Le Mont St Michel

Our time in Paris ended all too quickly, but T and I were lucky that our journey did not end there. After an extremely early departure from the apartment with Eunice and Randy to CDG airport, T and I proceeded to rent a tiny (yet extremely expensive) car. It's hard to imagine now how anyone, especially someone so directionally challenged as myself, got where they were going before the dawn of the GPS age (yes I am aware of how maps work). T and I did it abroad a few short years ago and this was WAY easier. The drive west to the Brittany region was bucolic and peaceful, save the few confusing driving situations and being robbed blind at every toll booth. Our tolls exceeded 30 USD for a roughly 250 mile drive. And let's not forget that gas here is about ten bucks a gallon.
Any worry I may have had about expenses quickly faded as we caught our first glimpse of medieval St Michel in the distance. The Garmin and le petit bleu (our car's name) got us there in about 4 hours. T picked this stop a few months ago and I am so glad he did, being that it is one of the most incredible places I have ever visited. Construction and use of this tidal island city began in about the 10th century and efforts are currently being made to restore it to it's former glory despite the many years of weathering ad erosion. Home of the St Michel (the archangel Michael) monastery and important as a fortress in many wars, most notably the Hundred Year's War, is now a Unesco World heritage site and home to 41 people, mostly priests/monks I think. Anyway, you can go read about it, but I hope my pictures do even a little bit of justice to this magical place.

Honeymoon Revival

T and I had a short and sweet time in Paris back in '07, sandwiching it for 3 days in between London and Barcelona. We decided to spend one afternoon retracing our steps; visiting the hotel and neighborhood where we stayed. We tracked down the little parks where we ate sweet confections and the tiny restaurant where we ate on our first night. On our last day in Paris, we strolled through le Jardin du Luxembourg, that I remembered so fondly as the backdrop for a very fun and romantic day. Luckily, we had another like it, though this time we enjoyed cheesecake rather than wine and cheese.
I'm getting pretty sad while I type this as today is the day I must bid adieu to my betrothed and continue this journey on my lonesome.

Out and About

T and I did our fair share of bar/cafe hopping as you might imagine. Most notably was the night we roamed around looking for 10 Bar, a cave like establishment where the sangria flows freely that we stumbled into on our first night in Paris in 2007. As it happened, T realized after we walked inside that he and Rob had been there before, so a repeat visit was calling us all. We were able to find it again and spent a few hours there with Rob and Bonnie, playing Fela Kuti and some of our other juke box favorites. There we also met Foivos, a cool guy from the island of Syros, Greece, one of mine and T's favorite honeymoon spots. We loved it so much, in fact, that our cat Delfini is named for one of Syros' gorgeous beaches where we spent one of the most wonderful days of my life (aside from the uber painful anemone sting)! Anyway, we somehow ended up having a whole lot of fun at Foivos' apartment until the wee small hours of the morning, where Bonnie did one of the finest robot dances (along to some Greek rap) that I have ever seen. This is saying a lot being that Jay hood has long held this title. Somehow we all managed to make it for the very early morning canal tour.
Below are pictures of that night, others like it, and images captured randomly on one of our many many strolls through Paris.