Florence, visitors and a trip back to the US

Well to no surprise it’s been another few whirlwind weeks and of course I’m behind on writing all about them. After our great ski weekend in the French Alps, I headed to Florence for what has now become our traditional twice yearly girls shopping weekend. In the interest of not making it 100% about shopping (although I think we need to get back to more shopping) we headed to the Vespa museum. One of the girls in our group is a huge Vespa fan, owning one herself, so it was her idea. And I’m always up for checking out something new and different.

Saturday morning we hopped on a train and headed about 40 minutes outside of Florence to a small town with not much going on besides this Vespa museum. It was pretty interesting. It showed all different Vespas, old and new, and how they have changed throughout the times. We spent maybe an hour there, hit up the gift shop where Mirjam (our Vespa fan) almost bought out the store, had some lunch at a little restaurant we came across and then headed back to Florence. We didn’t end up back in Florence until closer to 4:00 or so, so our shopping time became very limited!!! But we did what we could and managed to find a few of those things that we just couldn’t live without. We hit up the market on Sunday for a little more shopping and before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to the girls and on a plane back to Paris.

Then just a few weeks later it was time for our next round of visitors. This time it was my cousin Gina and Aunt Karen. They were on their own European tour and we were lucky to have them stop in Paris for 4 nights in between their visits to Rome and London. We had a great time showing them our neighborhood, markets we love to go to, etc.

Then on Friday night we went to the Moulin Rouge show. Gina and Aunt Karen had it on their list of things to do and Nate and I decided to join them. Afterall, it’s such a well known place and I had never even walked by it or been in that neighborhood yet. So we grabbed some dinner and headed to the late show at 11pm. As for the show itself, in some ways it’s just what you’d expect and in some ways, it was actually more than I expected. I figured it would just be your normal cabaret type show....lots of topless women dancers in fancy outfits dancing for an hour and a half. And there certainly was this but they mixed it up with more acrobatic type performances, a ventriloquist and even a girl in a tank with a huge snake (this one was a bit odd). I thought it was entertaining and now we can say we’ve been. Do I ever need to go again? No, probably not. But all in all quite an experience.

Saturday morning we said goodbye to Gina and Aunt Karen and I headed to the airport to go back to the US and Gina and Aunt Karen headed to the train station to finish their European trip in London. We had a great time with them. So glad they came to visit! It’s always nice to see familiar faces and it’s fun to show people from home what our life is like over here.

So yes, then I’m off to the US for a week! I had a work conference in Las Vegas and since both my brother and sister live in the LA area, I decided to spend time both before and after the conference with them. And it just so happened to be Easter weekend as well which was a bonus. My parents came down to my sister’s and were at her house when I arrived into LA that Saturday. We had a great weekend celebrating the holiday. And before I knew it, I was headed to Las Vegas on Tuesday. I hadn’t been there in ages! I guess it was what you’d expect from a work trip to Vegas.....convention center, work people, drinking and more conference rooms. Although I didn’t manage to do any gambling. It was only two days so it went by quickly but I had a chance to see many of my old co-workers and friends from the US which was an added bonus.

Unfortunately Julie had to work on Easter Sunday

The conference ended and I headed to my brother’s house for 2 more nights where I got to hang out with him and his family. Lots of quality time which I haven’t had with them in a while so it was perfect! Saturday came before I knew it and I was back at LAX heading home to Paris. It was a whirlwind week but a super fun one and a nice break. Not to mention, I loved actually seeing the sun and having some warmer weather.

Spring, really, are you ever coming to Paris?????