France.

Liz and I had an opportunity to take a weekend trip to Paris through our school but we decided to pass that up and take on France on our own. The day after we got back from Italy we hopped on a plane and headed to Montpellier, France to stay with a relative of mine and her husband who are living there for a year. We stayed in Montepellier two full days and did a lot of walking around on our own and just exploring the city... we found some interesting things...

Like guys playing the didgeridoo...
... and people wearing colorful gear and playing music.
We climbed up some stairs to a looking point to watch the sunset - here is a pic of my cousin, Beth, and her husband, Scott.
View of Montpellier.

It was pretty drizzly when Liz and I went...


This is church is very well-known, although I don't really remember what it was called.
After our nice little visit to Montpellier, Liz and I boarded the train and took a 4 hour ride to Paris. Ahead of time we decided we only needed 12 hours to take on France, boy did we.

When we arrived it was snowing... didn't make for the best site-seeing day, but I mean we were in Paris, so the weather didn't really matter.
Our first stop was Notre Dame.



Next up, Eiffel Tower!


After that we hit up the Louvre. We didn't bother going inside because a) it takes days to conquer the Louvre and b) the only thing I really wanted to see was the Mona Lisa and after finding out it is a really small painting I lost my desire to see it for some reason. Maybe the next time I'm in Paris I'll hit up the Louvre (and definitely see it at night when the courtyard is lit up).


And of course, the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't climb the Eiffel Tower but we did climb the Arc, which had some good views.







We finished our early evening back off at the Eiffel Tower to get some nighttime shots.



We arrived in Paris at approximately 11am and were supposed to leave at 8pm. However, when we got to the Eurostar/train station, we found out the Eurostar was temporarily shut down due to all the heavy snow London/Western Europe had been receiving. Which you know, we didn't mind spending the night in Paris except for the fact that our flight back to the states left London the next day. So that was a little troublesome and frightening.

So Liz and I grabbed a room at a nearby hotel and could only laugh at the canundrum (spelling?) we were in. The train station was supposed to open back up at 6am but we wanted to make darn sure we were one of the first people in line so we got up at 3:30am to get in line. It was a good thing we got up so early - there were only about 20 people ahead of us and within an hour our arrival there hundreds upon hundreds of people in line. By 6am there were literally thousands of people waiting in line to get on the Eurostar back to London. Thankfully it was a first come first serve basis and we were on the first train back to London. What normally would only take 2.5 hours, our ride took 4 hours because of the lowered speed limits (because of all the snow).

Once we got back to London, Liz and I had barely just enough time to grab our other luggage stored across town and then take the hour cab ride out to Heathrow airport. And thankfully furthermore, our flight wasn't one of the 75% flights cancelled.

Needless to say, those last 1-2 days spent in Europe were spent in a slight travel stress mode so Liz and I were definitely glad to be back home in America!!