Honeymoon journal entry #8: Final entry
Yesterday, we slept in and then went to the Supermarche to buy some souvenirs, watches (we finally got watches!) and towels to cushion the wine we're bringing home with us in our suitcases. Then, we headed to the Gouffre de Promeyssac (a big cave with stalagmites and stalactites). It was pretty cool - our second cave we've visited together - the first one being in South Dakota last year. They didn't allow photos - sorry!
After relaxing a bit at home and cleaning up the house to get ready for our departure, we headed into Le Bugue for dinner at Le Restaurant Abrevoir (see pic below).
It was located on Grand Rue in Le Bugue in this little hidden area of quaint streets and homes and a few shops. The food was AMAZING, even though I forgot the French dictionary that we had been trying to bring with us to restaurants to translate some of the menu options...
So, we ended up ordering some things we weren't sure of. And by we, I mean Eric. His meal was the big question mark. We knew it was "Rognons de veau" in a mustard sauce. Veau means veal, and I assumed "rognons" meant "little pieces" or something like that. In reality, he had veal
kidneys in a mustard sauce! (We looked up "rognons" when we got home.) I tasted one, and it just tasted like smokey meat. Eric wasn't too upset about it at all - he just kind of wondered why all the pieces were a bit round and exactly the same size. :) Oops...
I had duck with cherry chutney and potatoes. It was so tasty - best meal I had the whole time in France. For an appetizer, we had risotto with asparagus and a cream sauce - that was sooooo good, but it really killed my poor sensitive stomach later, and unfortunately, we didn't have any Pepto-Bismol... That's all I want to say about that.
Today, Wednesday, we had to say goodbye to our sweet little cottage and LeBugue. Here are a few more pics of Le Bugue and our cottage.
We headed out of town around 10 am and drove to Perigeux, a larger city about 40 km away. There, we wandered around the Centre Ville (downtown) and the market and enjoyed listening to a band (with members of all ages) play different tunes (lots of Sinatra and old classics). We bought a pretty tablecloth for my mom as a "thank you" for watching Indy for these 10 days.
Then we had a little lunch outside (pizza and cokes) in a cute little square where there were about 3 different restaurants all with tables outside. This interesting gentleman came over to the area and opened up this machine in which you insert this paper and then turn a crank and it plays songs, which he then sang along to. That was fun - he sang that one song from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack about "les escaliers."
After that, we headed to Brive, and I have to say that I am very proud of my stick handling skills that I've developed during the past 5 days. The first day, I accidentally started in 3rd gear and I couldn't find reverse (until Eric helped us figure out you had push down). Well, today I had to drive around Perigeux and Brive, both cities that are busier than Le Bugue and have lots of hills and pedestrians and crazy drivers that do U-turns whenever and wherever they want. Well, we finally pull into the area where the Avis car rental place is, and there are hardly any parking spots on the street (and there is no parking lot). I successfully parallel parked while reversing up hill. When I got into the space, I shouted "I rock!" I feel much more confident in my stick skills now. However, some of those hilly back road, somewhat mountainous windy roads where you have to slow way down and then turn sharply and then step on it to get up the hill - those still freak me out a bit. I'd still avoid those if possible.
Anyway, now we're relaxing at our hotel across from the Gare (train station) in Brive. (We were really as close to the train station as you could get. This pic is the view of the train station from our hotel room window. We didn't want to have trouble getting there on time that early in the morning.:))
We leave for Paris CDG airport at about 6 am tomorrow.
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That was our last journal entry! That final night, we wandered around Brive for a while and then had dinner at the restaurant attached to our hotel. And we tried escargots for an appetizer! It was actually quite tasty - lots of oil and garlic and a bit of a seaweed after-taste, but I give it two thumbs up!
The next day, we travelled for about 24 hours straight and arrived home safely. My mom and Indy greeted us at the airport. :)
I got to visit Karin and Jemma tonight (and also saw new Daddy John for a few minutes too). They are all looking great. Karin is so laid back and just seems like she's doing great. She said she's pretty tired, but look at this pic - doesn't she look fabulous?
Welcome to the world, Jemma!
Today, we slept in again and then drove to Montbazillac, a little town south of Bergerac. There, we tasted some wine (Montbazillac is one of the most well-known vineyards of the region), bought 4 bottles to take home and then grabbed lunch at a little restaurant. The woman who worked at the Maison du Tourisme et du Vin (House of Tourism and Wine) was the nicest woman ever - she didn't speak much English so I was forced to really try to speak a lot of French and explain things if I couldn't think of the exact French word. I really enjoyed talking with her!
Then, we toured the Chateau (there are pretty much chateaus in every town) and took in some of the beautiful scenery (are you sensing some common themes of our trip yet?). The town is at the top of a hill, and it overlooks many rows of grapevines, rolling hills, sunflowers, etc.
Today, we slept in again until about 9:30. After a quick breakfast, we went to Castelnaud - a little village that sits along the Dordogne River and has a huge castle from the Middle Ages that sits atop the hill. The whole town is basically nestled into the side of a hill.
It was fun to hike up those roads and see the little houses and yards and gardens of the locals. The castle itself was very cool and gave us some nice views of the area.
After breakfast, we drove to Sarlat, a town about 30 mins away, for the market. It was amazing and had so much more than we expected. We actually ended up spending quite a bit there - on ourselves and a few of our nieces. We bought some kids' books for the girls and for our future kids (en francais!). Eric bought some aviator sunglasses, and then we bought a provencale tablecloth (which I have wanted ever since I studied in France 7 years ago) and a ceramic vase that attaches to the wall. We're hoping it'll look good in our living room.
Sarlat itself was a really cute town. Buildings of stone. Windy, narrow streets that are made only to walk on (although I'm sure some crazy French people drive mopeds, bikes and possibly SmartCars down some of these streets). It looked almost like there was some German influence to the buildings. Anyway, it was very quaint and exactly the type of town I was hoping to visit ever since we started planning our honeymoon in France. 
We finally made it to Le Bugue and were very happy to find our cottage. It is adorable. We were very happy to find ourselves in the country with fresh air and animal sounds - birds, roosters, the occasional cow. After settling in a bit, we took the car in to town to the Intermarche (kind of like Walmart - groceries and random other stuff) for some groceries. It was awesome - we bought a couple bottles of wine that were only like 3 Euros each, Eric got some Cognac and then we got some breakfast, lunch and dinner supplies - all for just a bit more than what we had paid for dinners in Paris. That night, we made a simple pasta/veggie dinner at home accompanied by a baguette and cheese and wine.
After that exciting shopping venture, we took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower. Eric felt confident in our leg strength and talked me into taking the stairs instead of the elevator. We went as high as you can go up the stairs (a bit more than half way up).
After lunch, we took the Metro over to the Arc de Triomphe. We struggled with how to actually get to the Arc (struggled = spent a serious 20 mins or so). You can stand across the street and take pics of the Arc, but you absolutely cannot cross the street - there are tons of cars coming from about six different directions. We saw signs telling us to take stairs down into a tunnel to get to the Arc, but we weren't sure which stairs were the correct stairs. We tried one set of stairs that led us to the Metro station. That wasn't right. We tried another set that took us back where we initially came out of the Metro. That wasn't right. Then Eric found the correct stairs, which took us to a place underground where we had to pay to go up the Arc. We decided at that point that our legs were too tired and we didn't really care enough to pay to walk up more stairs. Funny thing is, I had been there before with my mom and I don't remember it being difficult at all!
After that, it was nap time and then we went out for a late dinner in the Saint Germain area - some pizza and a carafe of wine enjoyed while sitting at a table outside.
It was our last night in Paris, and it was lovely.
Honeymoon journal entry #2:
We snapped a few pics in front of the church and then wandered over to the artists' square in Montmartre. We looked at lots of different paintings and drawings and decided to buy an oil painting from an artists who was really nice. The painting is of a French cafe with the Arc de Triomph in the background. We told the artist that we were on our honeymoon, and he said we should come back in a few years with all our petits enfants! ha! He also complimented me on my French, so I really liked him - he was immediately my favorite Parisian.
Lots of people + not a lot of air conditioning + a glass pyramid trapping in heat = very hot and thirsty Heidi and Eric. But we did enjoy the museum. There are so many old things, pieces d'art to take in. It's really impressive.
Next, we found a cute little place with several restaurants and a petit marche (mini mart). We decided to eat a smaller dinner that night, so we bought Camembert, grapes, ham and some bread -- and of course some vin! We just relaxed and ate our petit diner at our hotel while watching French MTV. Eric especially liked Punk'd (you can still hear the English being spoken, but the French is dubbed over it).
Then we made our way to La Sainte Chapelle. Even though I had been there before, it's still breath-taking. Eric seemed to like it as well, although we were both in kind of a jet-lagged daze. At some point, we got a panini and shared it along with a diet and regular coke (un coca light et un coca). The caffeine didn't do much for the jet lag.
We are back from our honeymoon in France and are slowly adjusting to the time change. We've actually been a little busy since getting back on Thursday night. We spent Friday running a few errands and then went to sleep that night at 9 o'clock. Yesterday, we went to our friends' Nick and Ingrid's wedding in Rochester and we spent the night down there. Today, we are just relaxing at home - and we finally got all or pictures online! There are more than 300... Yikes! But we were gone for 10 days and we couldn't help taking pictures of all the beautiful views, grape vines, Paris sites, etc. We did a lot in 10 days, but we really took our time and relaxed too. We did 1 or 2 big things each day and then spent most evenings/nights relaxing at our hotel or cottage. We wrote down what we did each day in sort of a travel journal kind of way, so I think I'll post those as separate blog entries so you can read more details about where we were and what we did.
