The Cote d’Azur – Days 6 and 7

Greetings from the south of France!!

We arrived in Nice, on the train from Lyon, early Sunday evening. Trudging our suites off the train and out the front door of the train station, we patiently stood in line to wait for a cab. After a few minutes of waiting, a cab showed up and, to our utter surprise, he refused to take us to our hotel – telling us that the street that it was on was all torn up (for road repair) and that cars were not allowed on it. Neither of us had ever been rejected by a taxi cab driver so we were a bit dumbfounded by what we heard. We went to the Information Desk and Diep asked for directions to the hotel. We were told that is was about a half hour walk or we could take the bus. Being the adventurous twosome that we are, we opted to hoof it. Considering we had no map to guide us, we had to rely on the kindness of people to give us directions.

Lyon: We came, we saw, we vanquished! Day 5.

Greetings from France! We hope you are enjoying our adventures!

The only thing worth noting during our stay in Lyon was that we almost missed the train…. again! For once, this has nothing to do with our lack of planning! We went to station Perrache about an hour before our departure time to make sure we weren’t going to miss the train. From the station, we caught the train to the main station at Part-Dieux, and took less than 10 mins to get there. We were so proud of ourselves that for once, we had successfully executed the plan we hatched. We went to look at the departure announcement board, and I noticed that our train was going to be late by 15 minutes. I mentioned it to Julee, who, then had this panicked look as she pointed out frantically on our tickets that we had to switch trains, and that we had only 17 minutes to do so.

Where in the world are Diep and Julee? Day 4

Can you tell by looking at this photo of Julee?



Another hint, look at the photo of Diep!

Frites, frites, frites,.....and more frites!!

Okay, Diep had her turn at updating the blog and now it's mine!

Diep's recollection of our arrival here is pretty accurate...with just a few bits of info left out....

a) She arrived at the departure gate 3 hours before the flight took off. She was ready to go!!

b) While Julee couldn't figure out how to turn off the faucet in the airplane bathroom, Diep grappled with the finer points of putting down the tray behind the seat......and she's in charge of security :-)

c) Diep refuses to change the time on her watch and so Julee who has no watch has to wait for Diep to look at her watch and add 6 hours to the time just to know what time it is!

d) Diep loves malted balls......ooooooh, malted balls. She loves them so much, she even hugged the vending machine at the train station. See pic to the left.

e) Diep loves frites.....oh she loves frites. Frites, frites, frites.

Finally in Brussels!

Greetings from Brussels :).

We almost got delayed at Dulles because Diep's boarding pass jammed up the reader as we were getting ready to board. Now, what a way to start the trip! They made her step aside while they were trying to fix the machine, with all the passengers (aka Julie) behind getting upset.

Since Julee was the tallest of the two (grin), she sat on the aisle seat to help out with getting the bags in the overhead bin. Lo and behold, Diep's bag weighed a ton (thank you DIT for chosing IBMs), so it took a while to get Julee to put the bag in the overhead bin. Finally, the exhausted Julee managed to put the bag away, when she heard a small voice next to her: "Julee, I forgot something important in my bag....". Julee almost sent Diep in the overhead bin WITH the bag!

We're off!!

Today's the day we leave on our adventure. Bags are packed, travel papers are all in order and enough Euros to get us started. We're still missing a hotel reservation or two and we're not quite sure how the rail system works but we'll figure it out when we get there....hopefully, we'll get there.

Keep your eyes on this blog. We'll update it the next chance we have!

Diep and Julee

The countdown begins....!

We got our hotel confirmations and vouchers - at least for our first few travel days.

Thanks to FedEx, we got our Eurail tickets!! ....and we've decided that our first "real" stop in France is going to be Lyon....and we've booked a hotel - http://www.holidaycityeurope.com/berlioz-lyon/index.htm. Nothing fancy but it's very centrally located so we should be able to easily make our way around the old part of the city and if we have time, do a day trip into the outskirts of the city.

After Lyon, we'll be heading to Nice. Woohoo!! Some sun and sand ....okay, so it's really sun and rocky beaches. Not to mention maybe some "eye candy" for two travelling chicks, if you get our gist.

After our whirlwind tour of Belgium and Lyon, it'll be nice to just have a few days to relax. Julee's hoping for warm weather so she can actually sinking her bare feet into sand. Diep is already planning the daily meal menu :-)

From Nice, we can easily hop on the train and head to Cannes and Monaco - maybe do some hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Okay, maybe not but it's a nice dream ;-) We haven't booked our hotel yet but should have something picked out before we leave.

'later,

Diep and Julee

Testing the camera.

As many of you know, I recently bought a digital camera. Okay, I admit it...., the last time I bought a camera, it was an Olympus 35mm SLR so the digital camera is definitely new territory for me. Of course, I will be bringing my camera with me on the trip and I'm planning on posting photos as we go along - hopefully there will be internet cafes and/or wireless hotspot available along the way.

Anyhoo, some "anonymous" blogger challenged me to test out my ability to post photos on this blog. Unfortunately, I haven't taken that many photos to-date. So, I picked one out - had to put the obligatory "gray" circle to protect the innocent "victim" (hehe). So here's proof that not only can I take photos with my new camera but I have some photo editing skills (actually, I'm quite good w/Photoshop) and I can post photos to this blog.

You've all been warned!

Julee

It's one week and two days before we leave

 .....not that we're counting down the days or anything like that!!

So the game plan is to fly into Paris and immediately hop on train to go to Brussels. Don't ask why we didn't fly directly to Brussels instead - kind of a sore spot for Julee.

It took a couple of nights of text messaging via gtalk to get our hotel booked for Brussels. All we can say is thank God for the internet and secured websites!! Here's where we will be staying during the few days that we'll be in Brussels => http://www.hotelsiru.com/. Check out the interactive video for pics of the rooms - some pretty wild artwork hangs on the walls, particularly for chambre #3.

Two more weeks to go!

A bit of news:

1- It is now confirmed that there will be two traveling chicks going to Europe. Julee finally got her passport all squared away :). I almost thought I would travel alone, as the process of obtaining a new passport was not too promising, and Julee just started the process of hers in March.

2- We still haven't booked any hotel reservations anywhere, no train tickets, but we definitely know what we will be eating when we get there :). Nothing beats eating a "cornet de frites" at the train station in Brussels.

3- Julee is convinced that she will be taking a lot of pictures of me sleeping everywhere. For some reason, she's under the impression that I love my sleep. I really don't know where she gets that idea!

Belgium and France - Here We Come!!

When we spread word that we were going to be travelling to Belgium and France, we quickly discovered that:

a) everyone was excited for us though many of you expressed the hope that Belgium and France would survive our visit :-)

b) many of you had been to the same countries and offered up advice on where we should go, places we might want to visit, sights to see and things to eat. We're open to all ideas - conventional and unconventional so please share your suggestions with us.

So, we've set up this blog to tap into your travel experiences as we plan our trip and to share ours with you as we move through Belgium and France.

....and yes, we will be bringing digital cameras to record events and posting them to this blog so you'll be able to keep up with our travels! Can't help it, we're as geeky as the rest of you :-)

We welcome your comments. All that we ask is that you keep them "clean" or else we will edit you out.

Diep and Julee

Our own blog!

Well... that's it! We finally have our own blog :). We can now officially start planning for our trip in Paris. Yoohoo!