February in France

The end of January brought with it the end of our first semester (--boy, how long ago was such a schedule normal in the States?), and that meant a week-long vacation to kick off our February. Now, flashback about a year ago: Suzy and her sister, the major schemers that they are, just learned that I, too, had landed a job at JFKS in Berlin; so they booked a trip--yes, a year in advance (--usually, it's Kory who has things planned out like that), and that trip was a long-held dream of skiing in the Alps. Specifically, Katy had set her eyes on Chamonix, France, the poetry-inspiring ravine that sits under the watchful gaze of Mont Blanc (--check out Shelley's poem, for just one example: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45130/mont-blanc-lines-written-in-the-vale-of-chamouni).

Okay, okay, now race back to the near future: it's mid-January and pretty much all of Europe was still waiting for its first flake of snow. Suzy checked out one of those live-feed cameras on top of some mountain in Switzerland, and it looked like a summer hiking day. The collective report from students who tried to go skiing over Chirstmas break was bleak, to say the least. Suzy and I even decided to pull back on our original plans for a week-long ski rental for the family. We thought, maybe we'll bring our running clothes instead. But the cold came, and the Alps were supposedly pounded with snow for a solid week or two before we left, but would it be enough? Answer: Yes, it would!!! We skied five days straight, and were, each day, treated to another, newer, more breathtaking view of the bold beauty of Mont Blanc--and, ready for this, with nothing but Blue-Bird spring-like ski conditions the whole while.

It was magnificent, and regaling you with the stories from Chamonix will be the first part of a two-part post on our February travels.

The second part, Suzy and I deciding to take advantage of President's Day weekend a couple of weeks later, was a trip to Paris. To be honest, Paris seemed almost like something we merely had to do--more or less for the kids' sake. Two days before, we had a morning at the Louvre booked, and some wispy hope something else might materialize to hold our interests.

Is that lady smiling or not?! Ha! And then the magic happened--even some such magic as one might dare to associate with the great month of Valentine's Day. Yep, we all loved Paris. And we love France--love Europe!!! It's true, you can't not go to Paris if you have the chance.

Here come the details, in quick succession...