2008 Europe Photos

I've finally gotten around to processing and posting pictures of our trip to Europe. We hope you enjoy them, and we were grateful how accommodating Laetitia's family was during our time in France!

• Venice, Italy
• Lyon, France
• Biarritz, France
• Pays Basque, France/Spain
• Paris, France

A Looooong Trip Home!

Laetitia and I had a great time in Europe, but we were ready to get home. My shoulder had really been bothering me in Paris, we missed Pumpkin, and were tired of the same clothes over and over again!Our last night, we bubble wrapped up some art Laetitia purchased, and got our bags all packed. The next day, everything seemed to be going very well. We got to the airport with plenty of time, had good seat assignments (Laetitia and I on aisles with an empty seat between us), and the excitement of going home! The mood changed about 4 hours into our flight over the Atlantic... Laetitia was asleep and I was watching National Treasure. At the close of the movie, she woke up and noticed the flight-progress map popped up, and it looked like the plane had turned around. I overheard a passenger ask an attended if we'd turned around, and she said the captain would be making an announcement shortly. Turns out, there had been a fuel system error, and even though the captain was sure we had plenty of gas, they didn't want to take any chances and turned the plane around to land in London. I wanted to see London some day, but this was not the time.3 hours later, we found ourselves in lines trying to get our trip back on track. The best AA could do, was fly us to New York, put us up in a hotel for the night, and take us to San Diego through Chicago the next morning... we lost a hole day!!!! The flight to New York seemed so long, especially after our big loop over the Atlantic earlier on that day. After we landed, the scramble and lines began all over again, trying to get better options to go back, and then waiting around for transportation to the hotel. We actually had a slimeball ask us if we wanted a cab, only to lead us toward his personal SUV, even though I had asked him if he was licensed... we took a legit cab to the hotel because we got sick of waiting 40-minutes for a shuttle, and it worked out better because we were in the front of line at the airport Ramada to get our crappy room (non-smoking room... yeah right!).At this point, it was 4 hours till we had to get up for our flight the next day, so we tried to get some sleep, and again found ourselves in more lines, and eventually tightly packed into a bus. The most comfortable moment was finally being at the gate and waiting for our group to be called... we had made it over the worst!The flight through Chicago was kind of welcome, since it was a tight transfer, and we had a chance to move our legs before the flight to San Diego (tried to be optimistic). We actually landed in San Diego a little early... HOME SWEET HOME! The weather was great, the ocean had a great smell... we did it!!!! Laetitia went to check on a pending issue we have with Northwest (for our Canada trip earlier this year) and I collected our bags - all of them! Not too long later, Laetitia's dad picked us up from the airport, we had some lunch together in Little Italy, and then, we opened our front door to find Pumpkin, who was VERY excited to see us.We're still pretty beat, but grateful to be back. I was really looking forward to work again, so I came in for a short 2-day work week; Laetitia starts up again on Monday. Anyway, there really is no place like home :-)

From Lyon to Biarritz

After spending time with cousins in Lyon, it was time to head out to Biarritz, on the coast in the southwest of France. Uncle Marc met us at the airport, and we took a beautiful drive to their home via the winding roads, with a stop off for fresh bread, of course. Marc and Suzanne's place is beautiful. We particularly enjoyed the pool the day we took a long walk from the town's center back to the house. We enjoyed lots of great food, family time, including visiting with Laetitia's grandmother, Mamita. She was talking a million miles an hour, between catching up with us and viewing her new great grandson, Nathan, via webcam, thanks to Laurent and Cecille back in Lyon. The weather, the food, and the shopping was great... we did lots of walking and took lots of pictures, which I'll post after some sorting and cropping.Another nice thing about that region is that it's Basque country, so Marc was kind enough to take us on a tour, which even led into St. Sebastian, Spain. We enjoyed Tapas and the sounds of the Spanish language, and then did some shopping at Alcampo on the way back, which was surrounded by road signs written in the Basque language; the supplies we picked up were in preparation to receive Caroline and Daika, who were flying in to enjoy the holiday weekend.We went out with a great family dinner the last night... thanks to Suzanne and Marc for being so accommodating, and we're grateful for the time we spent with Mamita, too :-)

From Venice to Lyon

Here I am, in Lyon and Caroline's house, getting my blog on, on an AZERTY keyboard... The trip from Venice to Lyon went quite smoothly, and was very easy compared to the start of this grand escape. We had exit-row seats, a clean/new plane, and plenty of jus d'orange to make me happy :-)

Olivier picked us up from the airport, and we enjoyed the ride through the countryside and into Lyon, where we ended up at Caroline's - we also got to meet her German Pinscher, Daika!

From San Diego to Venice

So, we made it... our travels took us from San Diego, through Dallas and Paris, to finally Venice! We were met by a representative of the dance festival who guided us to our water taxi, and we were off to the hotel on Lido. It was quite strange to be taking a boat to a hotel. Once we got settled in, we took the hotel's shuttle-water taxi to Piazza San Marco. We poked around a bit, got some dinner, and took the shuttle back to the hotel to catch up on some rest...