John and Michelle in Europe

Michelle and I certainly had a GREAT time in Europe together (Michelle and I at the right, on the Ferris wheel at the Concorde Square in Paris)!!! And as I write this post, I'm stuck in Minneapolis. Severe winter weather in both Paris and in the midwest caused me to get only two-thirds the way home. Michelle left Tuesday morning from Boise, via L.A. back to Boise. She made it home last night. I had a business meeting Tuesday morning, so I left in the afternoon, from Paris through Detroit and Minneapolis. My flight from Paris was delayed for two hours due to fog. That would have made me miss my Detroit connection, but flights out of there were late, too, so I actually made my flight there. But by the time my flight landed in Minneapolis, my connecting flight to Boise had already taken off. So here I sit in Minneapolis, not able to get a return flight until this evening.

But what a GREAT time Michelle and I had. After I had some good business meetings in Paris and in Frankfurt (I have some great opportunities there, which I will undoubtedly follow up on in the future), I picked Michelle up at the airport in Frankfurt, she just having arrived from Boise via L.A. and London.

On Saturday, we drove from Frankfurt to Paris, stopping in Heidelburg, Germany and Strassbourg, France along the way. The Heidelburg Castle was incredible (Michelle at the castle pictured here on the left)!!! It's amazing to think that at some point that was somebody's home! It would be a nice-sized home for our family, but man... I can only imagine how cold it gets in those big stone castles. Strassbourg was a very cute city, but a bit of a disappointment. We wanted to see the cathedral there, but it's right downtown, and Christmas shoppers flooded the streets so that many of them were blocked off, and we couldn't find parking anywhere! We were a bit pressed for time to get to Paris, so we ended up not stopping there, and just drove through the city a bit.

On Sunday, we attended church in Paris. Went to all three hours, and Michelle was in heaven!! It reminded her so much of her mission there, and she really enjoyed it. I'll have to talk more about the diversity of Paris, and how it makes things so interesting.

After church on Sunday, we walked through the Louvre. Sure it was artsy fartsy, but I actually really enjoyed it! It was cool seeing all those old relics; kind of like a family reunion! Just kidding! They have 35,000 works of art there, from obscure stuff to the Mona Lisa. After the Louvre, we walked down the Champs Des Eleysees. I'm sure I'm butchering spelling, so I'll have Michelle correct me later. :-)

On Monday, we went all over, including seeing the St. Germain, the Notre Dame (Michelle pictured herein at the Notre Dame cathedral), and others. We also took a Seine River boat cruise, and saw quite a bit of the city that way. Without the guide book, sitting here in my Days Inn room in Minneapolis, I'm afraid I cannot put in too much detail. Perhaps I'll add some later.

Enjoy the pictures herein; I have also posted all 175 photos on Flickr; please click here. Since Facebook albums cannot hold more than 60 photos, you'll find the photos on Facebook in three different albums: Pics from Paris (#1), Germany, and Pics from Paris (#2).

But, as a MasterCard commercial might say, "Two tickets to Europe: 140,000 miles. Hotel rooms paid mostly by clients: nearly free. 20 Paris Metro tickets: about $20. A weekend in Paris together with no kids: Priceless." We had a GREAT time, and fortunately, it was very cheap (it had to be)!!! :-)