Glorious Paris and Snowy L'abri

One would think that I with the time I have I would be able to crank out almost daily reports to my blog. However- I seem to have found myself busy these last couple of weeks and realized I was several adventures behind on the blog.

Several weeks ago a friend from Seattle, named Jim, came out to Paris for his company’s trade show. I have been anxiously waiting for a reason to go to Paris, so I decided to coincide my visit with when he was going to be there.

Paris was absolutely Glorious! It started for me very early on a Saturday morning, as I think I had the first flight out of Geneva. I got in to a very dreary and rainy Paris, but I didn’t even care. I was so happy to be there. The first day I went to the Paris Expo where Jim taught me the wonderful world of Electric Mirrors. Sadly my vision of having working the trade show and orchestrating a half a million deal for Electric Mirror with an attractive French man never became reality. ☺

That night we did Landmark #1: Eiffel Tower.
Amazing- it was bigger than I thought it would be. I was thinking it would be relatively the same size as the Space Needle in Seattle. I was wrong, the base of the Tower was massive. Myself, Jim, and three other guys that work for Jim all decided to climb the stairs to the second level of the tower- and than take the elevator the rest of the way up. It was great and the stairs were manageable. I think I could have climbed the whole way to the top if they would have let me. At night the Tower is illuminated with blue lights, but on the hour it would glitter with white lights. By the time is was said and done, we saw the lights glitter three times- hence letting us know we were there three hours.

Sunday- turned into ultra tourist day. Jim and I were quite on a mission to see Paris. We started with the Opera House- (which wasn’t open, so I’ll have to go back). From there we went to a pretty church called Madeleine, Place de la Concord, The Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and the famous Notre Dame.

Highlights from that are definitely The Louvre, and Notre Dame. It is almost impossible to do all of the Louvre in one day, but it was so beautiful I wouldn’t mind living there a week. One thing that started to become quite comical during the visit to the Louvre was the difficulty of the ‘guided tour’ headset Jim and I rented. You would think that in a place like the Louvre it would be just bursting with information to tell you through your headphones. However that wasn’t the case. The actual pieces of art that had commentary attached weren’t as many as one would think. You knew that whole place was just bursting with history and stories and we couldn’t access it. All the literature was in French on the walls, so there was a good deal that went over my head. Don’t ask me about the history of the Louvre because that section of the museum was all French descriptions with no audio. Still a little upset about that. Haha

Good news is, I am going back in a week to explore more of that city, as well as discover some of its famous shopping!

The following weekend, European traveler Jim and I, headed to mountain town in Switzerland called Aigle- more specifically Huemoz (way-mo). We went to discover a place Jim knew about called L’abri. In French L’abri is known as “The Shelter”. A Christian philosopher/theologian named Francis Schaffer created this place called L’abri as a place where Christians or people looking into Christianity could get away and really study and dive into some of their questions to get some answers. It is quite the getaway spot in this Chalet up in the Mountains. After we got there Friday night, we got a foot of snow! It was exactly what you would expect this mountain house in Switzerland would look like with a lot of snow and the Alps all around you. We were near a little town but nothing too big. So for most cities in the U.S. this would have caused at least some school delays. Not for the Swiss- they have this snow removal thing down. The roads were clear by morning and everyone had snow tires. Even the buses weren’t afraid to go on the steep roads. Amazing.

The weekend was great, and I met a lot of neat people who all were staying and studying at L’abri. (there was roughly 25 people living in and around the house) There were several other houses around the main house called Chalet Bellevue, as well as a chapel.

Sunday night I returned safely back to Geneva where I have unpacked and hopped right back into the weekly routine. This week I am starting to help plan the 4 year olds 5th birthday party for next week. Lucca very sweetly decided he only wanted one friend to come. After we reminded him that the more friends you invite to a party the more presents you get- he said- “Your right, I’ll invite 2” haha oh the innocence.