Paper Chains

So anyone who has been in a long distance relationship knows it is not easy. It takes a lot of patience, trust, and understanding on both ends. It requires strength and commitment to keep a relationship alive and strong despite the distance and time apart. It's not easy being away from those you love.
Even though I have thoroughly enjoyed being in France experiencing the culture and language, living in a foreign country does have it's lonely moments. So to help with the time apart I decided to make a paper chain from a couple of old bird watching magazine's my parents left behind to count down the number of days til Dustin comes to France.
It's silly but being such a visual person, seeing the time and distance become shorter creates a greater appreciation for my experiences in France while getting excited to travel throughout Europe together.

I started out with 86 days and am now down to 34 days! Bottom line I can not wait til April 13th for Dustin to get here so, we can start traveling around Europe together.

Fête des rois

One of my favorite French traditions is the Fête des rois (Celebration of the Kings) or L'Épiphanie (Epiphany). The official holiday is on January 6th but the French celebrate it throughout the entire month. The holiday recognizes the day the wisemen saw the baby Jesus. Below is a picture of a galette a thin buttery cake with an almond cream inside and like all French pastries it's delicious. The tradition goes everyone takes a slice of the galette and inside is a little figurine or bean and the person who is fortunate enough to find the piece is the king or queen of the day!

I celebrated this holiday on two separate occasions and was the queen of the day for both. Might be a sign...

Eurail Pass

Today I bought the Eurail Passes for our adventure! Im really excited to get outta here! This past Friday I got my International Driving Permit, it basically looks like a cheap passport and translates your American Drivers License into 11 different Languages.

Yoga

I know this blog is supposed to be about travel plans but today I just needed to tell someone about my experience in yoga today. First off I do yoga twice a week it really helps with my flexibility and back pain. The type of yoga is from Barron Baptiste and is called Power Vinyasa Yoga, my mentor Judy has gone to Mexico the past two summers to retreats and is amazing!
Today was great my balance poses were going amazingly well and for the first time I got all the way to half moon. This one has been hard for me lately because of my hips being so tight, riding that darn bicycle too much (even though we all know that is Impossible). For some reason today I just felt in the zone. After this pose Judy pulled out a couple new poses and the next one that I was super excited about was Bird of Paradise. This is one that is extremely hard, in not only a balance sense but also in hamstring flexibility. Since my balance today was on it just felt amazing and that definitely made it easier. Here is a good step by step process that I found on the good old interweb.
One thing I really love about this yoga practice is day in and day out I don't have to be 100% in the zone to get all the benefits from it. Then every once in awhile you have a day, like today, where you just get a good yoga buzz going making you excited for the rest of your day.
If you ever have wanted to try a yoga class I definitely would recommend a power vinyasa class especially if you are a guy. It gets you sweating and is a little more athletic for those first time yoga goers.

Reservations are happening!

This past week has been a great one, less than two months away from my first abroad experience and reservations are happening. Today I booked our Hostel in Interlaken, its the Lazy Falken Backpacker. We are planning on staying there for four nights after our stay in Southern France at the La Mas Jorel, its a bed and breakfast in the Provence region.

Ashley will be MIA for the next couple of weeks. She is in the Alps getting to ski during one of her breaks that I think occur way too often (I'm just really jealous). She is staying with one of the teachers at her school who has a cabin/condo near the mountains. She was really excited to go and get her fix of skiing for the year. She will also be seeing a couple of different friends with short trips back and forth.

I will keep everyone informed of the latest happenings as they will be happening all to fast as we finish up the plans on our trip.

Christmas in France

This was my first time spending Christmas in a foreign country and it has been wonderful celebrating my absolute favorite holiday in France. It seemed like overnight that my little city of Troyes was transformed into a wonderful little Christmas village, complete with garland and lights strung across every street, shopkeeper's windows adorned with Christmas cheer, and even an entire Christmas tree forest in the heart of the city!

For the French, food is serious business and Christmas dinner comes as no exception. Typically the French celebrate by having a huge dinner on Christmas Eve. (Full course french dinners can easily last 4+hours...warning they are not for the faint of heart.) Typical dishes can include Oysters, Foie Gras, Turkey, Duck, Coquilles St. Jaques (scallops),and of course for dessert the Buche de Noel which, is a cake made to look like an yule log. Below are the Buche de Noels my family had for Christmas.

While my family was here we were able to do a little traveling. We went up to Reims and toured the Champagne Cave Pommery. Then we went to Strasbourg and saw les marchés de Noël (Christmas markets) Strasbourg has one of the most famous ones due to the Germanic influence. It is this mélange of cultures that makes this region in France truly unique.

The gorgeous Christmas display in Gallery Lafayette in Paris.

My sister Cassie drinking vin chaud (hot spiced wine..one of my favorites) at the Christmas market.
Bonne année à tous!

Happy New Year!!!

Well not much has changed in the past few weeks other than the end of the year and the start of the next. I have been working quiet a bit which is awesome it makes the days of anticipation go by faster.
Gas is rising, giving me even more incentive to toughen up and ride to work. This next week the forecast looks like we are going to get about a foot of snow. I'm excited, but wish the temperature would get in the 30's, or at least have the Nebraska wind settle just a little bit.