For a start ...

I've never done a blog so I don't know if this will work well.  Let's give it a try and see.

We been away from home for a week now so a little catching up is in order.

We were scheduled to fly out of Denver on Thursday (Sept 6) on Lufthansa which has a reputation of good service and comfortable cabins. This was direct flight from Denver to Frankfurt. I'll try to keep this short. They cancelled the flight 24 hours before departure. After a stressful afternoon of calling (thanks ML) we were booked on an Air Canada flight to Toronto and onto Frankfurt. (Ironically, Lufthansa sent me and email informing me of all the miles I had accumulated with them - zero).

Debbie and Claire picked us up in Frankfurt and guided us through the train system and led us to their home in Karlsruhe.  We spent Friday through Monday there with them, enjoying their company, visiting local sites, and getting ready for the next phase of the trip -mainly transportation and communication issues. Reid got us a cell phone that works in Europe.

On Tuesday, Debbie took ML, Claire and me to the train station and sent us off on the TGV to Paris.  This is the fast train - and we were there in three hours.







On our own now, we bought passes to the Paris museums and navigated the metro to a station near our apartment in Paris. With no trouble, we walked to our apartment where our greeter met us and showed us the ropes.

We walked around Paris that afternoon and exhausted ourselves. I got a sore throat breathing the cigarette smoke.  Parisians are going to have health issues in a few years.  So many young people smoking.

Yesterday, we visited the Musee d'Orsay and enjoyed it very much.  A beautiful museum. We saw a statue that reminded us of Erin. Erin loves to play and asks us often to play with her. She is very polite but very clear in her requests.

Took it easy last evening, had a nice meal and feel somewhat rested.









Debbie will join us on Saturday for a few days.  I'll try to keep up with this a little better.