I spent an uneventful Christmas in Paris. The real Christmas highlight for me was meeting Jamie 6:30AM on Dec 26. Despite getting lost on the way to the metro station, I arrived at the airport in plenty of time to meet Jamie. She was tired, but in good spirits and excited to be here in France. We spent much of her first day wandering around the streets, taking in some of the sights. Practically her first words to me were, "I'll be happy as long as I see the Eiffel Tower." We saw the Tour d' Eiffel in short order and all the rest was gravy.
The morning of our second day in Paris, we braved a one hour line to get into the Musee d' Orsay. We were both burned out after one hour of looking at some of the best impressionist era paintings by the likes of van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir. We were disappointed to only see a single Matisse, which was not very impressive. I've captured a few of the ones I liked best. A major problem for both of us was the huge amount of traffic viewing the paintings as the crush of people made it virtually impossible to sit and admire them.
We caught a late afternoon TGV and arrived in Lyon at 6PM, still in time to have a great meal at one of the traditional Lyonnais bouchon's. Lyon is similar to Toulouse, not too large, lots of old French buildings with charm, great food, an old town, a waterfront (in fact Lyon has two waterfront's, with both the Rhone and Saone Rivers flowing through town. We really liked Lyon and will return one day.
We rented a car in Lyon and drove to the Nice area, where we spent two evenings. On the drive, we stopped in Avignon, where the pope hid out during the 1500's. I got a haircut from a local coiffeur and got the skinny on the area. Basically a nice place, especially for raising a family. I don't think we've found a "bad" place during our time in France. The main basilica was BIG, as one would expect of a papal building, and the city had a good mix of quaint old curvy streets and modern bistros. Avignon is another place we'll visit again in the future.
Highlights from the Nice area were having dinner chez Brelet, where Jamie and I had to brave 3.5 hours speaking French at the dinner table (a challenging but fun experience for both of us), seeing Nathalie's small studio/art supply store in the village of Valbonne, and seeing the Picaso Museum in Antibes. While it was fun to see a few of Picaso's works at the museum, they were almost all from a single era during Picaso's life and it would have been more interesting to view the changes in Picaso's style during his lifetime.
The drive along the Cote d' Azur was memorable. It wasn't a particularly nice day, with some overcast and a bit cold, but the serpentine road along the coast wound its way through some beautiful areas. Jamie was impressed by the castle at Carcassonne, despite the crappy weather, but the highlight of the afternoon was meeting with Dominique & Luc Bouriez (my Nov teacher and her husband) and their good friends Jenny and Will, a couple of Americans who are living most of the time in France these days. We toasted the New Year (well, I suppose since it was not yet the new year, we must have been toasting 2008). They had heard sooooo much about Jamie, that it was fun to show them that indeed, Jamie is just as good as I made her out to be!
Our final destination on New Year's Eve was Nick Sawyer's, an old Xilinx friend who now lives just outside of Toulouse. Nick and Brigitte throw a mean party. In addition to champagne and midnight backyard fireworks, there was awesome food (the foie grass was to die for!), karaoke, more food, good bilingual company, great wine, and at 5AM in the morning as things were winding down, they served onion soup just before all the guests left. It was good fun.
We flew back to the US on Jan 3. My year of traveling is behind me, and it's time to figure out the next chapter in my life.
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| Jamie's French Tour |
The morning of our second day in Paris, we braved a one hour line to get into the Musee d' Orsay. We were both burned out after one hour of looking at some of the best impressionist era paintings by the likes of van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir. We were disappointed to only see a single Matisse, which was not very impressive. I've captured a few of the ones I liked best. A major problem for both of us was the huge amount of traffic viewing the paintings as the crush of people made it virtually impossible to sit and admire them.
We caught a late afternoon TGV and arrived in Lyon at 6PM, still in time to have a great meal at one of the traditional Lyonnais bouchon's. Lyon is similar to Toulouse, not too large, lots of old French buildings with charm, great food, an old town, a waterfront (in fact Lyon has two waterfront's, with both the Rhone and Saone Rivers flowing through town. We really liked Lyon and will return one day.
We rented a car in Lyon and drove to the Nice area, where we spent two evenings. On the drive, we stopped in Avignon, where the pope hid out during the 1500's. I got a haircut from a local coiffeur and got the skinny on the area. Basically a nice place, especially for raising a family. I don't think we've found a "bad" place during our time in France. The main basilica was BIG, as one would expect of a papal building, and the city had a good mix of quaint old curvy streets and modern bistros. Avignon is another place we'll visit again in the future.
Highlights from the Nice area were having dinner chez Brelet, where Jamie and I had to brave 3.5 hours speaking French at the dinner table (a challenging but fun experience for both of us), seeing Nathalie's small studio/art supply store in the village of Valbonne, and seeing the Picaso Museum in Antibes. While it was fun to see a few of Picaso's works at the museum, they were almost all from a single era during Picaso's life and it would have been more interesting to view the changes in Picaso's style during his lifetime.
The drive along the Cote d' Azur was memorable. It wasn't a particularly nice day, with some overcast and a bit cold, but the serpentine road along the coast wound its way through some beautiful areas. Jamie was impressed by the castle at Carcassonne, despite the crappy weather, but the highlight of the afternoon was meeting with Dominique & Luc Bouriez (my Nov teacher and her husband) and their good friends Jenny and Will, a couple of Americans who are living most of the time in France these days. We toasted the New Year (well, I suppose since it was not yet the new year, we must have been toasting 2008). They had heard sooooo much about Jamie, that it was fun to show them that indeed, Jamie is just as good as I made her out to be!
Our final destination on New Year's Eve was Nick Sawyer's, an old Xilinx friend who now lives just outside of Toulouse. Nick and Brigitte throw a mean party. In addition to champagne and midnight backyard fireworks, there was awesome food (the foie grass was to die for!), karaoke, more food, good bilingual company, great wine, and at 5AM in the morning as things were winding down, they served onion soup just before all the guests left. It was good fun.
We flew back to the US on Jan 3. My year of traveling is behind me, and it's time to figure out the next chapter in my life.
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