Last two days of our trip

Okay, so I'm fired. I meant to post these a while ago but then Nathaniel got very sick (poor guy- his cold got so bad it burst his ear drum! He is currently still hearing impared!). Then the internet at our hotel went out. If you don't know this, I'll let you in on a little something. Germans go about the whole customer service thing WAY differently than we do back home. Oh well, it's fixed now. So, without further ado, here are our final two days of vacation.

St. Germain en Laye- A place where Nathaniel served on his mission. This castle was a spot that they would take all the new missionaries after they picked them up at the airport! I LOVED the castle! We were really bummed to not be able to go inside, but apparently Tuesday is the day that most museums are closed or only open 1/2 day.
Paris is in the distance behind Nathaniel.


I think that part of what made this castle so cool is that it had a MOAT. This funky aligator pit (?) was in the bottom of it. :)




Another strange thing in the moat.
This is the corner where 10 years ago Nathaniel would do "street boarding" and contacting. View from La Defense of the Arche de Triomphe. I had no idea until that day that they were in perfect alignment.
La Defense

Nathaniel HAD to show me this. Random! William got a little stir crazy in the stroller at the train station so we had to let him out (yuck!). He went straight for the bright green wall so he would blend in!
Versailles! I was so excited to go, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. The city is so built up around it that I think it really takes away from the romance of it. It was a beautiful building though and I'm so happy that I was able to see it.
Who would have thought that gophers tear up the ground under Versailles? :)

Amazing. I'd hate to mow the lawns though.

Day 4:
On the way home Nathaniel was very excited to take me to his favorite castle. Vaux-le-Vicomte. It is a privately-owned estate where The Man in the Iron Mask was filmed.

The drive up was beautiful.
I can't tell you how bummed we were to arrive and see the gates locked. Apparently they were closed until March 15. Even so, it is now my favorite castle. I love that it is still so separate in the country and not commercialized like others that I've been to.

www.vaux-le-vicomte.com

After leaving the castle, our drive home took us through Verdun. How could we resist stopping to explore the town a little bit and hit at least one monument (which turned out to be a 3-hour detour...). This monument is the Montsec American Monument. The plaque with information is pictured a few down, but essentially in WWI the Germans had held this mountain top for 4 years when 550,000 American and over 100,000 French troops took it over. Pretty amazing.

Nathaniel didn't know I was taking his picture here. He'd just read the plaque and was amazed and telling me what took place here almost 100 years ago.

View from the top of the peak. You can see why this was such an important stronghold to have. It offered a 360 view for miles around.

Nathaniel and I were happy to have the opportunity to connect a little bit with history here. It's so easy to ignore and forget what happened in past wars, especially since so much of it took place out of our own country. It's pretty humbling.

I Love Paris

We had a very busy first day in Paris!

Le Centre Pompidou- a fancy building that was built to have the ugly stuff on the outside and only the beautiful on the inside.

Notre Dame

Inside the cathedral
Posing with my pain au chocolat

Nathaniel, clearly in his element

The Louvre

As we're walking past this painting Nathaniel says with a straight face,"I'm glad I don't have to go to battle naked." Um. yah. Me too, honey.

The Mona Lisa. We all know what it looks like, and though I was excited to see the real thing, I thought that the swarm around it was most picture worthy.

William giving kisses

This woman was painting an AMAZING duplicate!

The first mummy I've ever seen! So cool and creepy at the same time.

Games dating back to 3000 b.c.!
William kept trying to touch the statue when we tried to get him to pose. Such an active child!

Obelisk (swiped from Egypt) and the Eiffel Tower

I offered to take a picture for an Aussy rockstar-looking couple (so funny- you should have seen the woman's pose) so they offered to take ours.
poor man.

Arche de Triomphe

Upward view of the arche

William has no idea how pampered he is. We took an elevator part of the way up the arche and then had to carry the stroller the rest of the way. The view was amazing- all of Paris!

Helllllo shopping. It is sale week in France- I took full advantage and got some super cute clothes for William. Somehow I'm just not interested in clothes for myself... maybe still a post pregnancy thing.

Voila.

Ahh... what would a trip to France be without a trip to a dictionary store for my beloved dictionary addict?

William kept himself entertained for about 20 minutes pushing this thing around the bathroom in our hotel room.

Reims, France

On our way to Paris we stopped in Reims to go to church in a ward where Nathaniel's dad served on his Mission! Shortly after the meeting a woman walked up to Nathaniel and said, "You're Ralph's son." Yes, Nathaniel is a dead ringer for his dad. Conveniently, the ward was having a lunch right after so we were able to join and Nathaniel was able to dazzle the masses with his flawless French. After lunch we went to see the local Cathedral (with a very famous history). I think that it is one of my favorites.

Obviously they're working on cleaning the building
St. Peter and the Keys.