More in Paris....and On to Germany!

Still looking thru the photos taken by L'Artiste . I'm usually terrible about doing something with the pictures from a trip so this time I'm really going to try to do a better job!

I thought this Paris scene was interesting. You can't see how ridiculous Paris traffic is in this one though. C'est horrifique! I remembered it being ridiculous, but I think it's even worse now. On the way into town, our van driver was squeezing down a street (at a speed slightly less than that of light) and when we came to a right-hand turn, there were dozens of pedestrians on the sidewalk about to cross the street. One of them actually ran into the van and almost got flattened! Then the driver decided to pull a U-turn on a 2-lane street, and someone on a moped was in the process of passing us on the right, between traffic lanes. We hit him slightly too--with a flurry of French curses! That was all in the space of about 4 minutes in downtown traffic!

In my last post, I forgot to mention our evening trip down the Seine. It really was lovely. By the end of that long day, we were mighty tired, and we hadn't eaten much because we were trying to save a little money--every time we turned around it cost another 50 euros! So we were kind of bummed that the boat was too full for us to have a seat up top--but we just stood and it was certainly worth it. I would say that evening is the only time(at least in the summer) to take that trip! There was a nice cool breeze, and all the buildings are dramatically lit so you can see all the sights you'd ever want to see, but at night they're all bathed in a warm light. And of course, the Eiffel Tour is just glorious with all its lights twinkling in the sunset. It really was lovely.

As I mentioned earlier, the next morning we left for Germany on the ICE train, which is a fantastic thing! It took about 4 hours to get to Frankfurt, change trains, and then about an hour to get to Wurzburg, and BOY did it beat driving! I like European trains anyway because they're clean, on time and you get to relax and enjoy the scenery. The new trains even have wireless hotspots, so there were many businesspeople working as they traveled from one country to the next. Very cool.

We got to Wurzburg, and Yvonne was there waiting for us--oh how nice it was to see her! It's been 6-7 years since I've seen her, and that's tooooo long! I must say that as I stepped out of the Bahnhof, even after all of these years, I felt a little bit like I was going home. I just felt different than I had in Ireland or France. And the feeling grew through the days, as we visited so many of our old haunts. Even as I write this, it brings tears to my eyes a bit, because we had so many wonderful times there, and Germany holds such a special place in our hearts. The one missing element was having Chuck there with me. By this time in the trip, I really missed him anyway, and coming "home" intensified that. I wish he'd been there with us.

For dinner that night, Chip met us in Wurzburg at a gasthaus overlooking the beautiful countryside--I can't remember what the name was--and Taylor got her first real German meal. Schweinelendchen! She loved it. We sat for a long time on the porch overlooking the valley as the sun set, and...it was good. On to Rothenburg tomorrow!