Lost in translation

Hello friends and family!

It's been a while, right? Greetings from rainy Paris! I'll give you an update on the trip up to this point.

We had a pretty uneventful train ride from Venice to Munich last week ... only got questioned by German border patrol once. I have to admit that while we were sitting in one of the stations and I watched our Trenitalia engine go by, I knew something was up. The next thing I heard was a bunch of German I didn't understand. Bye bye Italia! The start of a new phase of our trip.

The train ride was beautiful and took most of the day. We got to ride through the Swiss Alps .. absolutely beautiful!!! I hadn't realized how much I missed seeing snowcaps. Oh, and we only got questioned by German border patrol once ... in English.

We got to Munich and were greeted by my sister's friend Gabi in the train station. From there she took us into her home and we got to be the recipients of her amazing hospitality. We ate real German food (yay!), travelled to Bavarian castles, and got the insider's tour to Munich. Every morning and afternoon I got to drink Afghan teas that she brought back from her visits with her husband (who is there on military duty).

While we were there, Munich got the most snow that the city has seen since the 1940s. At one point we had to break out the shovels and create a parking spot for Gabi's car because there were none on the roads. Fun times!

On Monday we said our goodbyes to Gabi and boarded a DBA flight to Paris. Most of you know that I was not overly excited about seeing Paris ... when we got here we looked helpless enough trying to read train directions that a fellow passenger helped us navigate the train system, and after wrestling the crowds getting on and off trains we made it to our hotel. It's been rainy since we've been here, so not a lot of photo ops. I must admit that the buildings are beautiful and the people that my friend Chimene put us in contact with have been fun hosts. After taking the walking tour with Jean-Louis, we had a traditional African meal in their home (complete with blood boudain ... yep, blood) and sat around laughing for hours (while my sister Dianne talked politics) and looking at his travel photos. Tonight we join them for a birthday party at a Euro-Tex-Mex restaurant (you know I couldn't pass that opportunity up), and tomorrow night is a jazz club performance by a semi-famous cousin. During the days - tours of Versailles, the Champs and other historic sites.

So, that's the news to date. I finally found a computer that lets me log on to blog! Be back soon!