We just returned from a wonderful weekend in Paris!! With this being the first weekend after Heide's first week of work... we went back and forth whether we should take this trip at all. Finally,  we came to the conclusion that traveling is why we are living in Europe... so let's go for it! Besides, the trip was in honor of Heide's 28^th birthday! We're both exhausted... but we're so glad we went.

We left Eindhoven after work on Friday night... and arrived in the city of lights around 1 in the morning. Of course, trying to figure out exactly where the hotel was, without a map,... was quite a challenge. But, after about 30 minutes of trying we found it only to discover that the hotel had oversold and didn't have a room for us. Oh joy. They had, however, reserved another room across town. (Again, we had no map/directions.) No problem, except that to get there it meant we had to drive down the Champs de Elysees and around the Arc de Triumph! Mark loved it!! It was the quintessential Paris Experience!! But we wouldn't choose to do it again... Parisian drivers are mad!

Mark and I visited Paris for a long weekend in 1999,.... so we'd seen most of the big tourist sights. This trip was more about people watching and sampling the city's highly regarded cuisine. We enjoyed a very wonderful, romantic, long dinner at a Bistro on Saturday night in celebration of Heide's birthday. The food was superb although the service was a bit snotty. (What can you say,... it's France!)