So… we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, although we may have lost touch with reality!

Before we get started, we have a slight modification to our previous post. During our first day in London, we forgot to mention that Mike’s friend (Sam) got shit on by a bird and egged in the same day!!! Haha. This was absolutely hilarious. We felt bad for him when he got shit on, because we were hanging outside at a bar when we first arrived. But that night, on our way back to Sam’s house (from the metro station), some kids came driving by and threw an egg at us. The egg smothered Sam’s entire backside, and as we had enjoyed a few drinks downtown that night, we LAUGHED OUR ASSES OFF!!!! I mean, really… who gets shit on and egged in the same day?!?! It was hilarious.

Now for the new details… we have really enjoyed our journey from Paris down through Spain and Portugal… so much so that we haven’t written in over 2 weeks! So, where did we leave off? We were just leaving London and heading to Paris… after our early train ride, we headed for our hotel in Paris to see if we could get an early check in. As you all can imagine, hotels in Paris are expensive. This is where Priceline.com came in and became our best friend. All of the hostels in Paris were rather expensive and we decided that if we could get a good rate on a hotel, we’d splurge in Paris to stay near the action. We ended up ‘naming our own price’ for a hotel in Paris and got a discounted room at the Marriott for $139!! We were pretty excited about it and we slept in a bit every day we were in Paris because the bed was SOOOO comfortable. Our first evening in Paris, we met up with a family friend (Mike’s brothers girlfriends dad) and we enjoyed a great dinner at Willi’s Wine Bar in the Champ Elysees area. Our food was very good, and we experienced some of the French culture by ending our 3+ hour meal with a shot of espresso and a digestive (which basically tasted like a really strong alcohol). Then, the three of us were off to check out the Paris nightlife. We stopped at a popular hotspot called the Buddha Bar, where simple, little drinks cost 17 Euro (which is about $25, which is completely INSANE!). But hey, apparently it’s where Madonna goes when she comes to town, so I guess they can get away with it. It was definitely a neat place, and it had a huge 3-story Buddha which was pretty cool. After this, we called it a night and we went back to our comfy bed for a good night of rest.

The next day, we started off with some traditional French cuisine for lunch. We had spotted some people eating lunch at a Brasserie the day before and they had something that looked like an open faced sandwich with an egg on top. Being a breakfast lover, I had to find out what this was and try it for myself. We found a great little spot right down from our hotel where we tried and loved the Croquette Madamoiselle (large piece of bread with ham and melted cheese, topped with an egg). Next, we headed over to check out the Louvre museum, which is absolutely huge! We probably spent at least 3-4 hours there and we are sure we didn’t even see 25% of it. What we did check out was the Mona Lisa, which, as we had heard, was quite small and unimpressive. Cool to see it, but nothing that blows you away. Something about 100 people pushing and shoving to check it out probably makes it even less impressive when you finally get a good view of it. We wandered around town a bit and checked out some of the other sites and then we rested up for another dinner with our family friend, Kenny. This night, Kenny asked us to find a good spot in town, so we went straight to our Concierge. They recommended a place which they described as a great place to try some traditional French food, and that it was! We had another great meal from start to finish. First, we tried to order some dirty martinis, but we were sure the waiter didn’t know what we were asking for when he said ‘red or white?”. Surely everyone knows that a dirty martini consists of vodka and olive juice, right? Not in Europe. We described the martini, asking for vodka it seemed like he knew what we were talking about. Then, we said ‘with olives?’ and he said, no but I can bring you some chips and nuts. I think we were all confused, so we decided to let it go and see what type of drinks showed up to the table. The drink looked an awful lot like a martini, but it sure didn’t taste like one. We loved the new concoction, but weren’t sure what was in it. A few days later, we found that there is a liqueur-type alcohol called Martini (and it comes in Bianco or Rojo – hence him asking White or Red). We liked those martinis so much, we’ve been drinking them ever since….but back to our dinner. We began with a tasty pate and some delicious thin slices of sausage which were served with mini pickles that gave an extra boost of flavor. For our main entrees they had this list of ‘big warm slices of bread’, as it translated, and I got one of these which had thin slices of duck on top, then was covered with cheese and toasted. It was soooo good. Mike had a similar entrée, but his had sardines and tomatoes on top (I liked mine better), and Kenny got a ham hock with lentils, which was also quite tasty. We ended with some dessert and espresso and headed off to relax for the rest of the evening.

The next day, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, with intentions of climbing the stairs to the top. One of the guide books we had mentioned that there were somewhere around 1600 stairs up the Eiffel Tower, so we figured it would be a good test of our athletic ability after a full month of traveling. When we showed up, we found that you were only allowed to climb the stairs to the second of three levels, then you had to take the elevator to the top (for safety reasons). After the 700 some stairs to the second level, we were okay with taking the elevator up the rest of the way. J The views were amazing, and we hit it perfect on a nice, clear day. After our descent down the tower and after making our way through the countless street vendors trying to sell us mini blinking Eiffel towers, mini metal Eiffel towers, roses, etc. we found a great spot to have dinner along the Seine River. There was a floating barge with a cafeteria style restaurant. The food left something to be desired, BUT we sat on the deck with a view of the Eiffel tower and we enjoyed some delicious wine. We finished dinner around 9pm (which is actually early for Europe standards) and, to our surprise, the Eiffel Tower began sparkling…. literally. There must be LED lights all over the tower, and we found out that they go off every hour on the hour for 5 minutes straight. It was really cool to see. The photos don’t really do it justice, but we did take one video that shows off just how neat it really looked.

On our last day in Paris, we checked out the du Pere Lachaise Cemetery, which was absolutely huge! We saw a few famous peoples tombstones (Chopin – music composer, Seurat – Painter, Jim Morrison – we all know him, took some photos just for you Aunt Patti). After this, we went to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. We relaxed in the courtyard in front of the Cathedral and took in the beautiful sights around us. From there, we walked to see the Arc de Triomphe. It felt sort of like Vegas. It looked like it was only a few blocks away, but it took us a good 1 to 1 ½ hours. The Arc was quite impressive, and we counted an astonishing 13 streets that fed into the roundabout encompassing it. The next morning, on our way out of town, we stopped at the Luxembourg Gardens and caught an interesting military ceremony. There was a band playing music and between 100 and 200 military troops marching through the park. We weren’t sure if it was a celebration or a sending off of troops, but either way, it was neat to see. Finally, we said ‘au voir’ to Paris and we caught the train to San Sebastian, Spain.

San Sebastian is in the Northwestern part of Spain, very close to the border of France. It has turned into one of our favorite stops thus far, not only because it is absolutely beautiful, but because it’s where we got ENGAGED!! We stayed in a great place near one of the local beaches and we pretty much just relaxed on the beach during the day, enjoying pitchers of yummy, fresh sangria. One afternoon, we enjoyed the local fare, which consisted mostly of tapas. In the evenings, we’d check out the local scene and enjoy the views of the bay. We especially loved the views in San Sebastian as it was a protected cove with turquoise blue water and extra soft sand. It’s one of those places where you can relax and take in the scenery all day long. Here, we really took the opportunity to relax from our first month of travel… it was great! We came to San Sebastian based on Jake’s (Mike’s brother) recommendation. We planned to stay for one night and relax on the beach, but we found ourselves loving it so much that we extended our stay to 3 nights. On our last day, we hiked up to see the Monte Urgull and the statue of Jesus on top of the nearby hill. The views from the top were stunning. Jake, we took a few photos of some nearby benches that we thought you might have slept on when you were there. Mike even layed down on one for you so that you could envision it better. Hopefully he found the right one! Anyway, this was an amazing place and we’d highly recommend it to anyone traveling Spain or France.

Now for the juicy part… our engagement. J It was the second night in San Sebastian and we had taken a nice little nap after lying on the beach for a few hours that afternoon. When we woke up, we decided that maybe we’d try out one of the nice little restaurants along the beach for dinner that night. We freshened up a little and Mike REALLY wanted to get going so that we could catch the sunset on our way. I thought this was a little suspicious, but knowing how romantic Mike is (ha), I ignored my suspicions and agreed that this would be a GREAT place to catch the sunset based on how gorgeous the scenery was. Luckily, we were planning to go to a nice dinner afterward, so I told Mike he should probably change out of the T-shirt he was wearing into a nicer shirt. He later on admitted that he was glad that I mentioned something about his outfit, realizing we might have a little photo op. We began our stroll along the beach as the sky lit up in beautiful shades of pink and purple. We chatted for a few minutes along our walk, and then Mike began saying lots of nice things to me… and I thought, THIS IS IT! It was really cute because he would give me a little kiss about every third word, taking a nervous little break within each sentence… it was great. After getting down on one knee, he handed me a beautiful ring that belonged to his great grandmother. He secretly had it sized based on one of my rings at home before we left for the trip and it fit perfectly! All right, enough of the mushy gushy stuff. We really enjoyed the rest of our stay in San Sebastian and we look forward to future visits as it will always be a special place for us.

Sorry it’s been so long since we last posted. We are working on another post right now… we will be sure to get it up soon!

Love, Mike and Kristin