Birthday trip - part 1

One thing you might not know about me is that I always remember my half birthday. We don't really celebrate, per se, but I do rather expect Chase to at least acknowledge the event. I know it's kinda silly, but growing up with a summer birthday, my half birthday was when I was celebrated in class, the day my mom would bring in cupcakes, etc. So the date is pretty ingrained in me.

Anyway, so this past January, Chase handed me a card on my half birthday, and I was pleased that he'd remembered. But when I opened it I was shocked to see what he had written: We were going to France!

Turns out he'd been secretly saving for the past several years so that he could take me to France for my 30th birthday.

I know, right? He's a keeper.

Thus began several months of planning and over-researching because that's what I do. Finally, on July 4th, we left our kids and America behind for a couple of weeks and headed off on our adventure! (Many thanks to both sets of grandparents for helping our kids have an absolutely fabulous time while we were gone!)

I love London, and I couldn't resist spending a day there first, since we were going to have to have a layover there anyway.

We started out at the British library, which has one of my favorite special collections displays ever. We also went to King's Cross station, right next door to it, because one must take a look at Platform 9 3/4. Unfortunately there was a long queue to take your picture there, so we skipped that and went for a nice long walk all around the city, stopping at All Hallow's by the Tower, the Tower of London, and the Tower Bridge.


Then we went and attended evensong at St. Paul's cathedral, which was lovely. I may or may not have dozed off in the middle, but hey, I was going on less than two hours of sleep.

After dinner we attended a play at The Globe. It's such a cool place to see a Shakespearean play, but man, were we disappointed. They had modernized the play, complete with added musical numbers, and it was rather horrific. We left at intermission. I heard other audience members grumbling about it too, so I know it wasn't just us!


















But that gave us extra time to walk around some more, so it all worked out.

The next morning we left bright and early for a flight to Toulouse, France.

We ate lunch there and spent a little bit of time walking around.

Then we drove east to Carcassonne. If visiting a castle is on your list of things to do in life, this is a good one to go see.

Walking around the castle ramparts at night was particularly magical, but we had fun during our daytime audio tour as well. 

 

Catapult stones:

     



After checking out of our hotel, we made the rather lengthy drive to Aix-en-Provence, where we hurriedly dropped our bags and then caught a train down to Marseille. Why, you ask? Because the semi-final game of the Eurocup between France and Germany just so happened to be that evening, and Chase had gotten us tickets!

The fans on the metro were really excited. And loud. I loved it!

Outside the velodrome

The crowd was loud and boisterous and no one ever sat down the whole time, and it was so exciting to be there, especially since France won! People were celebrating in the streets way into the wee hours of the night. By 3:00 am the constant honking and shouting was getting a little bit annoying, though. :)

Chase caught one of the goals on video:

It was a great start to our trip!