Official Cincinnati Resident!

I know this blog has seen a significant decrease in usage since my return to the states. But now that I'm a working girl, my life is a lot less exciting. I've heard that a lot of you would love to see pictures of the apartment and since Jody's (my roommate) parents are coming this weekend, it will be clean! And this means a perfect opportunity for photographs. You know you're excited.

As far as that thing I call a job, all is going well! I'm back in the same organization I interned in so the learning curve was a little less and I already knew all the people. And I love them! That's one of the great things about P&G: the people are so fantastic. And the work is always interesting and challenging, which makes it more fun.

Jody and I will also be going to the Cincinnati Open (Western & Southern Union Open), a tennis tournament featuring all the big names (!!!). I'm super excited and know this is my opportunity to rub elbows with some famous athletes. It'll prepare me for when some of the Olympians come visit our offices now that the games are over. I'm quite pumped about that too!

Well I suppose that's all for now. I'll try to update as fun things happen in my life!

Our Lessons Learned

In the event any of our readers want to take their own trip, here are some of the lessons we learned on our travels:

• We want ice cream too often to use it as our safe word. (yes, we're fatties)
• Nothing ever makes sense in France. Ever. 
• The Ely (England) train station is the spawn of Satan. 
• The luck of the Irish does not apply to everyone. 
• The Calanques are God's preview of heaven. 
• Ossau-iraty is the best cheese in the world. (literally we found out thanks to google)
• A decent repertoire of French is useful when witnessing a crime. 
• We need to marry the owner of a fabulous yacht in Monaco. 
• French men don't know how to be subtle. And thats putting it nicely. 
• London is the most expensive city in the world. 
• Always keep your purse close. 
• No one in Paris knows the song "Ni**as in Paris" but someone in Cap d'Ail knows "Call Me Maybe". 

Back in the USA!

Well, back home safe and sound, sitting on my couch in Alabama. It's lovely! I had great time on the trip but let me tell you, I am SO GLAD I don't have to lug those bags around anymore!

As you can see below, I uploaded the last bit of pictures so if you're interested, definitely take a look :)

Channing and I have made a list of lessons learned from our trip, some serious but mostly funny and I'll try to post that tomorrow. You never know when you may decide to follow in our footsteps so we definitely want to be helpful!

Thanks for joining me on the ride and if you want to know more, feel free to let me know!

It's good to be home!!!!

Cap D'Ail & Monaco fun

And here is the last group of pictures from the trip: Cap D'Ail where we stayed (less than a mile from Monaco) and the sites of Monaco. I wish we could have gotten pictures of the casino but that was forbidden for some reason. We actually had to check our cameras in at the door. Odd.

The Plage Mala aka a beach in Cap D'Ail

Casino in Monte Carlo and the views of the Mediterranean from Cap d'Ail

Walking around Cap d'Ail

Plage Mala again! But we had more sun this time :)

Excited to be in Monaco, and would you look at all the yachts???

I. Want. One. And the track from the Grand Prix the week earlier, still intact!

The Palais of Monaco! And one of its guards

I loooooove the beach views! And the cathedral on top of the hill

Odd baby sculpture outside the Museum of Oceanography... and a jellyfish! Weeeeee

I guess they're funny at the aquarium and talking about sushi. And cool fish!

Sebastian the crab! And an old submarine thing

Interesting art, one of many that was deemed unfit for minors. And Aye aye captain!

A boat from Ireland! And yeah, that's a jaguar. 

We wanted to steal it. And this yacht.

Seriously, where can I get one of these? The car and the yacht.

Look closely, an Alabama license plate!!! And another shot of the Monte Carlo Casino

Actually I think I'll just take the Lamborghini. 

Photos from Nice!

Below and here are some pictures from Nice! Love having the fast wifi of home!

Our first meal in Nice and our waiter gave us a free drink! Now that's hospitality! And a cool church in downtown Nice

Our meal on the beach and it's oh so French: a baguette, cheese, wine, and ham; Channing is loving it!

Spotted: old man in a speedo. I think I'll pass on that one. And our mystery deserts that ended up being some cookie and chocolate mousse concoction?

Apparently in Germany they are very technologically advanced and have jet packs! And what we thought was a wedding party but actually turned out to be some sort of protest

The view from Castle Hill, and one of it's "cascades"

The cascade was beautiful! And who knew that Watson made it to the South of France?

At the Museum of Contemporary Art: a dress made entirely of plastic bottles, and um... I don't even know but it's art?

The promenade outside the museum, and looking towards the Nice Acropolis

Smelly couple update

Since I'm sure you're wondering, Channig and I have become solution providers and decided to take control of the smelly couple situation.

First we used some sunscreen and put it on our hands so we could just smell our hands when the scent of this couple became unbearable. We tested the tactic, however, and it came up short.

So now we're using Channing's body splash and we applied it to ourselves to use in the same way. So far so good, but we may have to use drastic measures and inconspicuously douse them in it. I mean, oops, so sorry we accidentally sprayed you!

Updates will be forthcoming...

And 6 hours later... We have escaped the dynamic duo of smellsville. We came close to spritzing them but thankfully they removed themselves to a seat further away and had less of an impact. So crisis averted! And we are now in Paris waiting for the metro to take us to our host's apartment.

And we have a very nice Parisian to thank for our metro tickets since the machine doesn't take bills, either of my cards (although it says it accepts visa and MasterCard!!!), and we had no change. We were really starting to freak out but thanks to this kind stranger, we have tickets! We couldn't thank him enough.

Just around 24 hours until our arrival back in the US!

Bye bye Monaco!

Well we're on the train and about to depart for Paris. The good news: we have assigned seats and got here early so we were able to easily stow our luggage. The bad news: the smelliest couple on the train is sitting behind us. What they say about the French must be true because I don't even think deodorant would help them. It could be a long 6 hours.

But anyways, while I'm trying not to breathe too much I suppose I could tell you about our last couple of days. It's been wonderfully relaxing and full of solitude since we were actually staying in a hotel as opposed to a hostel. This also means AIR CONDITIONING!

Sorry, I have to pause here and send up a little prayer that this man no longer lifts his arms... Please God don't let him left his arms anymore. Amen.

Where was I, oh yeah, our fabulous (or in comparison) hotel. It was pretty great to have AC and our own room! This meant we could sleep as long as we want, take showers when we want, and watch tv! Oh creature comforts!

We also took advantage of being so close to such wonderful beaches and walked down to them to just sun and sit on the rocks. I also got into the Mediterranean for only the 3rd time in my life (Santorini, the Calanques, and now Monaco), it was chilly but we managed!

Additionally, we went to the Monte Carlo Casino and watched other people gamble their money away. The buy in (10€) was a little steep for me and they didn't have penny slots (sad day) so we didn't gamble. One Asian man was especially fun to watch because all he would say was "picture!" which took us 10 minutes to figure out and meant that he hoped the next card was a face card. Priceless.

We visited the Museum of Oceanography as well which was pretty cool and also had some interesting "art". It was probably a bit over priced at 14€ but still cool. And I couldn't help but take pictures of every single fish we saw... Sorry.

Another thing we did in Monaco was visit the harbour where all the big yachts are. I have only one takeaway: I need to marry a man who owns one of those boats because they are AWESOME! We noticed a lot of yachts originating from the Cayman Islands which I guess makes sense with all the talk of off shore accounts there but it was still surprising. We considered halfway joking and asking someone if we could get a ride but chickened out. Oh well...

It's bittersweet to be headed home tomorrow. I'll miss the beauty and history of the countries we've visited but I'm also looking forward to the comforts of home (first meal is chipotle!). I'll make sure to load some pictures of the rest of the trip when possible!

Au revoir! Ciao! See ya later!

A Nice time

Sitting at a cafe right by the harbour in Monaco and all I can think about is that I need to marry a Monaco man so I can live this life. It's gorgeous!

But to recap the past couple days, we had a great time in Nice. The weather didn't cooperate as well as we'd hoped but we managed.

We made our way to the beach a couple of times and enjoyed the view. Thankfully most people didn't go topless but there was plenty of old man speedo, yuck. And most importantly, we got some sun! Yay!

We also climbed over 426 stairs (who's counting?) to reach the top of the Castle Hill in Nice. It had quite the fabulous view but we definitely had to rest a bit at the top after the trek. There were castle ruins, a nice cascade (waterfall) and an interesting cemetery.

Our Nice exploits included a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art where we saw some cool art and some art that I think I could do. Modern art is always hit or miss to me, because all u want to know sometimes is how in the world is this art? But maybe I just don't have the artistic eye...

In addition to the activities mentioned above, we also went shopping! My favorite stores Mango and Zara had locations in Nice so of course we had to make a visit. I didn't buy too much though...

Well I think that's the highlights. Be sure to also check out the post yesterday about Channing playing the key witness to a robbery! And pictures will be posted soon!

Secret Mission: Espionage

The following is a true event that Channing and I were a part of today. Names may have been changed to protect the identity of those involved. The account is told as it was happening, which is why present tense is used.

Apparently a garçon took our waitress's money/tip and now we're embroiled in a battle. Our waitress wants Channing to play secret agent and witness. She's also copping quite the attitude and not realizing we DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT. But whatever. Stay tuned to hear the resulting drama unfold!

The waiter wars continue. 

She's just glaring and shoving in chairs really harshly. This is not the way to treat your star witness!

The culprit just passed by. He may or may not have given us a look. We didn't want to see if he did. Here's hoping we get something free out of this. 

Channing is afraid to go to the bathroom because she thinks he might murder her. I just don't want to be left alone armed with the only French phrase I know. It might not go over well. 

Channing broke the egg on her plate. It's oozing yoke like her blood will be oozing on the bathroom floor when waiterman gets ahold of her. But we're all good over here. 

Check please? But I don't think we're allowed to leave yet...

Channing is going to the bathroom. If she's not back in 10 minutes I'll know something has gone wrong. Eeeeeek!

2:18 Channing left for the bathroom. 

2:20 she's still gone. 

2:21 waitress just gave us the check, complete with ugly look. 

2:21 Channing is back! Hooray she isn't dead!

Paid the check. And so we wait for Channing to do her witness duty. And she gave us free chips from another table to help us pass the time. Yay? I want a cupcake. 

Well an anticlimactic end to quite the drama. There was no resolution as we were told we could go. Thanks for the used chips!

Paris Photos!

And here are some more of the long awaited photos, this time of Paris! The rest can be found here. Apologies for not having more, but we avoided most of the tourist destinations since we had seen most of it.

Hanging out with some of the boys in Paris. Mathieu and Channing, me and Pierre

Holding up the ceiling, I'm so strong and Notre Dame!

Channing and Pierre and Notre Dame at night

Mathieu loves Notre Dame and the boys: Adriene, Pierre, Mathieu, Remi, Alex

L'Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame

An elephant outside the Musee d'Orsay (ROLL TIDE) and the Eiffel Tower!