Nantes

We're back in Paris for a quick night before we fly out to Spain for a week and a half of relaxation. We've been staying in Nantes with our good family friends, Monique and Patrick Drouet.

Before I talk about Nantes, though, I want to show you this:

Remember in the movie Ratatouille? It's a real shop in Paris. They sell rat traps and poison.

And now back to Nantes. We know the Drouet family from way back, when my sister Andrea went on an excursion to France that included a family homestay and a bicycle trip around the french countryside. This is that family! There have been visits back and forth for many years now, and when we wrote to say that we would be in france, they welcomed us with open arms. We had a fantastic visit of 6 days, and we saw all kinds of amazing sights and ate fantastic french food. (Beaucoup de fromage et vin.) We have a lot of fun together, and even though they speak almost no english, we communicated fairly well. I dredged up my rusty french from high school and got up to speed fairly quickly.

Here we are having fun with our after dinner tea. They have a lot of tea. (More than me even!) Sorry that it's blurry.

Here are Monique and Patrick, in front of Mont St. Michel, one of the 7 wonders of the world, so I am told.

Here's Mont St. Michel by itself. We were lucky enough to have sun that day. It's amazing, and if you get a chance to visit it, I recommend it. The tiny village at the base is really touristy, but the whole setup is so beautiful. I walked around gobsmacked the entire day.

Monique and Patrick have two grown kids, both with partners and kids of their own. It was fantastic to see them all again after all these years and to meet the new generation. I am exhausted from speaking french and translating everything for Fritz, but it was worth it!

Tomorrow we leave for Spain, and I'm not sure whether or not we'll have internet access, but I'm looking forward to lying low for a while.