesson in rafting safety, and then we were off! There were some challenging areas along the river, but we were able to navigate all of them without losing anybody on our raft. The water was runoff from the mountains, so naturally it was very cold. That didn't stop us from swimming a couple of times on the river when we were on calm water though! Very refreshing! There were some amazing views along the river, as we passed many snow-capped mountains and ended up in a large lake. All I can say about the views can be summarized in one word: WOW. Honestly, they looked fake. If I wasn't viewing them with my own eyes I would've thought they were a Bob Ross painting.






After rafting, we headed off for bungy jumping. Yes, we voluntarily chose to go up into the mountains, take multiple lifts even higher, ride out over an ice-cold lake in a 500 ft. high cable car suspended on a line between two mountains...and jump. And we'd all do it again. Crazy? Probably. Fun? Absolutely.

Rome - VENICE - Interlaken

Alright all, well as Laura mentioned, she ciao-ed out of Europe from Rome last Thursday morning…it was sad to see our group be minimized to three and to realize that I was being left with two guys who liked to read maps and talk about taxes…needless to say, they became excellent shopping buddies, kept their promise of keeping accounting talk to a minimum, and overall took wonderful care of me :)

After hugging Laura goodbye, Joe, Darin, and I set off for a quick visit to Venice. We definitely owned that city in the handful of hours we were there…taxi boat rides, gondola ride, Venician glass jewelry shopping, etc. etc. Our stay was short, but we quickly fell in love with Venice and all its canals.

That evening we jumped back on a train and headed to Interlaken Switzerland…arriving late at night and just in time to catch some zzzz’s, but of course not before checking CPA exam scores one last time….and finally, after an entire month of suspense, Darin and Joe were confirmed, ecstatic, certified public accountants!!! Celebrating would have to hold off due to the day we had planned for Friday…Joe will fill you in with the next blog.

Kisses,
Cassandra

:::PERUGIA:::

Greetings from AMERICA! That's right, we all made it home safe and sound, exhausted, and with backpacks full of dirty clothes and bottles of wine :) Better yet, we all still get along and would go back to Europe with each other in a heartbeat!

For those of you avid blog readers who won't be seeing us anytime soon to get the complete tale of our adventures, we'll try to get the blog wrapped up with a summary of our travels in the past week.

As promised, the following is a more in-depth account of our daytrip to Joe's and my favorite city - PERUGIA, ITALY....and may I just dedicate this blog post to all the wonderful friends that spent 2 weeks with us there in May 2009 for our UNI capstone class :)

The day started out at the Rome train station (my least favorite place in Europe) on platform 2...which apparently is not the same as platform 2PE...well, a little jog in the morning never hurt anyone. So after booking it through the station at the last minute, we successfully jumped on the train to Perugia.

Once in Perugia, we hopped in a taxi and headed to Lungarotti Winery in nearby town Torgiano. Joe and I toured this winery last May, and to our surprise, we got our own tour from the same lady once again. After ordering 2 cases of wine, we headed back to Perugia where we walked all our favorite streets and enjoyed the quaint city's gorg views.

Best part of Perugia: Food, of course!
Lunch = La Tana Dell Orso for the world's best LASAGNA BOLOGNESE...and yes, it is still just as good as ever! Plus, we ran into Lucy, the part owner of the restaurant/bar and friend of all us UNI-ers who were there last year.
Gelato - We made Laura and Darin participate in our gelato-off to see if my favorite gelato place (at the top of the hill) was better than Joe's (by the Etruscan wall)...and well duh, of course mine one :)

Laura and I did a little shop-shop while the boys investigated the mini-metro, and that about concluded our time in Perugia. The city was just as beautiful as ever, all the hills and steps still intact, and full of memories that will never fade - All my love to the Italy Capstone of 2009!

We train-ed back to Roma that night and I believe Laura’s last blog has that city covered.

Love&hugs,
Cassandra