After about 10 days in the beautiful city of Paris, we moved on to our 2nd stop of our journey – Nice, France.   The 2nd largest city in the Cotes-de-Azur region and on the Mediterranean coast, Nice is an idyllic spot to enjoy a taste of France as well as the beautiful views of the Mediterranean (though the beaches are filled with pebbles instead of sand).

We stayed in Old Town Nice, a few steps away from the famous Cours Saleya, which is a pedestrian area lined by restaurants, gelato and candy shops, and has daily open air markets where vendors sell fresh fruit, flowers, cheese, breads, and homemade jams and snacks.  I felt like I was walking the streets from the Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast” everyday!

such a cute little place!

Cours Saleya Market

We occasionally  enjoyed lunches of fresh baguettes, fresh cheese, and olive oil (with cheap French wine, of course!).  And the gelato….I think the best gelato I’ve ever had was in Nice! Salted Caramel…mmmm, so tasty, but adds 2 lbs immediately after consumption. Worth it?  I think so… 🙂

And the beach….while it isn’t a great beach for laying out (due to the pebbles), it’s quite a scenic view to say the least!

such a pretty (but uncomfortable) beach!

The restaurants are also to die for!  In addition to gelato, the pasta in France seemed to be better than Italy!  The best one we went to was called La Favola.  At one end of Cours Saleya, this place had a casual atmosphere, with fancy dishes!  The pasta and pizza here were amazing! So, for anyone going to Nice, this place is a must!

Other than La Favola, La Cure Gourmande, and the little coffee shop next door were some of our favorites in Old Town Nice.  La Cure Gourmande is a little biscuit/chocolate/caramel shop that has possibly the best caramels I’ve ever had, plus really good biscuits of all sorts of flavors that go really well with espressos and coffee, which you can conveniently find next door.

Lastly, there are quite a few wine shops that sell really cheap French wine and champagne (though they taste like expensive American wine/champagne).  We enjoyed some champagne on the roof at our apartment for Adam’s birthday!

well….why not?

Good times 🙂

I’m going to jump out of order here (since I’m WAY behind anyway) because of a very odd experience in Phuket (where we are now for the rest of November)…

On our second day in Phuket, Adam went to jujitsu class in the morning, leaving me in our apartment to sleep in and chill.  I Skyped with Padu and Kevin since we finally have good working internet, and about 30 minutes into our call, I hear people outside the door, and all of a sudden the door opens!!!

The cleaning people didn’t bother to knock, just busted right into the apartment with no warning.  They see me sitting on the couch with my laptop, with a look of shock on my face, and continue to walk right in holding towels saying “we clean?”.  I figured since they were here already, might as well let them.. It was then that they heard Padu and Kevin on the computer, and must have thought it was magic!

I never imagined video chat would cause  people living in the 21st century to be so intrigued, but I guess this is Thailand, and technology isn’t as commonly available as I thought.

So…back to the call…  Not that I invited them over to check out Skype on my computer or anything…they just came right up behind me staring at the screen….not realizing that Padu and Kevin can also see them (and were laughing at their expressions) and were waving at them.  One of the maids asked if I was talking to my sister, to which I responded “yes”, and they just kept staring….. and saying “Hi!”, and waving to Padu and Kevin, who were waving back at them. Lol.

The next 30 minutes were incredibly awkward (although funny), as the 2 maids were cleaning the apartment, while continuously looking over my shoulder at the laptop screen (not realizing that I can see them looking over my shoulder from the Skype camera, and Padu and Kevin could also see them and were laughing at them the whole time).  Padu and I turned to Skype messaging while on the video chat because talking became a little too weird knowing that these two women were listening and staring.

Kevin was so amused, that he snapped these pics, capturing the awkwardness for your enjoyment 🙂

I always feel like….somebody’s watching meeeee….

Not sure what on earth they were doing that took them like an hour to clean the room, but I have a sinking feeling that they were pretty distracted by the magic wormhole in my computer screen connecting me to the other side of the world, therefore making them work half as fast.

Since that day…they’ve started knocking on the door.  🙂

We were in Paris for 10 days and couldn’t help falling a little in love with it.  The atmosphere, the tons of sights to see and things to do, the ease of getting anywhere you need to be without a car, and the food..who wouldn’t love it? For anyone wanting to visit Paris, here’s some info:

The city: Paris is huge! For someone who grew up in Northern VA, where every city can be driven through in 10 min on a main road, Paris seemed like it never ended. There are tons of different areas – from the Eifel Tower/Champ de Mars area, Monmartre, the Latin Quarter…so many different things to see and places to eat! You’ll pretty much never run out of things to do.  During our week and a half visit, we certainly didn’t pack in as much as we could do each day, but we had more than enough to keep us busy.

The people: Most Americans think the French people are rude and snobby….so not true at all!  Our encounters with people (mostly our airbnb.com hosts, retail workers, taxi drivers, and waiters) were all pleasant. Nobody was rude, even though we barely spoke more than 5 words of French the whole time, everyone was very polite and friendly, and helpful! I’d say, to not be a horrible tourist (like us), learn at least a few words/phrases in French so you don’t stand out like a sore thumb.

The dress code:  while I’ve learned that all Europeans are very open minded and not judgmental at all, Paris isn’t called the fashion capital of the world for nothing. While it’s easy to dress in shorts, jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers (like I did for the most part since that’s mostly all I packed for our 5 month tour of the world), you may feel pretty bummy looking (like I did the entire time I was in France) if you don’t have at least a few fashionable outfits… Parisians often look like they’re coming out of a Vogue photo shoot…most of them are annoyingly good looking! And I say annoying only because I felt like a frumpy old woman with my shorts, tank top, flip flops, no make-make up and hair in a bun compared to the nicely dressed, perfect haired, mannequin-like figures walking all around me.

The food: OMG, don’t get me started.  Though it was rather pricey, all the food we ate was so fresh and delicious.  There are bakeries, cheese shops, sweet shops, and gelato stands EVERYWHERE! I am supposedly “lactose intolerant” in the US, but in France I was not…no idea why….maybe I’m just chemically processed dairy intolerant?  To make up for the years and years of not eating much dairy, I had my share (and probably about 20 other people’s shares) of cheese, gelato, and all sorts of other delicious deserts.  What I found odd…there’s a lot of Italian dishes.  We had more pasta and pizza in Paris than we ever did before.  And of course…macarons….mmmmm…. I could eat these things forever, but I was good and only limited myself to a few 🙁

mmmmmm…..

The wine: CHEAP. enough said. You can get a good bottle of wine for 5-8 euros (and average bottles for 1.5 – 3 euros).

Transportation: Getting around the city was so easy! The metro takes you pretty much anywhere you need to be and only costs 1.5 euros per person.  Taxis are also fairly cheap.  Don’t think we paid more than 10 euros for the taxi rides we took when we were more in a hurry (except for the “pre-vat car” experience from my last post).

Housing: Can be pricey depending on where you decide to stay.  We used airbnb.com and found studios to rent for a couple days, but wound up paying roughly $1k/week.  Cheaper than a hotel, yes, but still expensive.  The up side, we could wash our clothes, and buy food to eat (and wine, of course) in the apartment.

Things to do: In 10 days, we did not get bored, or feel that we did everything we could think of.  I’ll come up with my favorite things we did in the next post.

Stay tuned…

S

July 11th – After a 7-ish hour flight, we made it to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Neither Adam nor I can sleep on planes, so after getting only 3 hours of sleep the previous night, and close to no sleep on our overnight plane ride, we were both exhausted.  We were hoping that since our plane was grounded in NY for 1.5 hours, that our bags made it on…wishful thinking.

Waiting at the baggage carousel proved us wrong.  Our bags were stuck in NY.  We were in Paris. Neither of us can say more than “bonjour”, “merci”, “croissant”, and “chocolat” in French.  Thank goodness for English speaking American Airlines reps!!  The nice lady at the counter spoke English very well, and after finding out we were from Herndon, VA, she mentioned that she was previously an au pair in Reston!! score!! We found a connection with the baggage lady!

She was nice enough to call someone or another to confirm that our bags never left NY, and said they would be on the next flight to Paris and that someone would deliver our bags to us immediately after they arrived.  We also got some helpful tips on taking the metro instead of taxi to our hotel (or studio in our case since we are using airbnb.com for the majority of our stay in Europe) because it would be lot cheaper, but since both of us were exhausted, we  (or at least I was) 1) were looking for the quickest way to our room, and 2) couldn’t really understand all her directions due to her French accent and so didn’t remember most of what she said.

We decided to take a taxi anyway to get from point A to B asap.

Walking out of the terminal, some guy approached us and asked us if we needed a taxi, and informed us that the line for taxis had a 1+ hour wait and that his company could get us in a car immediately….for a price of 85 euros.  He seemed to give somewhat of a sales pitch, and we were at first thinking that was way too much, but then considering that we were about 40ish minutes outside of Paris (we stayed near the Eiffel Tower), a cab ride may cost around 40+ euros, plus we’d have to wait in line for a long time.

Eventually we caved, and decided to suck it up and pay the 85 euros to get us to our room.  The guy then walked over to another 2 guys….one looked like he could have been in the Russian mafia – tall, bald, wore all black, and not friendly seeming, and another who looked equally as sketchy but shorter and kind of a mix of middle-eastern and Amish.  Both of these guys were in street clothes, and none looked like they worked for any professional taxi service.  The first guy we talked to assigned the shorter guy to drive us.

We followed our driver out of the airport and to a black car waiting at the curb. There were no markings on the car saying “Taxi” there was no meter on the dashboard, there was nothing at all that told us that this was an actual valid taxi. Adam and I looked at each other….realizing that this was a bad idea, and Adam said something to the guy about no meter and questioned if this was a real taxi or not.  The guy responded “pre-vat car, pre-vat car” (private car)….ugh, I had a bad feeling about this….but we both hesitantly got in.

At that moment, I was certain that we were going to be driven to some dark alley and murdered, or mugged and left in some ditch, or told to get out of the car with our bags stolen.  We didn’t speak French, we honestly had no idea how to actually get to our room, and Charles de Gaulle was 30-40 min outside of Paris, so this guy could have pretty much taken us anywhere he wanted and we would have had no idea where we were or now to communicate with anyone to get help.

We spent the first few minutes in awkward silence, with all sorts of horrible scenarios racing through my mind, until our driver tried to start up a conversation in his broken English.  I have no idea how, but MMA was brought up, and it was then that Adam was able to form  somewhat of a “hey don’t kill us” bond with this guy over juijitsu/UFC talk for the next 20 or so minutes.  phew….  no muggings or murders for these world travelers!

We finally made it safely to our studio in Paris, ready to start our 5 month long adventure….85 euros poorer, but hey, it got us out of standing in long taxi lines, and possibly getting lost on the metro (little did we know the Parisian metro is actually really easy to navigate as we later found out).

What’s the first thing we did in Paris, you ask?  took a long nap!

July 9th – After non-stop packing for days, we were finally nearing the finish line.  Our flight to Paris was at 6pm on Thursday, July 10th, and we’ve still got more to pack up and put into storage, and then finally finish packing our luggage for the trip.

I left my least favorite room – the kitchen – for last.  Dozens of dishes, glasses, and other odds and ends still needed to be wrapped and stored safely in boxes, and moved to our storage room.  Luckily, my parents volunteered to help.

Around 6pm on Wednesday (24 hours till our flight took off) both my parents came over and got to work wrapping dish by dish, glass by glass.  Adam was still packing his “man room” so it was just 3 of us tackling the kitchen.  We finished the kitchen, surprisingly efficiently, in about 2 hours! What a relief! It would have taken me all night to do it myself!  Thank you mama and papa!!

Once they left, Adam and I finished up the last of our odds and ends, wound up staying up till 3am before deciding to call it a night and head over to my parents for a few hours of sleep.  Needless to say, we were out cold once our heads hit the pillows.  Waking up at 6am on the 10th, we went back over to our house to load up my mom’s van and the lexus with the last load of boxes.

We cut it incredibly close, locking the storage room for the last time till December around noon or 1pm, and then back over to the house to pack up our bags.  We decided to travel as lightly as possible, each of us only bringing 3 bags – an Osprey convertible wheeled bag, the day pack that came with the Osprey bag, and one other bag (for me a large purse, for Adam a large lap-top messenger.  Finally packed, we made it over to my parents around 3pm, just in time to leave for the airport.

We were done. Finally!  (or so we thought) 6pm came around and we were on the plane ready for take off….but nope! Bad storms rolled around the area so all flights got cancelled JUST before our plane went down the runway.  Here’s what it looked like for roughly 1.5 hours as we sat in our plane at Reagan Airport:

Just slightly delayed…

As you can see (or not see), visibility was no more than .25 miles. Ugh, our flight from DCA went to New York JFK before heading over to Paris.  We had about 1 hr 45 min layover in NY, so I was expecting to stay the night in NY due to the delay.

We made it to NY minutes (5 or less) before the NY – Paris flight was scheduled to take off.  Luckily, our next flight was in the same terminal, and we literally ran to the gate.  I suppose the Paris flight was expecting us and knew our original flight was delayed, and they actually held the doors open and waited for just the 2 of us.  We finally saw the gate, and the 3 flight attendants who were expecting us as they started waving at us to hurry…which we did.  WE MADE IT!

Our bags on the other hand…a different story…

July 4th, 2014 – Day #1 of sabbatical for me (and the end of the 3rd week for Adam)…and what’s a better way to celebrate this 6 month long vacation than with fireworks! Independence Day had a different meaning this year. We celebrated in DC, seeing the best fireworks show I’d ever seen before.

It didn’t feel real that I wouldn’t be going back to work in a couple days….for the next half a year!  When was the last time I didn’t have to do any work or go to school for 6 months at a time? Summer breaks for school and college are only 3-4 months, and I started working full time right out of college, so that means it had to have been when I was…..4? Possibly younger? wow!  Guess this really is an opportunity of a lifetime!  Until retirement, that is…

Hope everyone had a happy 4th!

~S

This is my first attempt at blogging, and also with Word Press. Just as a heads up to all of you who are reading this – I am not a writer.  I am an accountant.  I like numbers, facts, logical things.  Not so much opinions or stories.  But, for all of our friends and family who are living vicariously through us in our travels, I will try my hardest to actually post our adventures here.  well…at least I will try to post pictures 😉

~S

For as long as we’ve known each other (which is 14 years now…), Adam has talked about living overseas. Originally, the plan was to live in one place for a year to year and half, but something always got in the way. After getting married, there were job changes, home purchases, masters degrees…something always seemed to be going on that pushed this trip off.

So, here we are in 2014, married for 7 years now, and we do want to have a family some day (Adam seems to think we’re still having 5 kids….I’m not so sure about that!) so it’s now or never!

We decided on 6 months…leaving in July, returning in December, but Adam will go traveling on his own in January through February. We will be spending half the time in Europe, and the other half in Asia, traveling from place to place, staying in each until we’re ready to move on. There is no itinerary. There is no real plan. But we’re doing it! Renting our house, selling our cars, packing up and just leaving! Some probably think we’re crazy (sometimes I do myself), but life is short….and I don’t want to be on my death bed someday thinking about how average my life was. So, we’re doing it…living life, experiencing different places, people, and best of all..FOOD!

So far, the plan (and I use that term loosely) is a couple weeks spent in France, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and then on to India, Thailand, and possibly the Philippines, Cambodia, and other south east Asian countries nearby. I am lucky enough to be able to take a 6 month leave of absence from work, and return to my job in January. Adam, however, is resigning in mid-June.

In 2015, we rebuild our lives….start from almost scratch, and prepare for yet another adventure….starting a family! But for now..time to live in the present, enjoy every moment, and do what very few people do…become world travelers!