Hey hey!

Hello again for another update. Its been a while and we've been keeping plenty busy but still doing alright.

We ended up spending the last week in the grande city of Paris.. 5 nights in total and to tell the outright truth it was a mixed bag for us. There were many great things and some not so great things about the city.. I'm actually quite surprised by it all. Maybe it was that we had a preconcieved and "romantic" assumption of how it would be? Who knows?

Not to say that the city isn't romantic.. there are many things that make it so. the monuments are nothing short of breathtaking.. all just amazing in their own right and really aweinspiring. The history of the city and all that is wonderful and interesting. I imagine that if you were to stay in a nice 4-5 star hotel, take tours of the city on your own private boat and had your own personal chef whip up meals for you by candlelight it would be the most romantic city ever and could indeed live up to all the  hype .. unfortunately for people like us who are backpacking, who don't know the language all that well, who can't afford a nice hotel to stay in, and who require the use of the metro or our feet to get around, its a far cry from being "romantic".

In fact its just the opposite in some cases! I was shocked at several things, particularily the smells you get walking down some streets.. smells of garbage, sewage, general gross odors, and this continues from time to time walking through the metro and rer stations.. not the nicest and certainly not romantic.
Also, when half the people you meet, servants, shop keepers, clerks etc, are outright snobby and rude, it too makes it a less than romantic experience.

Add to this the absolute joke that the prices are and it quickly makes your experience here as memorable as a bland carbonara with a 15 euro price tag. Oh, and did you know that it cheaper to buy a coffee than it is for just a bottle of water? Not by much though.. getting any drink, soft drink, water, or coffee in any cafe here is no less than 3 euro on average. Pretty dismal when you can get a half a pint of any kind of beer in London for a pound and a half to 2 pound.

Fortunately for our time in Paris we stayed in a room in the home of a lovely older French Madame. The room wasn't anything special but we were fed fresh french pastries each morning for breakfast and she definitely helped us with our French speaking . I can't beleive how much I forgot since French 12!

The weather has held out for us as well and yesterday was the hottest day yet hitting a solid 28c. We ended up spending it in the park and taking it all in which was nice.

In all we ended up seeing all of the big names like the tour eiffel, louvre, notre dame and arch de triomphe. We also were able to go check out the catacombes which were crazy and creepy as well as walk down the crowded and busy champs-elysse.

So to sum it all up, Paris was good, but in no way great. If only people were nicer in general, the food was better and there was more variety, and the city wasn't extortionate with its prices I think it would have made our stay far more pleasant. So now we have made our way to Epernay which is in Champagne country.. a little out of the way but now we had noticed that we need to take the train all the way back to Paris to get down to Lyon which is our next destination.. so thats a bit of a bummer. Though while here we did get to do and see the home of Moet & Chandon and even did a tour of their wine cellars which were amazing! We got to see thounsands of handstacked bottles aging and some had been there for years. Very very cool indeed!

But most importantly we're getting closer and closer to the south coast which we are getting ready for. Its time for some fun in the sun for these road warriors!

And so with that I will love you and leave you.. but not without some cool new photos :)

XOXO from France!

Love Mia and Vlad


So in no particular order:

1) A stainglass window in the Notre Dame Cathedral
2) A shot of some of the statues housed in the Louvre
3) Another shot of the Louvre.. this room is called the Apollo Room
4) A long distance shot of the main building of Parliament in Paris
5) Yours truly on a beautiful Paris night just admiring the tour eiffel