j'aime Paris!

Since it was going to be on of our last opportunities to fly Open Skies (the airline my dad worked for)- we decided to take a jaunt over the pond to beautiful Paris for a few days before Thanksgiving. Being the 2nd time in Paris for us together, I decided to teach Wes the finer part of European traveling -- doing absolutely nothing. This was a fine art I learned when my parents lived in London... travel to Europe to... Sit around. Eat. Read a book. Explore. Walk with no direction. Go to a park. Take the tube to a random stop. Eat local foods. Get to know the local bums (London still is home to many of my favorites). So it was time Wes experienced the Erich way of traveling. And I must say- he was a sucker for it. By the end of the trip he had learned to love all of the wonderful parts of traveling to Europe with no agenda or purpose. I couldn't have been happier.

We were lucky enough to be joined by my brother Scott and his girlfriend Emily. We met at Newark and after a little hassle with TSA (and by little- I mean we are lucky Wes didn't get arrested for trying to defend his triathlon massage tool that the TSA officer thought was a "club-like item")- we were off to Paris!

After 6 quick hours of restless sleep- and a serious in-flight scare on approach to Paris- We were thankful to be on the ground at Orly. We spent Sunday & Monday exploring Paris. Unfortunately I didn't take that many pictures - because we were too busy eating cheese and drinking cafe au laits (albeit, not together).

At Nespresso... OBVI I had to visit the headquarters....

An afternoon snack of wine & cheese:

Adding out "lock of love" to the Pont de l'Archeveche near Notre Dame. Thankfully my mom knew all about this tradition- and brought locks for all of us to lock to the bridge!

Mom & Dad outside their old apartment. I was coveting the blue door:

Tuesday we decided to take the train to Brussels for the day. Pete was in town for business- and he didn't have to work- so he came with us on a culinary hunt for beer, waffles, and chocolate. I was really excited to take the train and see the French country side... the boys... were not as excited:

(If you can't tell- the dynamic duo is fast asleep.)

Our first food stop covered all our bases. It was only 11 AM and we had already covered beer, waffles, and chocolate (and hands down, probably the best chocolate I have EVER eaten).

We didn't really have a plan. And we had a map/guidebook written by a monkey. So we spent the majority of the afternoon roaming and getting lost. We found the Mannekin Pis - who was disappointingly small and wearing strange Uncle Sam pajamas...

Luckily the boys found a better, life size, plastic version- holding a waffle. We really got out culture in.

Halfway through the day- we realized we had forgotten 2 very important famous foods of Belgium: Mussels & French fries. So we were on a hunt for one or both. Not without a stop at the public, outdoor urinal... WHAT?!

(don't worry - he is not really using it... and yes- that is me in the background trying to distance myself from the dynamic duo posing for photos at the creep-o-nal)

A stop for some Gluhwein at an awesome bar in the main square...

And another stop for mussels and fries (with clearly had too much beer in our system)

And we knew it was time to call it a night when the "bro wearing shades" was asking the innocent women of Brussels for directions...

We spent our last day in Paris exploring more... and saying goodbye to a city we loved infinitely more than we did 4 days before. We made sure to go back to the spots we missed. Eat as many pastries and baguettes as possible. And Wes had to make sure to get his last Djibouti Dream- his new favorite night cap. Kaluha, Baileys, Vodka. Sounds like death to me. But it was a fan favorite of the Erich family for the week.

On Thanksgiving morning- I couldn't help but wake up in our hotel in Paris and be so incredibly thankful for such an amazing family trip to Paris. It was the end of a chapter for the Erich's... and we left Paris with some amazing memories. I'm sure there will be bigger and better cities lined up next for my parents- and we can't wait to find out what's next (perhaps Hawaiin Airlines, Dad??).