Other places in Paris and Toulouse France

After my brother left Paris, I was able to sit Sunday in the Jardin des Tuileries in a lawn chair waiting for Eva. This was the view I had for the day...amazing memory of solitude, only God could plan something like this.

Eva and I then took a tour boat on the Seine River.

I then with no phone or form of communication pulled out my notebook paper drawn map from friends, bought a RER train ticket for the latest hour so I didn't have to pay for another hotel that night, woke up in Toulouse France, found my way to the smaller train to take me to Saint-Gaudens and thankfully ran into people who spoke English who let me borrow their phone to call the friends to tell them I had arrived at the train station. Here's the street where they live.

And amazing French cheese.

With a trip through the Pyrénées

This trip was just the beginning of my new spontaneous self, and what an adventure it turned out to be.

Who knew this was on my bucket list too?

We all have those people in our lives. The ones who push and challenge us to try something new and make us realize that we just did something we previously thought was impossible. That person for me is my brother and he has been inspiring me for the last 30 years. Little did I know four years ago how much his impact would begin to help transform me into a beautiful person. This trip up Alp d' Huez with him at my side was a culminating moment.

Who dreams of riding up the world famous Tour de France Alp d' Huez on a bicycle as one of their bucket list dreams, my brother of course. So when he found out about his trip to Paris, he began researching how to get there. These are snapshots of my adventure as he let me tag along for the journey.

The train ride 6 hours south to Grenoble, France. We had to change our plans that day because a bike race was coming through the next day.

At the bike shop getting equipment and ready to start. My face sure says that I am not really confident about this whole thing, so my jersey (King of the Hill) is a boastful but only jersey I had to wear.

At the base of the Alp, about to make the turn to head up.

Looking down from were we came. I don't have a picture, but after that turn the incline increased by a significant grade. I took one pedal stroke, tried to switch gears, yelled out to my brother...he yelled out put it in the lowest gear, and I didn't see him again for a couple of hours when he was on the way back down. Most of my "journey" and it was a journey rather than a ride for me was mixed with riding, stopping, and walking. Phillip actually had to coach me up for a good part of the way with tough love and inspiring encouragement.

We didn't make it back down in time to see the bike race that came through, but we did see a lot of the buses for the teams the next day.

The summer my couch moved to France.

Despite the many amazing awards from my school year, there were a lot of hard personal trials, so when people asked what I was doing for the summer my response was always...relaxing, laying on the couch, doing nothing. Well all of that changed two days before school ended. My brother told my mom he needed to go downtown to get his passport updated, his company was sending him to Paris on Wednesday. She told me later that night and I told her how on the way to school that week I had a French Bakery shop and thought how good a chocolate eclair would taste. So June 5 I bought a plane ticket to leave for Paris on June 9....this was the beginning of my spotantious lessons.

My brother and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe



Notre Dame

Climbing the Bell Tower stairs.
We attempted to get a bike to ride on the streets like my family did last time, but the card didn't work, so this is the closest we got.

Looking out from on top of the Arc de Triomphe