The Road Trip... The Beginning

As many of you might know.... Dee and I are having a rather big birthday this year. Yes.... we are hitting the big 30! To be honest with you the idea of no longer being in my 20's has really been a hard one to swallow. I don't have any regrets about how I spent the last decade... it is just the idea that it has come and gone so quickly. Enough about that.... I'm sure that I'll write more when my birthday actually gets here. All of that to tell you about our trip. We have been kicking around the idea that we needed to take a good road trip to celebrate this momentous occasion. We have been kinda talking out loud about it for well over a year, but we really didn't start making firm plans until this spring. We along with Dena & T and Rae & Byro decided to go somewhere none of us have ever been. We decided on the 'eternal city'.... Rome.

We flew out of Dublin on Sat afternoon. Well, I should say that we attempted to fly out of Dublin on Sat. afternoon. We ended up sitting in the airport for a couple of hours which made us miss our connecting flight in Paris. So.... (said with a sad sigh... and a smile) we had to spend the night in Paris (at the airline's expense). Being the adventurous people that we are, we jumped in a taxi and headed into the 'city of love'. We had a couple of hours to walk around Notre Dame, the Louvre, and to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle (at midnight). The day happened to be Bastille Day ( a national holiday celebrating the French Revolution) so the city was alive with street performers and spectators. Here are a few pics from our night in Paris.

(as a side note: I did see the Paris' Hilton)

A street performer juggling fire:

The gang in front of Notre Dame:

Fireworks in front of Notre Dame:

The Eiffel Tower at midnight!