joie de vivre

 

 I posted this picture on facebook when we got back from our trip and I received a surprising number of comments recommending it as our Christmas card picture.

 First off, am I old enough to be sending out my own Christmas card?  I'm pretty sure the two of us have a combined age of about eight, maybe ten on good days.  But we're married and job hunting, not really living on our own yet, though we're working on it.  I guess this means we do send out a Christmas card.  Weird...  Now I'm contemplating what photos I would use.  It's kind of fun to think about everything that has already happened this year!


 Anyway, wanted to share a few thoughts on Paris before I get back to useful things, like ironing and thank you notes (yes, they're still not done...I'm horrible).

This was my second trip to the city of lights and overall, I thoroughly enjoyed myself more than my first time.  I think several things contributed to this. 

1. I was with Mr. F.  It's the city of love for crying out loud!  Even without the kisses on Pont Neuf, I loved experiencing the city through Mr. F's eyes.  He soaked in everything and I got a fresh sense of how wonderful Paris really is.

2. After living in Germany, where I speak no German...at all...it was so much fun to be surrounded by a language I understand a bit more.  My French consists of two very shaky years of training in high school (oh goodnes...) and three months in Brussels.  Somehow between these two situations I know enough to order food and feel confident enough to say hello to people.  That's enough for me.

3.  Just last week I finished a book, The Greater Journey by David McCullough, giving the history of Paris in the nineteenth century through the perspectives of influential Americans living there.  That in combination with several other books I have read in recent years gave me a much better knowledge and appreciation of everything around me.  For example, I marveled all the more at the Louvre knowing that it has been open to the public for a couple of centuries now as a museum.  During the nineteenth century, the reigning French government of the time wanted to destroy the Louvre.  That's when the people revolted again.

a statue from Versailles.  isn't she pretty?

A quick rundown of what we saw:  Sacre Couer, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Tour de Eiffel, Palace of Versailles, the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, and the Arc de Triomphe.  I don't know if my feet have ever hurt so badly or been as filthy as when we got back to Germany from this excursion.  We walked from sun up to sundown the whole fifty-six hours or so we were there.  Mr. F and I have begun to embrace the true European spirit in which we would walk as long as we could before sitting for as long as we could at a cafe.  French food is not to be underestimated.  We ate simply, mainly baguette sandwiches, but they were absolutely divine.  Did you know that sliced camembert cheese on a baguette with a little butter and lettuce could make a filling sandwich?  Well, let me tell ya, it's not only filling, but positively delicious!

Mr. F's favorite thing was the Louvre.  He looked like a kid in a candy store as we wandered the palace of art.  He was astonished by the history of the building and taken aback by the vastness and richness of the collection.  He handpicked a few pieces he definitely wanted to see, namely the Venus de Milo and the Code of Hammurabi. 

As cheesy as it sounds, I think my favorite part of the trip was being there with Mr. F.  The more time we spend together the greater I understand how lucky I am to have married my best friend.  We really have so much fun together!