Europe - Days 9 and 10 and Back Home

Day 9 -- we had had a wonderful time so far, and pretty much been on the go the whole time, so we decided, on Day 9, to take it easy. We were tired! Hubby did some reading, and I walked alone to a nearby store and did some shopping. Have I mentioned how much fun I had speaking French while in France? Shopping alone was another fun opportunity. I bought some miscellaneous items: greeting cards in French, and a couple small items for Christmas gifts. On the way back to the apartment I bought some food for lunch. More speaking French and navigating alone in Paris! Tres bien!

While we enjoyed our lazy day, S and A went to a museum. So it was truly a quiet day. We may have enjoyed a bit of a nap as well.

That evening the four of us went out for a fun French dinner. S and A suggested a tiny restaurant they had discovered earlier, so off we went to Chez Marie where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner.

Some of us started with onion soup (I had a salad), which looked rather fancy and delicious. Hubby's main dish was 'cassoulet' and mine was Beef Bourguigonon. Delish! And mine included dessert which was lemon pie. How I love pie! And lemon is one of my faves. I started gobbling it down before I remembered to take a photo.

After dinner we climbed more hill (it had been quite a climb to get to Chez Marie).. and gazed upon Sacre Coeur at night. Quite pretty. Turns out Sacre Coeur and her steps are a big gathering place for the young and young at heart. They had guitars and other music, and seemed to be having fun just chillin' there on the steps. We rode the vernicular back down the hill, went home and climbed into bed. Nighty-night, Paris!

Day 10: Sadly, it was our day to leave. We took the Metro to the Opera stop. The Opera building is gorgeous! Ballets are performed here. On my next trip, I'll attend a Paris Ballet! We boarded a bus which took us to the airport. We then had to stand in a looooooonnnnnnnggggg line to get our boarding pass. What a mess! Two Icelandic flights were leaving, five minutes apart, so two planes' worth of folks were in line. It would have been awful, except a cute little boy ahead of us in line kept me entertained. He was adorable and remarkably well behaved for having to be in a boring line for so long.

At one point his grandpa took a picture of him having a tantrum in the middle of the floor. LOL! Other than that, he did very well, and I wanted to give him smooches, he was so cute.

I snapped a few last pics of Paris on the bus ride to the airport.

Before we knew it, we had landed once again in Reykjavik, Iceland. This is the only view we got of Iceland other than the airport and airplanes. Some day I would like to de-plane and spend some time exploring Iceland. There are SO MANY fascinating places in the world! We had our passports stamped here, as it was our last stop in Europe. For all the stops we made: Iceland, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, and France, we got only two stamps in our passports: both from Iceland where we spent the least amount of time. Travel is very easy between the European Union countries, and it's easy to shop as most of them use the Euro, but it also means passports look boring with very few stamps. It's a small thing to worry about after having the trip of a lifetime and numerous fond memories. FABULOUS TRIP, START TO FINISH!! We were so lucky that everything went smoothly, nothing was lost, and we experienced nothing but fun and awesomeness.

I'm ready to go back!