Notre français est la merde.

Ahhh, France. The time has come. We leave for the airport in two hours.

About 8 months ago, we spent $550 on three levels of Rosetta-Stone software so that we would be able to survive the south of France. I’ll be honest. We didn’t exactly complete all of the lessons but if we EVER need to say ‘the boy runs’ or ‘the girl drinks,’ we are prepared! The only real things we’ll have problems with are things like renting a car, getting directions, ordering in a restaurant, finding out where a bathroom is, or shopping. No big deal. We have now panicked and ordered a $10 set of lessons on iTunes to teach us basic phrases on the plane so that we can get by. Probably another waste of money now that I think about it. “Champagne before we take off, sir?”

This trip is going to be a lot different than our other ones. We’re staying in one country the entire time. We’ve rented a car for the three weeks that we are there are will be driving from destination to destination every three or four days: Paris to the Loire Valley, to Bordeaux, to Nice, to Provence, Champagne, and back to Paris. We’ve mapped it out (in side bar) and trip will have us driving 2,500 k.m. PRAY GOD they have an iPod adapter in the car because Ryan has been been furiously burning CDs just in case. So far, we have 8 hours of the French Celine Dion albums (yes, I’m embarrassed to say we own them. Don’t know what they mean, but Ryan knows the words), every song Madonna has ever recorded, and a few other little ditties that once heard, get stuck in your head for three days. This trip could go one of two ways. Best trip EVER or divorce proceedings. I'm not sure there is any in between.

I suppose I need say something about the blog header that our friend Dalyn made for us. For those of you who know and love the show Absolutely Fabulous , the header needs no explanation and you know exactly why she used it. For those of you that don't, well, let's just say there are remarkable similarities between our travel styles.

Until next time...

So that is all for now folks. Thanks for joining us and thanks to those who took the time to leave us a little comment. It is back to reality now, which is never easy.

We had a great time on this trip but after 3 weeks if actually feels good to be home. No travels for the next few months then off to Las Vegas for a long weekend to see "M".

Bye for now, Ryan and Jess

Bienvenue a Montreal

Well we have made it to Montreal and are hanging in the lounge. The 7+ hour flight felt like nothing thanks to the "pods", Jess and I both had a nice nap seeing as how we were up at 5am this morning (that's 8pm back home in Vancouver). The service was quite lovely, a tomato tarte followed by veal cheeks and then a beautiful cheese service and before landing warm cookies and ice cream....all accompanied by as much wine as you wanted.I am currently exploring "Scotch" in the Maple Leaf Lounge and also reintroducing vegetables into my diet. Jess and I have this disgusting habit of eating and drinking like pigs while on holidays, it is basically a diet of wine and cheese for 3 weeks solid. BUT, we are having a lifestyle makeover tomorrow so we have to pack alot in before then..thank God it is all free!!We have a 5.5 hour flight from here and will be home at 4:30 Vancouver time. 1/2 hour until boarding...gotta run and refill my glass!!

One Last Day in Berlin

We are just loving Berlin. It is hip and happening and it just works. Germany is so efficient, traffic moves perfectly, people only cross the street when told to, the trains run exactly on time... you get the drift.

Jess and I woke up this morning after maybe just a hair too much wine with mild tummy and head aches. We are doing a lifestyle makeover when we get home but we are not stopping now.

Once we got mobile we went off to Hamburger Bahnhof which is the modern art museum and you just gotta love the name. Anyhow, we both felt like this photo from the time we woke up until we got to the museum.
Jess wisely chose to dress to blend into the surroundings (an Andy Warhol). Come to think of it, I think those were the only clothes he had left that weren't smelling like Gorgonzola. The following pic is for "Melissavina" as we know she loves bizarre European hairdos!

After the museum we wondered the streets of Berlin marveling at how there just is not a bad neighborhood to be found. Again, we love this place!!!
This afternoon we went for tea at our hotel, something I have always wanted to do but don't think I need to do again.
We are in our wind down phase which is always sad. We will have one last dinner out tonight (we are thinking "Tony Romas", not a joke) which will need to be early because we have to be up very early to catch a 7 am flight to Frankfurt connecting to Montreal and then home (14.5 hours in the air and 20 hours of travel, yippee). The good news is we are on the brand new 777 on Air Canada in Executive First class so the pampering isn't ending just quite yet.

That's all for now. We'll do a wrap up post when we get back to Vancouver. Thanks for joining us on our journey.

Wine + No Agenda + Angry Lady In The Office Building Across The Street =

Free Day

Good Lord... now I'm second guessing myself... I don't know what's better... to give Ryan free reign to fully book our day or to "play it by ear," something Dr. K is not comfortable with whatsoever. Our day started at 8:15 a.m. with Ryan "whispering" ARE YOU AWAKE?!?! I could already feel the "planning" happening, although he was doing his best to be accommodating:

"So... are you wanting a slow morning or SHOULD WE GO AND DO SOMETHING?" I am really happy that I was well rested and actually wanting to go out or we would have had our annual WW3 (it's only natural. We usually have it every year... but so far, so good... and the forecast is calling for sunny skies). We went back to the Reichstag Building so that we could tour the dome that was added by the last chancellor in 1999. We showered and left immediately to avoid any sort of lineup.
Needless to say, we were not very successful in beating the crowd. To be honest, it really wasn't so bad. We were in line no longer than 1 hour and it was nice being out of the hotel. Once we went through security, we went up the elevator to the top and had a bird's eye view of the city.
Once we were finished (which took about 1/2 an hour), we went to check out the information centre back at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Ryan was sure to read EVERY POSSIBLE WORD IN THE ENTIRE BUILDING. I chose not to. Thank god I found a movie of some sort that could keep me entertained until he was finished (WW3 averted, yet again). Now, I don't want to sound like I'm uninterested in the whole historical part... I'm just tapped out at this point. No more reading... no more learning... I'm done. Ryan has a bigger well for such things. Once we were finished, we went back to our hotel:
After that, we were chilled out for awhile and decided to go shopping. We jumped in a taxi and headed toward the area which our concierge previously described as more "hip." The area ended up being a lot better than the "high end" area that we went to before. There seemed to be an H&M on every corner but had a few of our favourites sprinkled in there. We didn't really have money to shop for anything special... except of course, there is always money for a special little someone (aka my GODDAUGHTER) who isn't even born yet. Here are a couple hints mama:
Apart from that, we've really just been hanging out. Typically we both get somewhat depressed on this leg of the vacation. Thanks to our lunch today, Ryan seems to have turned his frown upside down! Mini ice-cream cones filled with ketchup and mayonnaise:
I, on the other hand, didn't need anything more than seeing Ryan try on this helmet at Louis Vuitton:

A Walk To Brandenberg Gate

I especially like the first picture of Lucifer...