My wifi is real sketchy tonight, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet and will post more later. I'm in Metz and taking an early morning train to Paris to begin my week there. I pretty much declared today a day of rest; I slept 11 hours last night, drove through the ancestral villages one more time, then headed to Metz. Once here, I walked through the city and checked out there famous cathedral, St. Stephen. More on it later, but I will share one story. ...

Today stated early; 3:30am for a 4:30 taxi for a 5:40 train to Paris. Everything went well...the Eurostar "chunnel" from London to Paris is easy and comfortable. I had no problem changing stations in Paris for my train out to the countryside, and that train ride was also easy and comfortable. However, it was on that train that I realize I don't remember packing my phone. Now, my phone doesn't work in Europe, but I brought it anyway thinking I could use it as ...

I learned early in life that I should always assume, no matter where I am, that I'm being watched. It is not paranoia, is the the result of growing up in a small town. I mostly blame dad for this. He has some friends at work that I could not pick out of a lineup, but they knew me and were happy to report when they had seen me somewhere. Fast forward a lot of years and I'm married to a guy who grew up in Columbus. Anytime we were on our way out to an event, I...

First and foremost, Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you have a great day. Also, Happy Birthday Doug! (who probably isn't even reading this.) Today brought the nonstop drizzle and dreary weather for which London is so well known. However, it isn't cold, so I'm not going to complain. I started the day at the Tower of London and did a tour with a Beefeater, which was fun. A bunch of gory stories, but it was neat to see something 900 years old. After that I went to...

Happy Remembrance (Armistice) Day! I'm wearing a red poppy on my lapel; it is the thing to do. At 11am, the city literally stops for two minutes of silences...buses stop, the tube (subway) trains stop, etc. I was mid-tour at Wimbledon and we stopped for the 2 minutes. Well all of us except for 2 people who didn't seem to notice that everyone else was quiet and standing still until about a minute into it. I can't remember where they were from; there were abou...