Hello, New Year

I hope the first two weeks of 2014 have treated you well, and left you excited for the remaining weeks of the new year.  It has been far too long since my last post, but now that we are back in Novorossiysk, but planning to leave again shortly, I decided I needed to post about what has been occurring during our first two weeks of 2014.

We spent the first week of 2014 in Paris (more on that below), and the first weekend of 2014 in Aberdeen, Scotland visiting our good friends Phil and Diane, and their super cute children (more on that in a different post).  After our week in Paris, we flew to Moscow where we stayed a few days in order to begin our Visa renewal process, which is also the reason why we will be traveling to Moscow again, on Sunday, to complete the process, and receive our new Visas (a post on my feelings about this at a later date).  I knew the start of 2014 was going to be a crazy time for us, we have a lot going on the next few months, and I will be sure to do my best to keep all posted about everything.  But, for now….

PARIS!

I have always wanted to go to Paris, and since moving to Russia, and all the places we have travelled, it seems Paris always was pushed to the bottom of our list.  Friends on the team have gone to Paris, and come back with negative comments.  I have had numerous conversations with people during our travels, and when we talk about places we have been, our favorites and least favorites, Paris seems to come up as people's least favorite.  One particular gentleman I sat next to on a flight from Chicago to Moscow, we had a pretty long conversation about traveling, we had very similar opinions and experiences during our travels, and he even stated that Paris was his least favorite destination, and he was not American.  I have heard the French are rude to Americans, refuse to speak English, cranky, etc. etc.  Do you question why Paris was always pushed to the bottom of our list?  Well, we decided to ignore the negative comments, and finally give Paris a chance.  And the verdict….

We LOVE Paris!

Ryan and I went to Paris with very few plans, we were going to go, explore, and take Paris as Paris was.  Everyone was very nice to us, we found numerous cute cafes to stop and enjoy a drink, almost everyone spoke English, and even at one particular cafe where the woman did not speak English, I left commenting on how sweet the woman was, and how good her English was.  Ryan gave me a weird look, and told me the woman only spoke French.  I guess living in Russia, and growing accustomed to communicating in multiple languages has made us great travelers, we do not expect everyone to speak English, when they do, great, when they don't, it's ok, we can manage.  I think that is our biggest, and most important traveling quality.  When we visit a foreign country, we don't expect it to be like your home country, it never will be.  Embrace the foreign country for what it is, something different, and consider it an adventure.  Our one unhappy experience in Paris took place at the airport, the morning we flew from Paris to Aberdeen.  87% of the Lufthansa employees decided to strike, leaving a chaotic mess at the airport.  But, it was an experience, and we made it on our original flight to Aberdeen, everything worked out.

We have also learned, when traveling, you cannot possibly do everything.  Pick what you think will be most enjoyable, and forget what others tell you, "you have to do."  You will quickly learn that traveling becomes must less chaotic, and much more enjoyable.  The highlights of our trip:

New Year's Eve celebration.

We made reservations at a nice restaurant.  The food was great, except for one course, cheese.  An unhappy experience, the cheese was awful!  We have tried some interesting foods, and even if we do not like them, we can appreciate how someone else could find pleasure in the taste.  The particular cheese they brought out was by far the worst thing I have ever tried.  It smelled bad, but somethings taste better than they smell.  This tasted worse than it smelled, much, much, worse. I have never tasted a dirty diaper, but dirty diaper was my first thought.  That course aside, all the other five courses during our dinner were absolutely delicious.  After dinner, we went over to the Eiffel Tower for the countdown to midnight, and the light show.

Catacombs

We did not visit the interior of any of the museums in Paris.  We have discovered we are "museumed out."  Waiting in super long lines, to fight crowds to view paintings that are so much smaller than you expect is not enjoyable for us.  I hate lines, my patience does not do well when it comes to lines.  We waited in line for four hours to see the Paris Catacombs!  The Paris Catacombs are one of a kind, and we wanted to see them.

If you want to see the other pictures from the Catacombs, you will need to check out the photo album at the end of this post.  I am uncomfortable posting pictures of bones on our blog, even though the experience was great. 

Random Exploring

On New Years Day, not many attractions were open, and because we wanted it to be a lazy day, we slept in, and eventually made our way over to the Eiffel Tower.  We boarded a boat and enjoyed a laid back river cruise, taking in all the sights.  After our long wait at the Catacombs, we decided no more lines.  If something took hours to see, we would not find it enjoyable, and therefore decided not to do it.  We decided to walk, and explore Paris.  A stop at a cafe for coffee or hot chocolate, a tour of Notre Dame, exploring the streets, and taking in the sights, without the lines, and much less hassle of dealing with other tourists.

Hot chocolate to warm our hands after the boat cruise, with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

I found Paris to be more beautiful at night. 

Interior of Notre Dame.  More pictures in the album.

Either he is a better pointer, or I am a better photographer.
My picture does not have my finger on the tip of the pyramid (it's in the photo album).  

Date Night

It seems eating was a key thing for us, but when living in Russia, the pleasure of going out to a nice restaurant does not exist where we live.  When we travel, we find it very enjoyable to visit nice restaurants, and feast on delicious food.  We had date night at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.  Great experience, great food, and for us, the perfect way to visit, and experience the Eiffel Tower.

Would we go back to Paris again?  Absolutely.

I always post an album of all our pictures from our trips, and usually I say, if you want to see more pictures, click on our album.  I will say that again, but I also highly suggest you check out this particular album.  It took FAR too long for me to complete the album.  The pictures uploaded scrambled, and because I am OCD, I had to put them all back in their proper order.  Then, after that was done, and I began to add comments, the website froze, and part of my progress was lost!  A couple days later, and too many hours wasted, you have our Paris Photo Album.  Seriously, click on the link, check out the photos.  Please make my battle with the website worth it.