On the plane now! Feeling excited finally! Not too many nerves left 🤣 met more brothers and sisters. Most from ny but some from Dominican Republic

Still waiting for the plane to move. something about “Waiting for the carriage” 😂 been talking to our “seat neighbor” and got a little witness in but not a big one. Wearing our badge so that’s a nice lead in to a witness. PS were row 1 🎉 so....first class it is! 🥰 the only draw back is that there aren’t any other witnesses up here In first class. We met them in the airport and we’ll see them again on the ground 😘

Screen in front of me on the plane

Flying by...literally 🤣

The French friends were all smiles and so so helpful! They wanted us to not have to think but just follow them and they would take care of us. Being super tired this was very helpful, but it’s hard to suppress the urge to know what and why all the time. We were eventually received a sticker \240on our luggage saying which hotel we were headed to and then lead out the airport, into fresh air, across the street and into another great hall where we were to wait for our bus to the hotel. The idea was excellent! And you could feel the love! They had cute little scenes set up to make it fun for photos. A brother was playing kingdom songs on a keyboard. It was really nice!

But eventually jason was really ready to go. One bus came and went. Another one came. And we got on it. Ah finally! But then there weren’t enough seats for us and we had to get off. A brother said he’d call a shuttle for us. And a lovely French couple drove us to the Marriott Rive Guache 45 minutes away.

We got checked in at the hotel, and then went to check in with the brothers welcome desk. They gave us a bag that includes \240invitations, a passport that has our meal tickets and a map In it, and our badge lanyard.

By the time we got to our room (15th floor) we were exhausted. Jason fell right asleep. I unpacked and then slept. 2 hours. Ate at the hotel restaurant which was excellent. i got prawns in coconut sauce and risotto and boy were the prawns “real”! 🤣 ended the night with a stroll around the block.

We had really good conversations with two brothers who we sat with. One is serving in a Russian congregation and was telling us about things in Russia. And another brother goes back and forth to the Dominican Republic preaching.

We met our tour guides for our walking tour of the covered passages. Pierre and Natalie. And off we went. Walking to the passages. They took us in the metro. Watching out for us the whole time for our safety. All the while laughing and talking and sharing stories.

The brother met his wife on a Kingdom Hall construction site. He’s from a family of all boys. So a hard working woman impressed him. She was lifting scaffolding and came up to him and said I don’t know what’s happening to my arm and pointed to her muscle! Lol he laughed and said you growing muscles! I think they started dating after that 🤣

Covered passages. I didn’t know what they were. They’re literally covered walkthrus like shortcuts. But they actually had a lot of meaning back in the 1700 and 1800’s. They were gathering areas out of the muddy busy streets for conversation and social interchange and merchants set up shop in them since people lingered in them. Soon they added gold and mirrors and windows and glass ceiling etc all to give them the feeling of luxury and importance so that people would flock to them.

We visited about 5 different passages.

We took a break in this lovely park.

By the end of the walking tour we were tired and hungry. We went to lunch with a family of 3 from British Columbia Canada. A lovely family! Super fun and excited.

The Pache’s

we walked to galerie layfete a famous “mall” with an amazing doom inside and awesome rooftop views of the city. Jason and I ended our day out with a coffee on the terrace

Galerie Lafayette

The beautiful doom inside!

Rooftop of Galerie Layafete

My little espresso with a touch of milk (in French cafe noisette). It was so smooth.

A few other pics from the day:

zoom in on that gold statue! Wow!

This is a 200 year old book store!! It’s still run by the family! The books looked exactly like grams libabry! I would’ve loved to have gone in but it was closed 😫

Around every corner there was a “surprise” of brother and sisters with soemthing special planned for us! This sister had water in an old fashioned bike and carriage!

The couple had a Polaroid camera and took pictures of us under the covered passage!

She was playing a barrel organ with kingdom songs that looked like the sheet music from grams player piano. The branch made them for this convention! Amazing!

We received an amazing welcome when we walked in the Kingdom Hall!! I’ll send the video in WhatsApp but they friends were lined up waiiting for us and were yelling we love you and holding signs and smiling and hugging us all! It’s all genuine for every single person they hug they are genuinely so happy we are here!

Immediately a brother came up to us. His name is Anger Philip and he invited us to dinner with his family and to stay with them after the convention if we wanted to. We exchanged #s and will contact him soon.

They gave us a little service meeting which was a review of the French presentation and assigned us to work with 2 French speaking sisters.we were to walk to the metronwhd set up a cart and give invitations to people we passed in the sidewalk along the way.

The sister with the pink scarf walked with jason and the other sister walked with me. We talked using google translate and it worked great. Jason talked to lots of people and they were impressed with his braveness and boldness to speak French to anyone. Here’s Jasons face after his first invitation conversation:

We walked and talked for 20 minutes, set up the cart at the metro for 5 min and then walked back to the kingdom Hal. It was relaxed and fun!

When we got back to the hall they fed and and then sang “it’s the person not the face” and the courage song to us in French. It was so special!

They out numbered the delegates :)

We took an uber back to the hotel cause Jasons feet were killing him. He wore his dress shoes and should’ve worn his tennis shoes. Since we left a little early we got to chill for about an hour before we got in a bus to go to the evening gathering. It was a good decision.

And then we sang and danced for over an hour! The skits were amazing! They prepared for 18 months for this! There was a band in the right side of the stage and there was an adult and children’s choir. There was, jazzy songs, a I’m just a cart skit with tap dancing, opera singing, barber shop quartet and humor, dancing in the aisles. . Our mouths were open in amazement.

After we went outside. There were white tents set up and they were grilling chicken and peppers and eggplant and made waffles with Nutella and honey and whip cream and were serving sparkling apple juice and non alcoholic beer and fruit kabobs. We and ate and chatted. We met these 2 awesome couples from England. It was so much fun and really encouraging \240talking with them!

The French kiss once on each cheek. Brothers to brothers, sister to sisters, brothers to sisters. Doesn’t matter. They all do it. Here’s Jason and the brother from England practicing 😂

The send off as we walked to our buswsnwas just as awesome as our greeting! A wall on each side yelling and chanting we love you! They ran after the buses and jumped and waved and threw their hats in the air! It was amazing! We were exhausted but couldn’t stop smiling!!

Everything is technically very well organized for the size group that is here as delegates. Everyone knows to follow direction and wait for the go ahead to do anything. So although we technically had a 10:30 entrance time we didn’t go in til almost 11 because ther were other tours running behind and the brothers time the groups so the museum doesn’t get overwhelmed. They told us the Louvre doesn’t actually like us doing the tours. So the brothers try so hard to not be a problem. We were told to not wear our badges in the museum because the museum doesn’t like them. Everywhere we turned in the museum there were friends to greet us, or help us, or make us feel safe, or let our guide know which way to go to avoid congestion and make it go smooth. There were friends in the coatcheck room that took me to the locker and showed me how to do it and made sure I knew the code. Very loving. Like too much so, which is impossible but shows I’m just not used to it 😆

The louvre tour is an audio recording that we were given on an app to download weeks ago. We brought our own headphones and device with the download. The sister who was our guide would take us to the exhibit that went with the recoding and we would all press play at the same time and listen. Then we’d move on to the next exhibit and swipe on our tablet to the next recoding and listen. So on and so on. It was actually a great set up cause the louvre was loud and full.

One part that I thought was cool was the statue of Julius Cesear. We stood in front of his statue and listened about how Jehovah can maneuver anyone he needs/wants to. Jehovah had Julius Cesear order the registration.

Another interesting one was a long stone carving showing a long stone carving of a Roman census being taken. The recording talked about how Jesus must have meditated on how this was a fulfillment of a prophecy from long ago that he had no control over, yet it was fulfilled. That must have drawn him closer to his father and depended his love for Jehovah. I hadn’t thought about how the prophecies being fulfilled, especially ones that Jesus didn’t have a say in, would have affect Jesus and his relationship with Jehovah.

The tour talked about how champions in bible times were athletes and the training they did. We need to train ourselves spiritually and keep our focus like those athletes did. We stood in front of a naked 🤣 athlete sculpture for that recording. Lots of nakedness 😂 and that the athletes were only famous for a little while and then no one remembered them so we want to be known by jah forever.

Another talked about the armor the Roman soldiers wore and the obvious application with our spiritual armor. But to listen to it we stood in front of sever stone pieces of Apollo’s temple showing a battle that had taken place and the soldiers wearing their armor. There were two bottoms of stone pillars that had been in that temple. They were huge! And I can’t imagine how tall they were. \240and was about 50 of them in the temple. So a sister and I were talking about it and how maybe the temple that Samson knocked down had pillars that big and how strong he was! It made that a little bit more real.

The Venus...ok so as we stood in front of the Venus statue, which was the most crowded one of them all, we listened to the recording. Venus...she was celebrated with prostitution. Her name is where the word venerial comes from. Then it named common std’s and that they came from her in that they resulted from celebrating her. She also is known as Aphrodities and Ashtoreth and that is where Easter comes from. It was crazy to listen to that all while people are clamoring around us to get picture of her. These tours really make me look at these historical artifacts thru different eyes 👀

The louvre tour was great! A lot of walking!! \240And because it was delayed it was past lunch time and we were hungry!! We didn’t end up eating til 3:30 😱

Jason and I didn’t go back with the group to the hotel. You’re given an option to return and the guides will take you back or stay and either find your own way back or they’ll give you a metro ticket to use on the way back. We wanted to eat at a cafe outside and then go to Angelina for a hot chocolate.

But first here’s the pictures outside the louvre as you’re walking to Enter it in the glass dome:

See the straw hat with the black ribbon? All the French volunteers wear them so we know who is there to help us :)

This is just one of the ceilings in the louvre. One of the ceilings had a scene of the devil peaking around a rock at some people. Why in the world you’d want that on your ceiling I have no idea! He had red eyes too 😱 I did not take a picture that one 🤣

The Louvre was originally the kings house and for his court

Now on to lunch...

We are at a cute cafe. We are noticing and it was confirmed by our guide this morning that all the cafes have basically the same food to offer. So we picked one based on cuteness 😀 I had duck confit and we shared a glass of champagne 🥂

I had watched a episode of a guy who was a popular tv show writer that loves food and visiting other countries. He visited Paris and in another one Venice. So I had taken notes of a few places I wanted to visit. Angelina is know for their decadent hot chocolate and we had to try it! I don’t even like hot chocolate but when I saw him pour it in the show and how thick it is and then his face when he drinks it (he’s very expressive like brother Lett😂) I put it on the list. It’s right near the Louvre so we walked down a few blocks to it. It was amazing!

We split one pour into 2 cups. There’s no way your could drink a whole cup of this. It’s too rich. Well at least that’s my opinion. Obviously not everyone thinks that cause on the breakfast menu it lists a “healthy breakfast” and it includes this hot chocolate 🤣 jason said it’s 700 calories he’ll never get back 😂😂 no regrets...it was so different and exciting to try...once!

I’ll send you the video on WhatsApp of her pouring the hot chocolate into our cups. So thick and chocolatey

Uber’d back to the hotel. Layed down for a little bit and then dinner at 9:30 in the hotel. We’ve been eating in the hotel restaurant every evening. It’s a nice restaurant, quiet, good food, good wine, and no walking and making a big deal out of dinner when you’re tired and ready for bed.

Tomorrow the bus leaves at 8:15. One hr or so drive to the hall they’re renting for the convention. I’m told it’s the same hall they had the global warming convention in a year or two ago.

Big day tomorrow. Got our gifts all ready to take and give out to the friens. Nighty night.

We’re tired today but not exhausted. Went to bed without dinner and slept from 9:30 to 6.

So the welcoming committee was as awesome as the evening gathering welcoming committee! They are full of genuine Unending love!

So many friends were dressed up! It was awesome to see! I wore Ine Atuboyedia’s gift of a Nigerian dress.

We have brother Morris from GB!

Brothers from an island between New Zealand and Australia (can’t remember the name)

Little sister Vicky from russian but now living in France. She was the sweetest and kind of hung around us. Some friends thought she was our daughter 🤣🥰 we’d take her 😘👍 we WhatsApp’s her to have lunch with us today.

Brother with the basket for returning the radios. He was so energetic! Everyone here is! Where do they get their energy?!🤣

Beautiful mother and daughter

Friends from Mexico serving in Nicaragua. We loved speaking Spanish with them! Who knew speaking Spanish would be such a breath of fresh air!! But compared with French we’re desperate 😂

North Carolina Sister’s with a lovely sign, loves builds a bridge from our heart to yours

Sisters from Chile! Who knows, we may visit them after a trip to Ecuador! They were amazing! And the brother in the next pic wore spurs!! Wow!

Jen and jason aka Sophia and Caleb

As we were loading on the bus! It was 6:30pm by this time.

It’s a party everywhere 😀

Our bus trip home...well I should’ve known it’d be interesting cause the bus driver had a turned up mustache 🤣😱

It was about 25 degrees hotter in the bus then outside! The weather while we’ve been here has been wonderful! Cool with a breeze. So refreshing! Not hot. I haven’t felt like I wish I could wear shorts once. But this bus! 🙄 everyone that got on said oh my does the air work?! It was super hot!

Fortunantly one of the last gifts we got yesterday was this fan. Although jason didn’t think hot breeze was a relief I appreciate moving air so! 😂 the sisters behind us were young and giggley so that helped distract a little. I joked that watch the AC would kick on as soon as we pulled up the hotel. You’ll think I’m making this up...but the ac turned on right as we pulled up to the hotel! We all died laughing!! Did that mustache driver do that on purpose? We have no idea. I prefer to think no 😏

Experiences we won’t forget.

This week is really showing how much patience we need, even with Jehovah’s people. Of course we’re still in Satan’s imperfect world so a lot of the patience is needed cause of that. But Jehovah’s people are mild so sometimes we may think why aren’t they saying anything or why aren’t they moving faster or why are we waiting? patience love and self control. A brother in line for the bus said you only notice if you need more of those when you need more of them😆 hmmmmm I guess that’s true. And I guess I’ll keep trying😃😃

Second day of the convention is forecasted to be better then the first😁😁...

More pics:

Here’s more of my dress

The brother from Chile. He and his wife (sister on the left in the above pic) \240are special pioneers.

Brother and sister from Greece that we sat next too during the session Friday. They serve in the Albanian cong.

The above two pics are of the family from the island near New Zealand and Australia.

Cute family from Germany as we arrived on Friday.

We got our radios and found great seats next to a couple from Austria. We really enjoyed sitting next to them!

There were a ton of people baptized! I can’t wait to find out how many tomorrow. The pools were outside. 2 or 3 with 8 brothers each inside.

The sister this morning telling us when to board the bus. All the French brothers and sisters that are volunteering \240wear the straw hats with the black ribbon. It makes them easy to spot. And super cute!🥰

Sisters holding a sewn sign as we entered the convention. They were there when we exited too.

Brother from Germany.

Jason saying bon jour! We were switching between French English Italian and Spanish all day! By the end we were saying hola instead of bon jour 😂😂 our brains couldn’t keep up

An adorable French family. We brought gifts for adults (keychains, pins, and magnets with a map and our info on it) and for children (a notebook with a matching pen with an elephant holding balloons and “love never fails” on it. Whenever we saw kids we gave them one.

The sister in the white hat is from Cuenca Ecuador, and the sister with the black hat is from Chile.

Brothers and sister from the mountains of Chile. They preach to the indigenous tribes. The sister is dressed in the indigenous dress. She had bells on her head piece🥰

This is inside the convention venue. They had a paris scene compege with Eiffel Tower and steet lights and a bench set up for pictures and a jw.org car for pictures and a Caleb and Sophia cut out for pics. It was awesome!

We love you more then bread! 🤣🤣🤣

Dinner at the hotel where we’ve eaten every night except for last night which we went to bed without dinner cause we were so tired. It’s a good restaurant, easy to access, food service and good food. Oh and...they give us 20% off! 👍👍

That’s our day. It was great! I’ve been in bed for 1/2 hr or whenever I started this post. Jason’s been snoring since his head hit the pillow. Tv’s in French so that helps cut down on the distractions. Sleep comes easier.

❤️❤️

On the bus headed to day 3

Jason grew up with the brother on the right. His wife in the middle is from Peru so they dress in native dress for the convention.

This was Jasons favorite gift! Jam!!

The sister on the left drove us from the airport to our hotel on Monday. She found us at the convention. That’s amazing by itself because we had 37,000 people there 😂

A brother was playing the violin during lunch! Wow!

These 2 guys are studying and they came to every day of the convention. Jason saw them on Friday and made sure to greet them so they felt welcome. And then we saw them again on Sunday. They are from Columbia. So we spoke Spanish with them! Super awesome! (Ps sometimes we’d speak our limited pitiful French to one of the friends they’d say I don’t speak English 🤣🤣)

Radios and headphones!!

Brother Morris

This sister and brother are from Ecuador not too far from Canoa where we visit! There were many from Ecuador. It was a country invited. So nice to see all of the brothers!

Ralf from Germany! He drives on the autobon and was very boisterous 😂

The middle sister is from Ecuador too! Her dress is typical Ecuador! Beautiful! It had a big tuna on the back and fruit and veggies all around it

We all gave collected pins. We pinned them on our lanyards that help our badges. Some people had so many that it went all the way around their neck. This little boy put them on his hat! Ingenious! 🎉🎉

These friends were dressed in native Korean dress.they were actually from the Canadian bethel. Every day we saw them dressed up! We finally got a picture with them on the last day as we were all leaving the convention hall. \240Dressing up is a gift for everyone because we all take pictures with them and love seeing the beautiful outfits! But it is tiring for those dressed up.

Jason grew up with the brother on the right. His name is jason too. They live in Connecticut and serve in a Spanish cong. His wife, Yulisa, is from Peru. They actually lived in Peru for a year or more preaching. So they dressed in native Peruvian dress for Sunday! Beautiful!

On our way back to the hotel on the bus. This sister is from Quebec and spoke mostly French. There were A LOT of friends from Canada - Quebec, onterio, British Columbia, Vancouver

A sister from Switzerland. She and her husband were staying in our hotel so we got to meet them. They invited us to stay with them if we ever go to Switzerland. We talked thru google translate. She typed, we will have to buy a longer bed for jason! 😂😂

At dinner Sunday night.walked 15 minutes from the hotel to a little restaurant. It had open air seating. Jason got duckling (😱😢) and peaches. We agreed to just call it duck.

Duck....and peaches and polenta

We honestly thought hat giving our gifts out at the convention would lighten our luggage. But....these are all the gift that we received at the convention!😱🤣 not sure if they weigh more, but we defiantly aren’t going to be tons lighter for our flight to France on Thursday. 😆

Monday we left the hotel and headed for our Airbnb closer to the hussle and bussle of paris. we had our last hotel breakfast before leaving and talked with an older couple from Canada. The brother said none of us have thought one time about the money involved in this trip. That’s true! We’ve only thought about how wonderful it has been and how much we never expected it to be as amazing as it was and all the friends we’ve made! He encouraged us to hang our badges up in our house where can see them so we keep it fresh in our minds and so others will ask about it. And to go again!

We got an uber to our Airbnb, dropped our luggage off rested for awhike and headed to a little cafe around the corner. We had escargot (snails). So yummy! Just like mussels with a little flavor or texture of mushrooms. Yum, we both liked them.

We bought 2 one day tickets (which actually gets you 1.5 days) for the hop on hop off bus. The best way to see everything in paris since paris is so spread out.

This building was styled after the Roman temples because the king at the time liked them

The castle surrounding the louvre

The louvre

We got off the bus at the Seine River and walked along the river. As we were walking we heard the kingdom songs being played somewhere for the delegates. It was bouncing off the buildings!

This little stand would have major competition if gram sold her National Geographic collection next door 🤣 💰

Finally we were on the Champs Elysees! Wow! Never thought I would ever be here!

Approaching the Arc! One draw back from the bus tour is a lot of my pictures have the bus or people on the bus in them 🤦🏼‍♀️

Ahhh the Eiffel Tower! Couldn’t take enough pictures of it!

While standing In front of the Eiffel Tower deciding where to eat before 10pm when the tower lights up, we found this lovely couple! They were waiting too. We were all 4 very hungry and decided that we would eat together nearby the Eiffel so we could still enjoy the lights. We found a little cafe with a view of the Eiffel and they had a nice variety of food we hadn’t seen yet...beef bourguignon! All four of us really felt like Jehovah sent us to each other because we were missing the friends and they needed help deciding whether to wait for the lights and be hungry or head back to the hotel without eating. Jehovah heard our distress and helped. We felt so much happier and we’ve made dear friends.

From 10pm to 2am the Eiffel Tower sparkles at the top of the hour for 5 minutes

It was beautiful!

I have never seen anything like the inside of the Palais Garnier. It was breathtakingly beautiful! The grand staircase was designed to appear graceful and beautiful as they ascended and descended. For the interior of the auditorium (we couldn’t take any pictures inside the auditorium) \240red velvet was used to reflect on the skin of the women and enhance their natural color. Wow! All the hallways and rooms were absolutely beautiful. Colored marble & gold! Oh la la! 🎭

It was amazing! The theater closed before we could finish the tour, but a sister told us we saw the most beautiful parts.

We ended our day with dinner with friends, new and old at Framboise, a crepe restaurant.

It was a dinner full of laughter! the middle couple Jason grew up with the brother, so it was nice to spend time with them. \240The couple on the end that we met over dinner tonight is going in to Venice Wednesday. Maybe we will see them there!

Tomorrow is our last full day and there a couple things we want to do! So it’s off to bed 🥰

A sister told us yesterday to see Monet’s Waterlillies at Muse de l’Orangerie. so we mailed some postcards (one jason sent to “Furture Jason” to remind himself what a great time he’s having 😂) and then called an uber (7euros) to the museum.

The museum is in a park that’s very pretty.

Monet’s waterlillies are displayed in 2 oval rooms that Monet designed to have natural lighting (the ceilings was all a skylight with a cloth to soften the light) \240and hung \2404 landscape paintings in each oval room. We did an audio guide in the museum and it said that (direct quote from Monet) he painted them for the overstressed working man to find relaxation.

The floor below had many famous artists’ paintings.

Gaugain

Renoir

Renoir

Cezanne

Cezanne

These 2 paintings were originally one painting but were found and bought separately and then discovered to be from the same painting. “Why buy one when you can buy 2 for twice the price”🤣

Picasso. Painted after the war. He returned to his original style after the war.

Durian

Sourtine

I liked seeing artists that I recognized. Otherwise it’s seen one painting seen them all, for me 😆🤷‍♀️

We got a electric bike taxi to take us to a gluten free bakery.

I thought it’d be too much for the little lady to bike us but she said oh no it’s electric! 👍 jason gps’d us and she peddled. On the way she said she was from Serbia. When we got to the bakery I showed her jw.org and turned it to Serbian. She was amazed but then said she preferred French. So back to French it went. She said she didn’t have a smartphone or internet at home. I pulled up the contact form and offered for her to fill it out on my phone. Together we filled it out! That’s a first that I’ve ever had anyone fill the form out in front of me. She was so grateful and gave me a kiss (on the cheek😂). Her name was Lorena.

On a side note the ride was thought to be 20 euros which was still so expensive compared to the 8euro uber ride but we thought it would be fun. Well when we arrived it turned out it was 20 euro PER PERSON 😱🤣 oh boy! She better have filled out the contact form for 40euro! We are finding that the French don’t really tell you everything til it’s over. 🙄

Gluten free bakery was amazing! Jason got to enjoy a French croissant because of it 🎉

I of course got a double espresso and a chocolate tower of goodness (I don’t know the real name) but it was 2 puffs filled with chocolate mouse with a chocolate drizzle on top. Delicious. Now into shopping before I go into a chocolate coma 🥰

The first victim of our shopping. The purse on the left. On sale! $62 euro. It’s so cute! It’s a box that opens just like a box on top. Adorable! Jason said ”will it hold my stuff?” I said “no it’s a fancy going out purse” He bought it for me before I’d even officially decided to ask 😊

We visited Tiffany’s on the Champs Elysees! I only know how to pronounce that because of Gram ❤️❤️ We looked at each case on all 3 floors and watched them take champagne to high rolling customers buying expensive diamonds. They dined on champagne and the employees wore gloves as they fit the diamonds on their hands 😱🎉

Jason bought me a ring🥰

We were helped by a wonderful girl! And again she asked about our badges. She said she’d seen green ones...from the Netherlands! We got in a witness and told her about jw.org. I showed her one of my pins on my lanyard that someone at the convention gave me - a jw.org pin. In between talking, picking out a ring, leaving the store to “talk about our purchase options” and returning to the store for the purchase, she said she had already looked at the website! Awesome!!

Shopped along the Champs Elysees...

Many beautiful shops unique to paris ⬇️

⬆️ we found our own covered passage way. On Tuesday we did a tour of the covered passages with the brothers. Today we found another one. They really were designer to feel luxurious! \240

We end the evenign with dinner at Cafe de la Paix (cafe of peace). It was right in front of the opera house. It had painted ceilings that reminded us of the opera house that we toured yesterday. Beautiful and ornate!

We split the beef rib meat with bordelaise sauce, which was not ribs, but meat cut off the rib bone infront of us with one slice of the knife! \240It was so tender!

Wine was our dessert 🤣🎉🤷‍♀️

Tomorrow we fly to Venice. Flight leaves at 2pm 👍

The grand staircase! Designed so that women would look their best ascending and descending in their ballgowns. Women could leave their fancy jewelry at the opera house and put it on once they got to the opera. What a good idea!

The auditorium which we were not allowed to photograph was filled with red velvet. The architect designed it that way so that the red color would excentuate the natural flush glow of the women’s faces 😂 so thoughtful 🤣

It was just an absolutely stunning opera house!! We couldn’t tour it all because they closed but we saw so much beauty!

There is really a ”lake” of sorts under the opera house. I read it floods under the opera house and the water stays there. So it’s not so much a lake as it is water that won’t leave 😂 you can’t tour the basement. But that is where the phantom of the opera got its story of the phantom living under the opera house and the rivers that he took Christine on in the boat.

There was a box 5 too. In the play box 5 was the phantoms box.

After that we had dinner qt a gluten free crepe place with friends that jason grew up with.

So much fun!

Last nights Eiffel Tower as we drove home from dinner. I tried to get us a restaurant in Montmarte so we could see the tower light up from a distance but every single place was booked until the end of August! 😱 lesson learned: book restaurant months in advance 🤔

Maxe great time to the airport with lots of time to spare. Bags were only 1/2 kg over 🎉🎉🎉🎉 its a miracle! But our backpack and carryon bags are pretty heavy 😂 it’s a strategy 🤷‍♀️

Venice here we come! (No makeup🙅‍♀️)

Venice! We took a water taxi to the island and then a short walk down cobblestone streets and a little tunnel to a gated garden, then up 5 flight of spiral stairs to our apartment. It’s awesome! “Air conditioned” means a room unit in the living room, so we will leave the windows open in our bedroom tonight and have some fans going. It’s a little sticky.

We met tony and Diane Spriggs from our cong at our apartment and we enjoyed some treats we brought from paris...macaroons and pink champagne 😃 sorry mom, I got used to it!😂

Then we went on our gondola ride! Amazing! The water ways of Venice are so quiet and peaceful. You can actually hear the water lapping and the boat swishing. It was so amazing. I’ve been excited to be here since I stepped off the water taxi!

Tomorrow has so Much to look forward to!

Views from our apartment bedroom!

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Views from the gondola ride!

We had dinner at a cute little place by the water

Then we left our friends and continued on our own. We did some shopping. Ties for jason a hat for me

local artists set up in the sidewalks to sell their paintings of the canals and boats.

We found gluten free pizza which jason was super happy about. Not too much gluten free here. Well the fish and veggies are but pizza and pasta is technically not. Jason might try the homemade pasta today to see if he does ok. It’s rumored that Europe doesn’t have a gluten free problem because the wheat is not processed like in the USA. We read about it and heard a few at the convention say they were able to eat the bread. We’ll see.

Also the guy said oh no it’s a portion for one. That was a big pizza! We could’ve split it. I brought 1/2 mine home. 🤦🏼‍♀️

For transportAtion it’s walking or water bus. We bought a water bus pass. Once we got back to our general area of the apartment we wandered the streets and found some music And some gelato :)

We walked to San Marco square which is amazing! We saw it before lunch and then on our way home in the dark all lite up.

My hat we bought :) it’s crunchy 🤣 don’t know how else to describe it. The girls great grandmother started the shop and now first to Ecuador too and buys \240hats to sell in Venice. This hat is made in Venice :)

San Marco sq at night

⬆️view from the water bus

⬆️bridges everywhere. The gondola guy on Monday said there are over 400 bridges in Venice 😱

Almost to our street to go to our apartment and we found this 2 man band playing que sera sera

Jason had to work some more after breakfast so by the time we got started he was hungry again. We ate at a place with a” garden” in the back

We found the brothers and sister with the carts set up in a little square.

Got some yummy gelato for while we were walking around the canals and bridges

Found a little wine bar with 3.50 euro a glass wine. Any wine you could think of! Jason had some distressing things happening at work so he was having a hard time Saturday as we were walking around. He was mentally distracted and distressed. But for the times all these pictures in this post were taken he was enjoying himself 😊

We wondered around the streets. This time we went further into the island rather then across the grand canal. Across the canal is more touristy were finding. Further in the island is where the Venetian live.

The knife place i had researched for dad is closed for holiday until August 19. And there is no other shop on the island! \240So...August is when all of Europe travels for holiday. I won’t return to Europe in August. The big opera in paris had no operas til sept the opera in Verona in Italy has no operas til sept, many shops are closed for August, many restaurants have chooses to do renovations in aug and are closed. It’s crazy. Of course there’s still plenty for us to do and see it’s just that sept or oct seem like better months all around. It’s pretty humid in Venice right now too. Lake como will be nice and cool. So planning for the future no Europe in August.

We’d come across a small theater yesterday that was going to do famous arias. Wed decided to go Saturday. We got to the apt with time to change and took the water taxi to the Rialto bridge. The theater is just around the corner.

This is the Rialto bridge. This is not what I wore to the theater 🤣

This is the opera we went to.

The location of the opera house is on the top of this post.

It was so nice! One baratone one suprano and one tenor. The tenor (in the last picture above wearing the big hat) was our favorite! The little orchestra was excellent! It was really enjoyable and relaxing!

But by the end we were starving and we’d lost our bug spray! The mosquitos are terrible starting at about 7pm! So we needed to eat and we were being eaten!😱😂

All the restaurants seemed to be closing but we finally found one and jason ate while \240fanning himself to keep the bugs away. Survival 🤣

view from the Rialto bridge at night

Our driver was a young man Venetian born. He was very polite. Because he is Venetian born, we could drive places that non venetians can’t.

Ate under the Rialto bridge. Cool ambiance and...prosciutto and melon, spaghetti with lobster and seafood risotto 🤤🤤🤤

And to finish it off...lemoncello! They bringing it to you after you pay. Apparently only in nice restaurants! And plus this guy liked us! Yum!

We talked with the couple across the aisle, they were from Milan and they knew the regions we are going to and gave many suggestions for Varenna(lake como) and Franciacorta (where we go on Thursday).

This is a terrible pic because of the reflection from the train window but these are the mountains the train is passing on our way to Varenna in lake como😱🥰

Remind me to follow my gut and always pack lighter! Every place we’ve gone to has had a washer. I swear Jason hasn’t worn 8 or his 12 pairs of sock 🙄 and hauling all our luggage thru these narrow steets in Varenna was a major chore! How we’ll get back to the train station I’ll never know 😂

We ate at a lovely place once we dumped our bags. Ps our air bnb is right on the lake. So beautiful!

That’s the view from our bedroom window. Slept great. 70 degrees during the daytime here. I might need to buy a coat. Started to feel a little scratch in my throat yesterday. Hoping it just stays like that and not into a cold.

Breakfast at a lakeside cafe and watched the ducks and swans. Adorable cobble stone streets, walkways and small passageways.

There were grape vines growing along fences. And olive trees with olives. Wow! The mountains are Switzerland.

(A peak of Salvador’s head😂)

This is part of the path we walked

Getting steeper. No rails, no fences.

The path leveled off at the top and we were walking past peoples houses and gardens. Still headed for the castle.

A peak of another lake. That’s Switzerland!

Views from the castle

Jason went into and up the castle. I saved my knees. We still had to walk down!

Going down the path was smooth stones, so a little slippery. I only brought 1 pair of shoes and they’re birkenstocks. So going down was a little slower. We made it inntime for a shower and to catch the ferry to our dinner/winery up the lake in Domaso. The ferry ride was amazing in itself! Beautiful views! Like views you can’t capture!

Kids learning to sail!

A guy from the restaurant picked us up and drove us up the whindy roads to the winery. There’s no way we could’ve walked it. So they must pick everyone up.

And this was our view for dinner.

Azienda Agricola Sorsasso lago di Como

We arrived at 7:30 and left at 11. The view got better and better as the clouds lifted and then settled back down on the mountains. The river in the center of the picture is River Alba, one of 2 rivers that feed Lake Como.

The lady had a taxi arranged for us. And he zoomed us down the whindy roads and thru the mountain tunnels and back to our apartment way faster then the boat ride. The ferry took 1 hour 15 min to get from Varenna to Domaso. Google maps said a car would take 45-55 min to get us home. We did it in 30! 😱😂🎉

Walked down to a tiny beach and put our feet in the wAter. It was pretty chilly, but refreshing. And I found a piece of sea glass. Maybe I’ll ask sharie Powell to make it into a necklace for me 😊

Today was a lot of toodling around. No agenda. No plan. Just seeing what we saw.

Tomorrow we check out of our air bnb at 11 and our train leaves at 2:30. So in between that time we’ll maybe take a boat ride. We’ll see.