About 2 Years Ago

Eddie and I took a trip to Switzerland, France, and Italy. To date, its the only trip (besides our honeymoon) that we've gone on as a married couple without our parents or Andrew. Sad I know! I've been reading my friends blog (American Dresdener) and it reminded me of the little trip we took. I've been finding myself feeling almost homesick for England, I do not understand this feeling AT ALL! But I have it, so I've been looking at pictures, and rereading emails I sent from when we lived there!

The following is a rather lengthy excerpt from the email I sent out about our trip.

We've been in France now for a couple of days. It's amazing. The Alps are beautiful. I would put an exclamation point, but the keyboard is laid out differently and I can't find it. The pictures are of a town called Yvoire, pronounced "eevwah." Eddie had the camera, and he didn't bother to take any pictures of people we actually knew. Yesterday we drove along part of the route of the Tour de France, which I thought was very cool.

We are staying with Eddies aunt and uncle, which has been kinda funny. There are three kids still at home, and even though their parents are English they speak mostly French, but because I don't understand they've been speaking a mixture of both. The youngest is 10 and he keeps forgetting that Eddie can understand him, so Peter will taunt Eddie in French, or make fun of him to the others. Which makes everyone laugh, and then they translate it for me. It's funnier in French.

Eddie and I spent Memorial Day in Paris. We drove down on Sunday night, parked near the mission home, and got the train into the city. We managed to go and see pretty much everything. We got one day metro cards so we could ride the metro as much as we wanted. We started out at the Opera House which had some weird "Cow Art" out in front of it. Then got breakfast at a pastry shop that Eddie frequented while he was serving in Paris, and then we went across the Sein to see the Notre Dame. Then we stopped at the Paris Institute building, so that Eddie could check on people he knew while he was there. We had a long conversation with the missionary couple and we got to call Ben Pollock. He is in an area in Normandy, which is an area Eddie served in too. When Eddie was there, the branch only had 30 active members, and now it has 93. From the Institute building, we went to the Louvre, which is huge! Walked thru the Louvre gardens to the square where the American Embassy is, got hassled by some gypsies, got back on the train and went to the Eiffel Tower. We went to the Moulin Rouge, which was disgusting! After that we walked up a huge hill to the Sacre Coure which looks out over the whole city. On the same hill is Monmatre, which is an area full of artists on the street painting the tourists. (Jaz this parts for you! When I was reading your blog I was thinking that you no longer look really "American" especially when you're standing next to your mom. I related the following story to another American woman I know who lives in France she said that I should take what the girls said as a compliment, apparently being mistaken for a non-American {even if its by fellow Americans} is flattering!) We overheard an interesting conversation from some American girls, who were talking rather loudly about how strangely I'd gained weight, til one of the genius' figured it out! I was eating a bag of whotsits, which are like cheetos, which probably sparked the conversation, it made me laugh. From there we got back on the metro, and went to l'Arc de Triumphe and the Champs Elysee. And that was Paris all in about 6 hours. We went to dinner at the HardRock Cafe, and Eddie was falling asleep at the table, so we went back to the car slept for a little while and then drove 6 hours back to Geneva.

We went to the Bern Switzerland Temple on Saturday. The session was in French, so I had a translator thing around my neck. I managed to find the few temple workers who didn't speak any English, which made it a very interesting day at the temple, and the baby kicked me thru the whole thing! Bern is in the German part of Switzerland, so when we stopped for lunch at McDonald's, we were ordering in a mixture of German, French, and English. McDonlad's in Europe, is way better than in America. It doesn't have the weird smell, and the menu is way better, and the fries taste different in every country.

On Friday Eddie and I went to Italy for lunch. Its a really pretty drive, and you go thru the Mont Blanc tunnel, which goes thru the Alps! We stopped for lunch in a town called Aosta, and had real Italian food! And we also went to Geneva for dinner with one of Eddies mission companions.