Back to where it all began...a cool apartment in Paris!

Almost 18 years ago on a backpacking/rail trip through Europe we got to visit Bob & Lorrie in Paris and see what a cool life they were living and what an amazing experience it was for their kids to grow up in another country.  We thought it would be pretty cool to live overseas with our family one day (if we ever got the opportunity).

Lucky us, we once again got to visit them in a Paris apartment and hear all about what they have been up to for the past few years.  Sadly we missed seeing their kids who were home at Christmas, but hopefully next time they are in town we can catch up.

They retrofitted the elevator to fit in the existing stairwell...the metal cage is the elevator!

It could be the worlds smallest elevator in their building, perfect for someone Charlie's size!

Bob took us on a walk to a few neighborhood sites...

Fun to walk down this little known street!

Cousins!

All the vans are to protect the Arc de Triomphe from protesters.

The only sad thing was seeing the aftermath of consistent weekends of yellow vest protesters and the destruction they have left on such a beautiful city.  Part of it look like a war zone with boarded up windows, broken windows, destroyed ATM's.  Such a waste!  We were very lucky as it was the first Saturday in a few months that people could actually be out walking around and even going into shops.

Partially boarded up pen store...

Scouting report for Auntie Joanne's next trip to Europe...I am sure she can find a bag in there!

Kelly and I took a minute to pop into the coolest Abercrombie  & Fitch store...it was levels of shopping, but really it was the stunning building and grounds that made it so cool.  I guess I'm not a teenager or they might say it was the clothes!

What an entry door!

Cool murals on the walls..tricky for photos though lots of bright lights.

Love the gates..

Charlie took the opportunity to wolf down a 5 Guys burger...isn't that what you should eat in Paris?

This lady gave 5 Guys a pass so she could go hit some more shops.  Kelly was pointing out all the fancy sneakers and brands that all of our fellow shoppers were wearing!

After we finished our nice visit and let Bob & Lorrie get on with their weekend, we headed over to another section of Paris, where Kelly had a swim meet later in the day.  We still had some time so we went to the country house of Napoleon & Josephine.  The house itself was very impressive, but our timing was great because they had a very cool exhibit of old furniture that had secret compartments.

Charlie loved it!

Getting ready to head in..

Josephine's bedroom.

For some reason these guys reminded me of the birds in the Lorax book!

Charlie can tell you where the hidden compartment is...I tried to take photos of a few of the other ones, but its tricky as they all had glass around them.

This guy just needed to be on the blog with this outfit, which Kelly informs me cost him some cash!

The dining room..

 We watched Kelly swim and when it was late Kelly and Charlie begged to drive by the Eiffel Tower before we headed for home..It was a rainy, foggy night...

I took this from the car window...too cold and rainy to even get out!  Always an impressive sight!

We look forward to more chances to visit Paris!  Thanks to our awesome hosts...this time we were a little more squared away than 18 years ago when we didn't even know how to use a local phone to call them!  Next time I will get a picture with Lorrie too!!  

In search of snow and a bonus for the trip planner!

The kids have been begging to ski, so I looked for places that would have snow in early Jan.  I found an off the beaten track area in Eastern Germany right on the Czech border in the Ore Mountains.  I didn't know much about the area when I booked it other than it was supposed to have snow...but I got the best treat of all...we were headed to the heart of where all the traditional wooden Christmas decorations are made! (The Erzebirge region)

I really wanted to bring home some cool German Christmas decorations, and now I'm set!  It really was a very special place, as the Christmas decorations were in all of their windows and in all of the little villages we drove through.  Each village had giant candle pyramids and wooden arches in the town squares.

Here are a few of the first ones we saw on our drive in...

This one was right down the road from where we stayed....it even had a little bell that would ring when it spun around.

More cool carved guys near the candle pyramid.

We saw these words all over, our initial reaction was a very adolescent one...we learned that it is the traditional miners greeting that they would say to each other at the start of their mining shifts, it also meant good luck in that they would finish their shift safely. 

Here is a nice post about the candle arches or Schwibbogen in case you want to know their history.  The first time I saw one was at a friends house here in Belgium, they have it in their front window and its gorgeous!

http://shop.learngermancoach.com/what-is-it-about-these-german-christmas-candle-arches/

This was a life sized arch that was in the town square near the market, it was on a small stage.

What really was spectacular was driving through the area at night, when as far as you could see every home had a lit candle arch in their front window.  Here is a photo of the valley one evening..all the lights you see are the candle arches.. (a photo doesn't do it justice but I tried!)

Even our place had them in the windows!

This one was on a house down the street-so beautiful at night!

Right near one of the little stores that sold all the treasures...Volkskunst translates to Folk Art.

We were delighted to find the snow, kids were so happy.  The first morning it snowed and after a big breakfast we headed for the mountain.  We learned that what should be a 20 minute drive to the ski area, can be much different with uncleared roads and a minivan.  Greg was really missing his big old truck!  We attempted to get up the snowy hilly roads to the mountain, but after pushing the car a few times (a guy even stopped to help us push) another guy coming down the mountain stopped and yelled some stuff at Greg in German.  We decided we should turn back and go buy some snow chains.

We learned that the German word for snow chains is: schneeketten (thanks Google Translate).  We drove to a few places til they pointed us in the right direction to an auto parts store that had them.  Katie mastered the instructions and became Greg's faithful assistant in putting them on...here we are outfitting the car!

The master at work!

The places we found to ski were the town of Fichtelburg, which had a mountain, cable car to the hotel at the top, outdoor ice rink-my favorite! It also had a Christmas Market which was now called a New Years Market and Charlie did his best to keep the crepe man in business!

My postcard photo of the market & town square, it was snowing and gorgeous!

The pyramid at the market..

The crepe man...probably sad to see Charlie leave town!

A view of the mountain walking down from the town..

I loved the ski fence by this one bakery right near the mountain.

Greg and I took the cable car to the top...here is the signpost!

Here is the hotel at the top!  They had lovely warm drinks and beer inside!

Night skiers!

My snowboarder!  He LOVED it...was begging to take one more run down the mountain!

Disco skate at the rink, they could hardly keep the ice clear with all the snow!

We kept passing the signs for the Czech border, so one day we went to the town of Bozi Dar to ski...

We learned there wasn't much in Bozi Dar...but here are the highlights that we found!

Coolest Olaf snowman ever!

The other Budweiser beer this one is made in the Czech Republic and our German buddies told us about it.

We checked out the little museum.

Biggest icicles we have seen since our New Hampshire days!

The photo doesn't show how red Greg's face was after only one run down the mountain, he has no idea how the kids did it for so long!

A happy snowboarder!

Our location was great because on the day we left once we drove about 30 minutes to the West we were out of the snow and back to easy roads.  We made a slight detour when we saw this place...looked like a Cracker Barrel and it was packing in the tour buses. It was a place where they made Christmas incense smokers.  

You got to go into the giant cone for a little museum tour.

Walking into the shop...see why I say Cracker Barrel?

Close call inside...we figured out where the bathrooms were...but this how they were marked!!  Luckily I saw a lady coming out of this one... 

 I directed Greg and Charlie into this one...

Turns out it means Girls & Boys....who knew???  

This is not the first confusing bathroom stop we have had in Germany, the last time I got it wrong was at a beer garden!

Sometimes a family road trip has some perks you never even planned on..look at this lucky driver!!

Squeezing the last drop out of an awesome trip we stopped in beautiful Aachen for dinner..here is the town hall behind us.

We traded vacation notes with many others who attempted to ski over the break, some found great snow and treacherous rides home through the Alps, others found very little snow or lots of ice. 

We feel like we got the best of both worlds with great snow, easy roads to and from and best of all amazing little Christmas villages filled with cool wooden things!