Fun with my US friend

It feels like forever since I've written, and it has been.  I was so busy with my friend, Michelle's, visit that I didn't really have a chance to post.  But I had a great visit with her...we did some site seeing in Paris, relaxed a bit and went to Croatia and Slovenia together for a 5 day weekend.

Here in Paris we visited the Square Louis XVI, walked around, rode the ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde, went to Montmartre, saw the Moulin Rouge, had wine along the Seine, went to Bercy Village, and a few other little activities around the city as was possible around my work schedule.

Chapelle expiatoire at the Square Louis XVI (metro St. Augustin, square on Blvd. Haussmann).  The chapelle marks the place where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were originally buried for about 20 years until their remains were moved to the royal burial site at the Basilique St. Denis.

Michelle and I on the ferris wheel

view of the Eiffel Tower from the ferris wheel

The first weekend she was here we headed off for our 5 day visit of Croatia and Slovenia, which was amazing.  We flew into Zagreb, picked up our rental car and then drove to the Croatian coast (in our Audi! on the fabulous, empty Croatian highways!) where we visited Pula, Rovinj and Porec.  We spent 2 days on the coast, then we drove back to Zagreb, dropped off the car and spent the afternoon visiting the city before we hopped our train to Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

Porec, Croatia

Porec, Croatia

Pula, Croatia

Roman amphitheater in Pula, Croatia and Michelle with our rental Audi

Rovinj, Croatia

Rovinj, Croatia

Zagreb Cathedral

Zagreb, Croatia

In Slovenia we visited Ljubljana, which is a beautiful, absolutely magical little city and I highly recommend it.  We also took a trip out to Lake Bled, about an hour outside of Ljubljana to visit the famous lake with the church on an island in a middle and Bled castle overlooking it all.  It was beautiful, but unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, and so our photos are all very misty and gray.  Surprisingly we had no travel problems whatsoever, not even a delayed easyjet flight and overall the trip was wonderful and I definitely want to go back to Croatia and Slovenia some day to see some more.

Ljubljana, Slovenia and the Triple Bridge

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Ljubljana Castle sitting above the city

main square and Ljubljana Cathedral at night

Bled Castle and Bled city along Lake Bled, Slovenia

Lake Bled, Slovenia, shrouded by mist

church on the island in the middle of Lake Bled

Michelle just left to head back to the US this past week.  It was really nice to see her and to spend some time with a friend from back home, to catch up on all the news with my friends in the US and to just spend some time with someone I've known almost my entire life.  But now that she's gone, it's back to the real world, my miserable job, and life in stupid Paris.  Tomorrow I have to drag myself to the stupid sous-préfecture to start the process of once again renewing my temporary carte de séjour vie privée et familiale, so I'm sure I'll have lots to say about that soon.  And in 2 weeks I have another friend from the US coming out to visit for a week, so that will be great.  We are going to head down to Tours for a weekend to revisit the city where we first met and studied together for the first year of our MAs, so it should be fun.  But until then, I'm just readjusting to normal life and trying to look for a new, better job outside the field of English teaching before I go insane!