Paris (round 2) Part Deux - End of our EuroTrip

Back in good ol' Paris. Vins had us over for aperitif and then dinner one evening since it was our last week and we were staying at our other friend Laeti's place. He said that it was going to be special and not to bring anything. We were excited to see what he had in mind.

If you go back to our very first post you'll see this same photo, but 2 months earlier the trees in Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise were all bare. We really don't get true seasons back home so it was nice to see the green trees.

So Vins special treat was this, Foie Gras and champagne. It's a French delicacy meaning "fat liver". Basically a duck or goose is force-fed and the liver becomes VERY enlarged until it is ready for us consumers. Some countries the farming of this food is illegal due to to animal rights.
Out of the jar and ready to eat. Elaina and I couldn't wait to dig in.
Poppin' bottles and now ready to dig it!
Vins recomended that we try it with a bit of jam if we wanted. I prefered it without the jam so I could taste all of the liver. It has a butter taste unlike any liver I've tried before. The consistantcy was that of a hard boiled egg yoke, really interesting.
The gang after aperitif, Me, Elaina, Vins, Natalie, and Olivier.
Olivier firing up his beast.
Olivier had to get home so the remaining four of us went out to eat. I had a French style stew and Elaina had some fish over rice. Both very good!
Now on to dessert. Pistachio crème brûlée and a HUGE cream puff with chocolate syrup and ice cream. MMMmmmmm. Great dinner Vins!!!
A couple days later we went to the Catacombes. The Catacombes are an underground graveyard for 6 million Parisians. The underground tunnels stretch for miles but only about 1.5 miles are open to tourists.
After entering the building you immediately take a spiral staircase 130 steps below the street surface. You end up close to 4 stories BELOW the metro. You can feel the air get thin and moist as you descend.
Walking along the tunnels we came across a natural fresh water well. We made a wish and tossed a couple euro in.
Since there are so many people and not enough space all of the bones are just arranged and line the walls of the tunnels. Yes, those are real human skulls and bones. They are stacked about 5' high and 6-7' deep the ENTIRE length of the catacombs.
Looks like someone got a crack on the head.
Nice design made of human bones.
So another evening later that week. We went to a football (soccer) game. We had wanted to catch one our entire trip but we never got around to it. Olivier offered to take us to a Paris match and we were SUPER excited. Olivier even let me borrow one of his Paris scarfs.
All set to go!
Cheering on the team as the players enter the field. That's my white arm.
LETS-GO-PARIS!
The fans here are second to none. No fans for ANY other sport can even compare. They are truely passionate about their football.
Robot had a great time
After the match, the snack bar didn't sell out their sandwhichs so they were giving them away. You don't get that back at home.
Someone's hungry! Thanks for showing us a great game Olivier!!!
At the market, what a good little gaurd dog.
This is the way a refrigerator is supposed to look!
Fresh baked pie!
Well, the time has come. Our trip of a lifetime is coming to an end. We hoped the volcano would keep us longer but no such luck. We're back to where it all started, the Paris airport. We're not happy campers. That's all of our luggauge, we've been living out of those for two months and they did a great job.
Thanks for the ride to the airport Vins. You were such a great host and we can't thank you enough for everything. We can't wait to see you here in the U.S. soon!
Elaina is actually crying in the airport because we had to go home. I told her to can it because we hadn't gone through security yet and I didn't want them to think I was kidnapping her.
On the plane now and still not happy to be leaving and not happy about the 10 hours of flight ahead of us.
In London grabbing some snacks at a quick lay over. Robot was hungry.
Time to catch some ZZZ's. Are we there yet?!?!
Elaina was going to drink her sorrow away until we landed in LAX.

All in all it was a whirlwind of a trip. We can't beleive that it's over and now we are planning our next adventure. First things first, we need to get jobs and then it'll be off to Asia for a short tour maybe next year.

We are so blessed to be able to experience all of this and have such great friends abroad that were there to help us. Not to mention the family back home that made it possible to leave in the first place. We missed everyone and though U.S. life is SO different we are glad to be home and see everyone we love. Thanks to everybody that followed our blog as we traveled the world. The adventure is not over and the blog will always be updated with our everyday life so stay tuned and we'll see you all soon!

Love, Elaina and Mike

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Montbéliard France

Us getting trapped in Paris was a blessing in disguise. For one, we get to stay in Paris longer. And two, we were invited to a movie screening by our good friend Vins (we stayed with the first time in Paris). Vins is a talented independant film director and producer. A short film of his was chosen to be shown in Montbéliard France, about 5 hours by car east/south of Paris. So the theatre owner invited Vins to come and speak before the screening. Vins asked us if we wanted to tag along with him and of course we accepted! The cool thing is, he has two reels of the film, one in French only and one in French with English subtitles so he brought the reels with subtitles just for us!

This gave Elaina and I a great opportunity to see some of France's beautiful contryside that most tourists probably would never see. We drove through Champagne, France were champagne was first introduced. They own the rights to the word so most of the world's champagne comes from here or they get paid just for the use of the term. If not, it can only be called sparkling wine. We also passed near the city of Dijon, France and you guessed it. There are mustard fields EVERYWHERE!

We stopped along the side of the road for a quick lunch. When I say side of the road I mean it, we just pulled off to the shoulder like in Mexico.
Now in Montbéliard some time later and the city is very small and quiet. Just what you would expect small French town to be. NO ONE over the age of 30 speaks English at all so we were lucky to have Vins once again.

Here's the trailer to his film, Vivre, jusqu'au bout, it translates to Living Until the End. Elaina and I were really impressed with the film and thouroughly enjoyed it.

Since Vins was the guest director he got to choose a film to be shown after his short as a double feature. He chose the American independent film White Lightnin'. He wanted something totally different from his film style but still wanted to expose the viewers to something different and probably something they would never see on their own. I highly recommend this film as well if you can find it. A little dark, but here's Vins speaking before the screening.
We were invited back to the home of the theatre owner. He was a really nice guy and opened is cool house to all of us. He refused to let us pay for any food or drinks either. Everyone was really nice. This is his place in the foreground, behind his house is a sweet castle!
At the screening we met up with one of Vins long time childhood friends Eli. I first met Eli about 5 years ago here in California as they were touring with his band The Hellbats. They are an awesome band with a really cool style. Since we were so far from Paris and it was late already we were planned to stay with Eli at his place just 20 minutes from the town we were currently in. He lives in a cottage style home that's a couple hundred years old!

The next morning we were greeted with the usual awesome coffee we always had. But we got to have some of the best sausage. Yeah, that's the sausage cooking in Eli's wood burning stove that's built into the wall INSIDE the house. No matter what I try to do here at home I can't get sausage like that to taste that good!
This is Eli's dog. He looks like an old man and he's a slobber machine.
Even the French dogs like wine.
They may have this here in the states but we've never seen it. Rum and Coke pre-mixed in a can ready to drink.
This is the outside of Eli's place. There is a stream and pond that you can fish from.
Just down the little road is Eli's uncle's home. I really like the architecture and it was a total standout in comparision to the surrounding homes.
Elaina wasn't feeling good this day. She saw these flowers and liked them a lot.
So I picked one when no one was looking. She felt a little better for a short while.
Getting ready to leave back to Paris and the 5 hour drive. Here's Me, Eli, Vins, and Elaina. Thanks again for everything Eli and hopefully we'll see you soon here in the U.S.!!!
Home sweet home, back in Paris now later that night. Yup, that's a water bottle filled with piss. It's good to be back to what's familiar to us.
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