UPDATE!

                WOW! This has been a TRUE adventure of a lifetime!  I’m very sorry for the lack of blogs since my mom has been here.  We have been very busy and have very little time to write these blogs to keep everyone up to date.  I will give a brief catch-up to those of you who are actually trying to keep up with everything we are doing!  I will eventually give you more details of everyday highlights that we did, but that probably won’t come until I come back to the states since we are none stop going and I am usually very time by the time we get back! 

                Normandie:  This was definitely very informative.  We did a bus tour from Paris to the Normandie region of France.  We visited a couple different sites that are famous from World War II and then visited the American Cemetery.  I definitely could have spent a full dya there; I didn’t even get to go in the visitor center which I heard was the best part after we got back on the bus.  We spent the night in Caen and then the next day went to Mont St. Michel.  This was very cool.  It started out as a church on a rock and kept getting built up and around.  This is an island that during the day when the tide is out (low) can be reached; at night when the tide is in (high) you cannot leave or enter the island.  It has been used for slavery; prison, monks and nuns have lived here/live here, and is now a tourist town.  One of my goals for this trip is to expand my horizons with different kinds of foods.  Well at one of the restaurants we ate at I decided I was going to try their Prawns; which is shrimp for those of you who may not know.  I’m not a big sea food person but I thought I’d try it at this place.  WELL, I got a cocktail glass with about 15 raw, shelled shrimp on this glass….AND they still had their EYES in!!!!  I don’t know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t that!   I could barely stand to look at it, let alone eat it.  But like I said I’m TRYING to expand my horizons, so I tried.  I didn’t know how to take the shell off so mom showed me and I saw these lil ball looking things inside and was so grossed out from everything I just pushed that aside and tried it.  It wasn’t bad once I got it deshelled and took the lil ball things off.  But it wasn’t for me so mom and I switched plates.  She later told me that the ball things were the prawns guts and shit!  EWW!  I don’t know that I will ever be able to eat shrimp again!  Like I told her, just give me my food prepared, I know it has a face and fecal matter, but get rid of it and just serve it to me!!! 

            Paris: Palace of Versailles was HUGE!  From one end to the other it is a 60 minute walk!  This place was built by King Louis the something!  He started it and as time went on other kings would just add on their own areas and leave the previous kings’ stuff alone!  It was magnificent!  The gardens were beyond gorgeous!  Marie Antoinette had her own house here and from the main palace it is a 25 minute walk!  Let me tell you, if you got mad at your husband you had a LONG hike to take to get away from him!  I’m not sure why you would need that after going thru the main palace…if you can’t hide in that thing, you had some MAJOR issues!  I was not very impressed by her house and area.  It was cool but definitely not up the to the quality as the main palace!  Mom and I had lunch alongside one of the ponds and I ended up enjoying my sandwich with about 20 fish!  They were ODD looking fish that LOVED my bread and chips, but was not fond of the lettuce I tried to feed them!  The palace was definitely worth seeing; however, the amount of people that were there was CRAZY!  It was suppose to be a hour and a half wait to get in, well there was a huge gap at the front of the line where no one was paying attention so mom and I squeezed in there and we got in within 10 minutes! J hehe Definitely glad we did tho! 

              Moulin Rouge was mom’s favorite part of the trip thus far.  It was a great show!  I didn’t know what to expect so I was really surprised when I saw women who were shirtless and had thongs on for coverage, or lack of coverage, of their rear!  But it was really a cool show and is a very historic show that has been played for the past 100 years!  Before we went to the show we went to a place called Le Traine bleu.  I picked the place because I saw it had steak; well what I thought was steak!  It was actually steak tartar.  YUP!  I ordered it and mom wasn’t paying attention to what I ordered and I was definitely surprised when they brought me out RAW meat!  (Jill if you’re still reading this you would have loved it!  Chip Chop at its finest!)  The waiter brought out the meat and put some mustard in it and some cappers, onions and a RAW egg….he mixed it all together and grounded it up like one would with a hamburger and then put it on the plate and put it in front of me.  I did try it…..but I couldn’t get past the idea of raw meat on my plate!  I finally caved and asked him to cook it for me; which he did and was very nice about it.  It still was only cooked for maybe 2 minutes and was still pretty raw.  Needless to say I ate very little that meal! 

                Monte Carlo-Well first off the train we didn’t know where the heck to go.  I decided to head one way and we ended up coming out at the bottom of a hill.  I tried to figure out on a map where we were and decided we needed to head up the hill.  We walked for about 10 minutes up this HUGE hill with 3 suitcases, 2 purses and one carry-on bag with temperature in the high 80’s with humidity near 100%.  After about 10 minutes I was definitely a bear to be around so I stopped and told mom that she needed to get a taxi because I was not moving any further!  I was dripping sweat and mad that we had no idea where we were going except up this HUGE hill!  So she stopped a random person and figured out where we could call a taxi.  I’m VERY happy we figured it out because the last part of the hill was at about a 75 degree angle!  It was VERY steep!  (Mom realized how Princess Grace had died here since all the roads were on this hill!)  We checked into our very nice hotel and went to dinner.  At dinner we met a VERY nice couple!  The woman, Maria, was originally from the states and her husband, Bob, was from England.  They had 7 children together and 7 grandchildren.  We had a great time talking to them!  They definitely had a LOT of money as they have a house in Chicago, 2 in Fort Lauderdale, 1 in England and one in Monte Carlo!  They invited us to share a cab with them to a bar called “Stars and Bars.”  This day was the 4^th of July and this bar was owned by an American couple and the GM was also from America so they were having a special!  We definitely were in for that; so we got a taxi and went to that bar with them.  After the bar we headed to the Monte Carlo Casino.  I thought mom was going to crap her pants she was SO excited!  I guess this casino is in the James Bond movies.  It cost 10 euros to ENTER the casino.  We only had 20 euros in cash left at that point and I knew we needed 10 euros to get back to the hotel with the taxi so I chose to let mom go in and see the actual casino while I waited out in the lobby.  She said it was VERY pretty and worth the money to go in!  I am very happy she got to do it as it was one of the things she was most excited to do! 

                CinqueTerra- The first view we got coming off the train in Monterrosso was a GORGEOUS view of the Mediterranean Sea.  I will never forget the beauty we saw in this place.  It definitely is one the most beautiful places I’ve ever been!  This place was VERY laid back and the sea just made you feel very Zen and laid back!  We didn’t do too much here besides hike up and down hills and sweat A LOT!  J  It was definitely worth the stop and I want to head back here one day for my honey moon or with someone I am with!

                Florence-HOT, HOT, HOT!  WOW Florence is a very hot city this time of year!  First day in Florence it was 95 degree with a high humidity level!  It also is a very busy city, or at least where we are staying.  We are only a couple feet away from PonteVecchio.  This is a bridge that has lasted since the 1200 and is the only bridge in this city that survived World War II.  It is the place where gold jewelry is EVERYWHERE!  It’s a bridge and this bridge probably has 100 different shops where you can buy GOLD!  It is very crazy and a lot of people look at it!  First day in Florence we found our Pandora charm and Dolce and Gabbana as well as many other high end stores like Louis Vuitton, Pradda, and Tiffanys! 

                Speaking of Pandora, so far my Pandora bracelet has four charms on it; the four countries I have visited!  I have the UK Royal Wedding charm from England, a red four leaf clover from Ireland, a Paris suitcase from France, and the Firenze flower for Italy!  Can’t wait to get my 5^th and final charm from Germany!  J  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the GREAT Birthday present…along with this WHOLE trip!!!!! 

                Up to date: We did the cooking class today!  This definitely will be one of the top things I have done on the trip for sure!  It was filled with great food and wine as well as laughs and according playing men!  We made a four course meal and then got to enjoy it with 13 other people.  Our class consisted of 10 people (including mom and I) and then the chef.  He has been a chef in restaurants around the world for the past 30 years; he has spent the past 10 in Florence working in restaurants and the past 4 doing these private cooking lessons.  He definitely had a good sense of humor!  The people who were in the class were us were very fun people and 6 of the 8 came from the US with 4 of them coming from Ohio!  Midwesterners definitely got along the best! J  I can’t wait to get back and try cooking my own pasta/noodles!

                I will fill in more details as I get more time to write!  It currently is midnight here and I am listening to mom breathe heavily as she sleeps away and I am starting to doze off as well!  We have to get up early and go see the Duomo tomorrow followed by a Chianti Wine tour that includes an Olive Oil farm and a Castle!  Then hopefully we get on our overnight train to Munich.  We were informed tonight that there is suppose to be a train strike tomorrow from 9 pm to 9 pm on Sunday.  Our train isn’t supposed to leave until 9:52 tomorrow so we are nervous about it!   We talked to our travel agent and she said that it’s not supposed to affect the international trains so we are hoping for that.  Otherwise we have to fly and that would be an additional 384 euros per person on top of the train ticket we already paid for!  I will definitely let you know what happens!  As mom always says…it is what it is and we will have to take it as it comes!  It wouldn’t be an Adventure if we didn’t have a lil worrying to do!  J  Definitely miss everyone, but I’m not quite ready to think about coming home yet!  I am having such a great time here I just wish you all could join me so I didn’t miss everyone so much!!!   

Mom and I at one of the stops in the Normandie Region

(out of order but can't figure out how to change it!) Monte Carlo Casino Entrance

(Out of order again) First view off the train at CinqueTerra!

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Mom's Favorite Place

(Out of Order) View from the walk in Cinque Terra

Steak TarTar.....yummy?

Palace of Versailles Enterance

Ceiling in the Palace

One of the many fountains at the palace

Mom at a random gate on our walk in Cinque Terra

Florence!  The view from the terrace of our hotel!

Mom in her flower apron....at first they didn't have our cooking school aprons so she was given this one!

Mom and I at our cooking class!

The Chef picking the herbs we were using in our dishes

In the process of making the stuffed Chicken



Ricotta Cake I made the Larger one!



Chicken Stuffed with Crushed Pistaccio, Pork and Ham!  It was actually VERY good!

The According guy and I...he liked me :)