Mom and JoAnn's Visit

My Mom and Aunt JoAnn recently came for a visit from Nov. 4-15 to do the power tour of Paris as well as give me an excuse to get out and about and get used to the city. Unfortunately, upon their arrival, I got slammed with a horrible head cold and had to hold my head high and trudge through. No it wasn’t that bad, just bad timing to feel lethargic and already be whittling away at my scant supply of cold medicine only two weeks in. In any case, Paris stood no chance. We saw just about every highlight in town including all the tourist sites, gift shops, museums, the market, Versailles, the city sewers, and even the archeological dig under Notre Dame; not to mention…more importantly, dozens of boulangeris, patisseries, chocolatiers, salon de teas, wine shops and of course cafés. This is the city where calorie counting stops, and you learn to just indulge once in awhile and enjoy. Yes, girls trip of the century that I think everyone needed, and I think a great introduction of Europe for JoAnn. To top it off, we even headed to Germany for the weekend to visit our cousin, Scott, and his family as we stayed in their luxuriously renovated 200 yr old(?) barn. I will say, though, despite frying both their curling irons, those two did an excellent job fitting right in. Each learned a bit of French, could decifer a lot of menus, were able to figure out the Metro, quickly got the groove as to how to buy things at the outdoor market, got a taste of the high-speed rails, learned probably more history about the area than I can remember, took enough pictures to last a lifetime, and hell, just made it to/from/and throughout Europe and back all on their own. A huge success.