French Fried

Aaron and I have learned the hard way why Americans are reluctant to do business with the French; The transportaion is anything but reliable. For the 5 days we've been France all train stations have been on strike. You can buy a ticket out, but there is no guarantee that it will actually leave the station. We were hoping to leave France Thursday night, it's now Sunday and we're still here. We currently have tickets to Munich tonight, so cross your fingers for us.

When we didn't get out of Paris Thursday night, we definitely thought we would be able to leave Friday. So when Friday night rolled around and we had no train ticket and no place to stay, we paniced.. maybe just a little. We got ahold of our friend from Miami, Nick, who happens to be interning this semester in a small town right outside Paris called Nangis. He was staying the night with his boss, Damian, and Damian's family. Damian and Angelique were kind enough to invite Aaron and I into their home for the night. We had a really good time seeing a part of France we would have never gotten to see and enjoying the night with people that treated us as immediate friends.

Damian is in the process of setting up an office for his business in Cincinnati, OH. He told us he had no choice but to set up an office in the U.S. because no one would do business with him unless they could ensure shipment of the product, and French transportation wasn't considered reliable. Apparently the railway strike occurs once a month and strikes in the bussing and truck driving industry also occur often.

In the morning Damian and Angelique made us pancakes, Angelique's new favorite American staple, and toasted baguettes with different bries and chesses. Aaron said "Hold the chesse, please." France would be a hard place for him to live considering chesse is a big part of nearly every meal. Good thing he brought his lactaid pills.

Though we are ready to be out of France, we have taken advantage of our extra time. Nick took us to a small midevil town outside of Nangis called Provens. We walked around the small town and toured a small midevil castle that was also once used as a jail. We ate cheese (sorry Aaron) and ham crepes and drank what Nick calls an "apple cider champagne." We went back into Nangis and met Frederick, the woman Nick rents a room with and drank a some red wine before catching a train back to Paris where we had expected to catch a train to Rome that night. As you know by now, that didn't happen.

My computer is telling me we have few units left.. I'm guessing units are minutes so I'm going to post this. We love and miss everyone. Hopefully the next time you hear from us we will be in Germany drinking beer and eating sausages. Luckily we have been running miles a day with 20 lbs on our back so we don't return with extra croissants around our waists.