Paris, France… again…

From South Africa, we were headed to Shanghai, China to connect with another friend. Josh’s friend Dawson from high school, whom I have not met yet. He’s been living in China for over a year now. He had been teaching ESL, but now he’s working in a business job for a hospital in Shanghai.

Before we get to China though, we have to connect through Paris. We stayed one more day in Paris. This one was planned though, so it wasn’t as stressful. We planned on going to Versailles, as it is one of the few attractions that we hadn’t seen yet.

The US Embassy in Paris, France

After getting kicked off of our flight, Josh had to contact Delta and make sure that the rest of our itinerary would not be canceled. We were very uncertain what would happen with his passport at the Embassy, so we decided to come up with a backup plan in case we could not go to South Africa after all.

To South Africa or Bust?

Our cruise is done, and the next stop on our itinerary is South Africa. We’re going to meet up with our friends from college, Adam and Lora, who are serving as Peace Corp volunteers.

Josh and I made our way off of the boat and to the metro station, where we traveled to the Amsterdam airport. It is a very large building, working as an airport, a mall, and a metro station.

We Will Remember

We had an amazing opportunity to visit the Normandy Beaches on our trip. We rented a car in La Havre, and drove across the Normandy countryside. This was one of my favorite days. The countryside in Normandy is so picturesque and beautiful. We drove trhough many small villages, with cobblestone streets and stone manors. It’s so far removed from the industrialized cities, it was a wonderful day.

Rome, Italy

Rome is the city that used to be the center of the world. In some ways it still has a lot of power in the world, with Vatican City and the Pope, as well as being the capital of Italy. We started out by going into the Vatican. We wanted to go to the Sistine Chapel first. The line was not too bad, and once we went inside, we realized that it is not only the entrance to the Sistine Chapel, but also to the Vatican museum. This was a great museum. It’s amazing actually what the Popes have acquired over the years, especially in Roman and Greek artwork.