ConGRADulations Jeff!

Hi everyone, David here. I’m back! I haven’t written a blog since Bath last year, but I wanted to write a little somethin’ special for my little brother Jeff.

This past June, Jeff graduated from high school. It was the end of an era, with the fourth and final House kid graduating from TASIS England.

The kids are all grown up!

The whole family was in London for the event. Dad flew in from Houston and Amy and her soon-to-be-husband Ross flew in from Boston. Laura came down from Edinburgh and my wife made it in the nick of time with a 7AM flight into Heathrow from Dallas.

Jeff started at TASIS in Kindergarten, so this really was a huge accomplishment for him, having stayed at one school for pretty much his entire career as a student.

On top of receiving his diploma, Jeff was also honored with the Sportsmanship Award for the graduating class of 2011! After the speeches and ceremony ended, we all enjoyed a buffet lunch with champagne and beers on the TASIS lawn, and then Jeff, Ross, and I snuck away for a pint at the local pub just outside of the school grounds.

It was an awesome day for the whole family, and we wish Jeff the best of luck in his next challenge at Texas!

Laura, Sarah, Me, Jeff, Mom, Amy, & Ross

Cote D'Azur

Our good friends from Austin, Allison and Jordan Gristy, made their first trip to Europe this summer! Allison is a teacher and Jordan is a day trader so they were able to take five weeks away from the daily grind to soak up some European culture.

The Gristys started their trip about two weeks ago in Italy and then moved on to their next destination, the Cote D’Azur. Amy is getting married at the end of July so we are not going to be in London when Allison and Jordan arrive but we had to fit in some Gristy-time! So we figured this was the perfect place to meet – the beautiful, sunny French Riviera!

Allison and Jordan, like the Sylestines, are huge fans of HomeAway so they used a similar service called Riviera Pebbles to book us an apartment in Nice near the beach and old town. It was the perfect location. Six years ago while I was studying abroad in Paris, my classmates and I took a long weekend trip to Nice and Cannes.  That was my first and last hostel experience. Needless to say, this trip’s living arrangements were much, much better! A lot has changed in the past six years, so I was not the best navigator around the city. But it was great to see the coast again and experience new things like the awesome tram system and farmer’s market!

On Friday night we met the Gristys at the apartment, dropped off our bags, and headed to the city square for a late dinner. July hosts the European Handball Tournament and Nice Jazz Festival in downtown Nice so the city was buzzing. The Gristys had already eaten, but Allison ordered some delicious profiteroles to share and I had a croque monsieur while David tried the salmon pasta. We walked around a bit more and then decided to turn in early. I know, we’re so boring, but David and I were exhausted from work and Allison and Jordan were tired from travelling.

On Saturday we relaxed all day on the beach. After walking through old town and stopping at some shops for beach mats and towels (where we also considered purchasing some plastic swim shoes that we later regretted not buying), we had lunch at a traditional Nicoise (or Nice-style) restaurant. David and I split the beignets de croquettes (fried zucchini) and socca (chickpea crepe). The Gristys had the poulet frites (chicken with French fries). After that heavy meal, it was the perfect time to go to the beach… :)

The one thing I did remember about the Cote D’Azur from my previous vacation was the rock beaches. Almost every single beach along the coast is rocks and the ones that are sand, I wouldn’t even consider real sand. Those dang rocks are so uncomfortable to walk on! I definitely did not look graceful getting into or out of the water. At one point, David threw me a flip flop, which flew past my head. I must’ve looked like a beached whale rolling around in the surf (to avoid running on the rocks) trying to get that stupid shoe. I’m glad the Flip wasn’t out to capture that moment!

The waves were surprisingly big on Saturday. Allison even got crushed by one and lost her bottoms and her sunglasses! Luckily she pulled up her swimsuit from around her ankles in time and Jordan found the washed-up sunglasses along the beach. Before that, we had been having a great time jumping the waves. So afterwards, while Allison and Jordan napped and read on the beach, David and I continued hanging out in the water.  

When we first got to the beach, I noticed some people cliff jumping at a little peninsula of rocks. So I convinced David it would be fun to swim over there and check it out. I told David I wouldn’t peer-pressure him into anything because he has a great fear of heights, but he said he wasn’t swimming all the way over there for nothing!  

First, we had to figure out how to get to the top of the rocks. So we treaded water for a while, watching some kids jump to see how they’d get back up. Those little monkeys literally scaled the cliff face to get back to the top! “So how else do we get up there?” I wondered out loud. There was NO WAY I was scaling a rock wall. We noticed a policeman monitoring the jumps, so he pointed to a cluster of mossy rocks that we managed to crawl up. Once at the very top, I tried to reassure David by telling him he just needed to pretend to be Bella and I’d be Jacob coming to his rescue after his daring cliff dive! The French girl in front of us who spoke very little English knew exactly what I was referencing and turned around laughing at us. Then she effortlessly jumped and we made our move!

Obviously we didn’t have our camera with us, so we went back later and took a picture.

 We were very proud of ourselves.

After soaking up a lot of sun, we headed back to the apartment and got cleaned up before dinner that night at Chez Juliette, a French restaurant in the heart of old town that was recommended by almost all of the other apartment guests. 

 David always likes to think he’s Italian like me and doesn’t burn, but now we have this picture and his ridiculous Frenglish video from Paris to prove otherwise! 

Dinner was sooo yummy! All of the tables outside were full, so the hostess sat us inside and we had the whole place to ourselves. We started off with French onion soup (even though it was hotter than hell outside). Allison and I had chicken with herbs de Provence and potatoes. Jordan had meat stuffed vegetables, also traditional Nicoise food, and David had pork with a delicious mustard sauce. We finished the meal off with peaches and cream covered in rich melted chocolate. 

I loved this adorable sign outside the restaurant - my kind of place!

  

When David and I confirmed our trip with the Gristys earlier this year, David immediately had this idea in his head of us renting a boat and sailing around the Cote D’Azur eating wine and cheese like a bunch of yuppies. I didn’t really think this would ever happen and left all of the planning up to David. He surprised us all by arranging a sailboat trip for us on Sunday!

So Sunday morning, we woke up early to head to the main harbor to meet our skipper. I was the only one that had never been sailing before, so I was a bit nervous, but our skipper did a great job of explaining things. I even successfully steered the boat! Unfortunately there was no wind on Sunday so it wasn’t truly sailing, more like trolling. But we had the sails up to pretend!

We left from Nice and sailed past Antibes, a small resort town, towards Cannes. We saw some gorgeous mansions on the water and plenty of ridiculous million-dollar yachts. We stopped for a quick swim to cool off and then continued to Ile Sainte Marguerite. Here, we dropped anchor and enjoyed lunch of rice with jambon (ham) and pizza with olives and pesto. For dessert, we had tourte des blettes sucre. We were all a little scared to try this because it looked like a spinach tart. I’ve never heard of this dessert before, which surprised me since this was my third time to France in the past couple of months. But apparently it’s really popular and it’s actually made from Swiss chard, raisins, pine nuts, and rum. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I could eat it as long as I didn’t look at it.

After we chowed down on lunch (we were hungry from all that swimming and sailing!) we got a nearby boatman to row us to shore. Ile Sainte Marguerite is a tiny island about half a mile offshore from Cannes and across from Ile Sainte Honorat, home to a monastery founded in 410 AD. Sainte Marguerite is famous for its fortress prison, Fort Royal, where the Man in the Iron Mask was kept captive.

Most of the island, though, is heavily wooded. So David and I only made it about a third of the way to the fort before I got half a dozen mosquito bites and turned around.

So instead of exploring we spent most of our time on the island snorkeling and tanning on the beach.

On the way back to Nice, David’s dream came true as we “sailed” across the water enjoying our glasses of French wine.  

 "I'm on a boat!"

After about 10 hours in the sun sailing and eating and swimming, we came back to harbor and went home to rent a movie and veg out on the couch the rest of the night.

On Monday, we slept in a bit and then took the bus to Monaco. It was a gorgeous drive along the coast, just a bit bumpy and HOT. Apparently we passed Bono’s house (though I had no idea which one was his) and Cap Ferrat, a very Ritzy area home to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Monte Carlo Casino

When we got to Monaco, we were starving and soooo thirsty from the sans A/C bus ride. So we booked it over to the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco’s convention center, for lunch at a new trendy restaurant on the beach. Jordan had the best lamb of his life, David had fish, and Allison and I had ravioli. It was also Allison’s first time trying lamb – whaaat?! I couldn’t believe that Allison had never had a lamb chop before, so I gave her my favorite recipe to try when she gets home! :)

 We found this picture frame outside the Forum and had to strike a pose.

Then David found this sculpture in the Japanese garden and had to pose!

After lunch we walked to one of the only “sand” beaches on the Cote D’Azur. They claim to import the sand, but once there we discovered the sand was really just teeny tiny pebbles.

 Lies!

So we quickly left and walked along the Formula 1 race route to the Monte Carlo casino. We looked around inside, but did not pay the entrance fee to actually gamble at a table. We were a bit disappointed (but not surprised) there was a cover charge, but our moods were lightened when we found a Laduree at the nearby Metropole shopping center. We got an assortment of macaroons for the Gristys to try (and David and me to share of course). 

I had to get some Carmex at the health store inside the mall and guess what they charged?? Keep in mind this is Monaco, one of the smallest, but richest countries in the world. 4 Euros! 4 Euros for a tube of Carmex. That’s almost $6! I was really desperate though, especially after my poor lips had been in the sun for three days straight, so I ate the cost.

Then we took the Bateau (or ship) bus across the Hercules harbor to the other end of Monaco. We passed between even more ridiculous yachts (some with their own helipads!) and debarked in front of the Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium. This is one of the best aquariums in the world and is beautifully built into the side of a cliff against the sea.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go in before catching the last bus back to Nice, so instead we walked through a scenic park overlooking the harbor and Monaco coastline. We ended the day walking along the palace walls back to the bus stop.

On our last day in the French Riviera, we grabbed breakfast at the Cours Saleya market. David and Jordan had fresh, juicy peaches from a fruit stand and Allison and I had pain au chocolat and almond croissants with chocolate filling. After browsing through the market stalls, we headed to the beach for one last swim.

David has never been parasailing before, so we decided to go. It was deja vue for me because the only other time I’ve parasailed was in the same spot six years ago! This time was much more fun experiencing it with my hubby!

I’m so proud of David for conquering his fear of heights more and more on each trip we take. Whether it’s riding the roller coasters on top of the Stratosphere in Vegas or taking a funicular to the top of a mountain outside Barcelona or parasailing in Nice, he’s more and more confident with each new adventure! 

We realized it was getting pretty late, so we had a fast lunch at a delicious pizza place in old town and then literally ran back to the apartment to grab our suitcase before heading to the airport. When we boarded the plane, my hair was still wet and there was salt all over me from the Mediterranean. It was a very uncomfortable plane ride, but I was glad we made the most of our trip.  

Only one more summer trip to go – Amy’s wedding! And don’t worry, for all those looking forward to Jeff’s graduation and the Kurzweg’s European Adventure blogs, they’re coming… but I’m waiting on pics for Jeff and it’s going to take a long time to put together the Kurzweg blogs so I wanted to get this one out first. But stay tuned!

Paris

While I was in Slovakia working, David continued hosting our guests. London was Cristy’s last stop on her European tour, so she headed back to the states on Monday. The Vollmars took a side-trip to Switzerland on Tuesday, and then the Sylestines left for Paris on Wednesday. I flew back into London late Thursday night, dumped out my suitcase full of work clothes, and repacked with weekend clothes. On Friday after work, David and I hopped on the Eurostar and crossed the Chunnel to Paris to meet up with Molly and Jeremy for the long holiday weekend.

The Sylestines found us a great apartment in the Bourse area of the city through HomeAway. They’ve had really good experiences with HomeAway in the past, but we’d never tried it before. It turned out great! The apartment was huge and really cost effective, which gave us a lot of space for not a lot of money. Plus the owner was nice enough to let us “check out” late on Monday since our train back to London wasn’t until 8PM.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and took the RER, the Paris rail network, to Versailles. David used to visit Paris all the time when he was younger and lived in London, but surprisingly he had never been to Versailles. And it was Jeremy’s first time in Paris altogether. So since both boys hadn’t been before, we decided to visit.

The weather was gorgeous all weekend, which made our trip to Versailles even better. Everyone else in Paris must’ve had the same idea on Saturday morning, so the line outside the palace was crazy long! It snaked around the entire inner courtyard… and here is where we encountered our first Paris line-cutter. After we had been standing in line for about 45 minutes, some random guy just walked up and stood next to David. At first we thought he was looking for someone, or just pausing. But, no. He was actually trying to stand in line. So David nudged the guy and said, “Hey! What are you doing?” The guy started talking back to David in a foreign language. Instead of attempting to communicate verbally, David physically nudged the guy out of line. Basically, elbowed him away. Who has the nerve to cut like that anyway? We were having none of it!

Once inside Versailles, we toured the palace, which included the king’s chamber, the chapel, and Marie Antoinette’s bedroom with the hidden doorway that helped her escape when the Parisian mob forced its way inside the palace during the Revolution. Of course, she only escaped next door into her husband’s rooms and they were both eventually dragged into Paris and beheaded.

My favorite part of Versailles is still the hall of mirrors and the gardens.

The Marble Courtyard

Hall of Mirrors

After we finished our tour inside, we had a traditional lunch of ham and cheese baguettes out in the gardens. The sun was shining, the fountains were on, and classical music was playing throughout the grounds. David and Jeremy were even inspired enough to dance along to the music!

This was my third visit to Versailles and in all the times I’d been before, I had never been to the Grand or Petit Trianons. I just finished reading Madame Tussaud, a historical fiction novel centered around Madame Tussaud’s life during the French Revolution. Before she became the most famous wax artist in the world, she was tutor to Elisabeth, King Louis XVI’s sister, at Versailles. The Trianons are a central location in the book so this time we paid the extra Euros to visit the Petit Trianon.

The Petit Trianon was Marie Antoinette’s miniature palace, where she went to escape the demands of palace life and the court. Or as Molly put it, “to escape all of those tour groups.”

Petit Trianon

The actual palace was not that amazing… In fact, it was fairly empty, except for the queen’s bed and a GIANT pool table in the billiards room. But the grounds were gorgeous! There is a Temple of Love next to a little pond, and in the back Marie designed an entire farming village complete with cows and goats and chickens, a mill, and cottages. It was an actual working farm two hundred years ago, and it looks like it is still functioning as one today.

The Belvedere

Marlborough Tower

On the way back to Versailles, we decided to rent a canoe out on the lake. David loves to row, so he took over and graciously rowed us around the lake for half an hour. During this time, he transformed himself into Jeeves. He stayed in character the entire time.

After we had worked up our hunger (especially our rower Jeeves, and Molly, who was eating for two) we headed back into the city to Relais de Venise, an all-you-can-eat steak restaurant. The place is extremely popular in Paris but they do not take reservations. So we waited in line for about an hour. And by we, I mean the men. Molly and I found some chairs near the restaurant and parked ourselves there. After all, she couldn’t be on her feet for that long and I had to keep her company!

This is where we (the guys) encountered our second Parisian line-cutter. After an hour in line, we still weren't to the front yet but a table became available outside the café. Out of nowhere a young man escorted his sister and mother to the table and just sat down. They didn’t wait for the hostess to seat them or anything. They just came from the back of the line and took the table for themselves. David was FURIOUS. But we weren’t even in the front yet, and if the people at the front of the line weren’t going to say anything, we weren’t. Plus we kept telling ourselves we didn’t want to eat outside with a long line of hungry people watching us anyway.

Now, this was not a typical American all-you-can-eat restaurant. There was no buffet. We sat at tables and had bread, salad, and wine. Then the waitress brought over a cart full of steak with special green sauce. And every so often, she’d walk by with a huge platter of frites (French fries) and pile them onto our plates. When we asked her what the green sauce was, she swore she didn’t know and refused to talk to us about it. Then Molly asked for ketchup, and she refused to talk to us altogether.  Just kidding!  But she was quite offended... 

On Sunday, we tried to make the most out of the Sylestine’s last day in Europe by seeing all the sites in Paris they hadn’t already covered. Molly was such a trooper walking all over the city, especially in the heat. But she did threaten to throw me over the side of the Eiffel Tower when I suggested we walk up instead of stand in line for the elevator. Luckily for her (and me!), they weren’t allowing anyone to walk up on Sunday, just down. And down was pretty easy, even for Baby S.

We started off Sunday morning on the Ile de la Cite, the tiny island in the middle of the Seine that houses Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame. We were going to eat breakfast first, but when we saw how short the line was for Sainte Chapelle, we took a detour into the church. I had never been to Sainte Chapelle before and it was really beautiful. The chapel was built by Louis IX, or Saint Louis, to house holy relics from Constantinople like the crown of thorns and a piece of Christ’s cross. Once I heard about this, I felt really bad because I realized maybe all of those ‘relics’ we saw in Istanbul (aka Constantinople) were legit! And I totally doubted it at Topkapi Palace and in this blog. Oops!

Rose Window

After Sainte Chapelle we stopped for brunch at a nearby café on the Seine. I had a delicious croque monsieur and the rest of the group had crepes. Then we hopped on the metro and headed to the Catacombs, where we ran into our third and final line-cutter.

The line to the catacombs was outrageous! We heard some man mumble, “Damn History Channel special!” so we figured there was some kind of show on the Paris catacombs and now it’s super popular. Because when I visited six years ago, I hadn’t even really heard of the place and there was no line.

This line wrapped around the corner from the entrance and then down the street! It was so much worse than Westminster Abbey the previous weekend, though probably not as bad as Versailles. But David kept us all entertained when he saw a piece of paper taped to a utility box. Some people had been playing tic-tac-toe. David quickly asked for a pen and jotted down some Catacomb jokes in the leftover blank spaces:

'Why didn’t the skeleton go to the prom?... Because he had no body to go with!'

'Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?... Because he didn’t have any guts!'

Then he also wrote down ‘3 hours from this point.’ We must have been really bored, because we thought he was hilarious. But once we moved past the utility box, Molly got tired of waiting and wandered down the street to the local patisserie to pick us up some macaroons. Yay!

Meanwhile David spotted a bench with the perfect vantage point of his utility box. So he perched on the bench with Molly and ate macaroons, watching all the passer-by’s and their reactions to his jokes. It was so funny! Some people actually looked at their watches, others laughed, and one woman even took a picture of his work and then showed her husband. After he was done reading, they laughed together and hugged. David likes to think he saved their marriage.

Eventually we made it to the very front of the line (after waiting for well over an hour). Right as we were about to enter the ticketing office, a young couple appeared in front of us. We hadn’t been paying that much attention (David’s next utility box customers distracted us). But when we turned back around, we definitely did not recognize the backs in front of us! Immediately Jeremy (very loudly) asked them if they really just cut in front of us. They kind of snickered (the nerve!) and kept looking straight ahead. Then Jeremy pronounced he wasn’t above shaming someone out of line. Finally, the guy turned around and said sorry and patted Jeremy’s shoulder… but stayed in line! WHAT?! That was it! While the guys rallied the Americans in line behind us to gang up on the cutters and get them out of line, Molly and I jumped in front of them and stated that they were not cutting, but if the people behind us wanted to let them in, that was fine. Finally, the girlfriend turned around and tried to play the whole thing off by claiming, “We didn’t realize there was a line.” REALLY?! You didn’t see all 300 people standing around in line-formation around the building and down the street when you walked up? REALLY?! Well, that was enough to get them to leave. So they did. We shamed them all the way to the back of the line and prayed that David’s prophesy of ‘3 hours from here’ on the utility box would come true.

We were all still shaking from anger when we entered the catacombs, but we pulled ourselves together in time to enjoy the creepiness. Well, almost all of us. Molly was really creeped out. See, about 200 years ago, the city cemetery was too full. So literally millions of bones (around 6 million people total) were transported to tunnels deep underground (much further underground than the sewers or metro system). It took over a year to carry all of the bones and rotting corpses across the city at night to their new home. There are lots of interesting facts about the catacombs though. For instance, Charles X used to throw parties down there and even today people manage to sneak in and have parties (champagne bottles are frequently found). And during WWII, the French Resistance used the tunnel system as their headquarters. The system was also described by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables.

Passage down into the catacombs

It tooks years to carve this castle into the rock

Bones of victims of the French Revolution

After being in the dark underground for over an hour, we needed some sunshine. So we walked through the Luxembourg gardens headed to St Sulpice, the church made famous in The Da Vinci Code for containing the Rose Line and an obelisk sundial contraption.

Luxembourg Gardens and Palais du Luxembourg, today's Senate building

Pantheon

Altar of St Sulpice

On our way, we stopped at La Closerie des Lilas, a cute garden restaurant where famous men like Picasso and Ernest Hemingway used to drink. We got some drinks ourselves and I ordered crème brulee.

The Sylestines wanted to end their trip at the Eiffel Tower at night, so we picked up a couple of bottles of wine and headed to dinner. We still had a few hours before the sunset so we ate at a tourist trap and relaxed. We must’ve had too much sun and wine and gotten restless because eventually we started acting pretty goofy. Plus our waiter was ridiculous. He kept randomly walking past our table and singing to us, so David got into the spirit of things and sang him a song in Frenglish…

Eventually we left and walked down the street to the Eiffel tower. We got to experience the sunset and the tower lit up at night. Even though David is terrified of heights and hated the journey to the tippy top and the walk back down, we had a lot of fun.

The next day, the Sylestines sadly had to head back to Austin and David and I took it easy. We knew we would be back to Paris in about two weeks when my family came to visit, so we didn’t feel like we needed to rush around and see everything. So we walked to my favorite place in Paris, La Place de la Concorde, to see the Egyptian obelisk from Luxor. Then we walked through the Tuilleries gardens down to the Opera house, and circled back around to the Madeleine Church and picked up macaroons at Laduree.

Place de la Concorde

Singing "Au Champs Elysees" on the Champs Elysees

La Madeleine

Eating madeleines on the steps of La Madeleine

While on the Rue Royal near Laduree, we saw the most amazing thing – a dog walking another dog.

See, there was a dog-walker with about 8 dogs in his pack. But we noticed some of them weren’t even wearing leashes (they were walking themselves) and one dog was carrying another leash in his mouth. I was so amazed that we followed them all the way down the street. At one point, the dog that was being walked by his dog friend tried to go the wrong way. So the dog dog-walker yanked him back on track. And then the leash got tangled in the dog's legs and the dog dog-walker somehow got him untangled. CRAZY! I would love to have that dog walker’s job. He didn’t even really have to do anything! Most dogs walked themselves, or others.

That was about all my mind could handle, so David and I headed back to the apartment to pick up our bags and then caught the Eurostar back home to London.  Our trip was great!  Definitely not a...