Wanderlust

The day started with the earliest wake up of the trip so far. That seems a little crazy because I'm used to waking up early on vacation to go to monuments first or go for a hike or something, but we've had a very relaxing week so far for the most part. Our bus time to Chefchaouen was at 8am. That meant leaving the hostel at around 7am to make sure we were there early. That meant waking up at 6:30am. We were professionals on walking to the bus station because of our travel escapades the day before, the walk takes about 15 minutes and a decent chunk of it is uphill. Bus Station Breakfast At the bus station, it was the typical Moroccan chaos. We kind of walked around with our bus tickets out until someone told us where our bus was. A guy got our bags and put them under the bus. Of course, this was an extra 10 dirhams ($1). Everything in Morocco costs more than it says haha. We sat on the bus for a minute until we realized we were kind of dumb for not eating breakfast and fo...

We woke up a little later because everything in the Fes Medina opens a little later. Moussa told us that the Medina doesn't really get going until 10am or so. Moussa served us a wonderful breakfast at 9am. It was a carb overload of bread, lefse type stuff, muffins, honey, orange juice, and mint tea. It was our kind of breakfast!! Moussa and his wife are super nice and helpful all the time. We come and go quite a bit and they're always smiling when they open the door (knocking is the only way in). After our awesome breakfast, Moussa told us that we really needed to head to the bus station and get our bus tickets for Chefchaouen. It was about a 15 min walk back up and our of the Medina and then across a busy street to the bus station. Talk about a cultural experience! There were people walking around everywhere and lots of trash and buses and taxis and no signage. We wandered around for a bit before figuring out where the bus ticket line was located. We waited and they told ...

It was our last morning in Paris and there was an outdoor market on Sundays just one street over from our place. We went over to the market and walked around for a bit. We got some delicious crepes to redeem for the bad ones we got 2 days ago. I got a banana caramel crepe and Lacey got a plain sugar and butter (just like Lefse). The market had lots and lots of fresh fruits and veggies and meat and cheese and bread and just like everything. The colors and smells were so amazing. While on our way to leave, there was a guy roasting chicken and pig. He put on kind of show for some of the Asian tourists. We bought some potatoes from him that had been cooking in the fat and grease from the cooking meat. They were very, very good. After that, we headed back and started to pack up. The Airbnb ended up working out really well. It was a fantastic location and was cute. A couple of random notes. The cat didn't know how to cover its poop in the litter box. Like a normal cat will use its p...

Our original plan was to go to a church about 3 hours outside of Paris called Mont St. Michel but we didn’t get tickets far enough in advance so the price was too high. We also didn’t want to sit on a train for 6 hours in one day. So we decided to go to Versailles Palace and see more of Paris.   We slept in later than normal because we were up so late the night before. My mom and Greg had been to Paris earlier this year and they suggested we see a church called St. Germain des Pres. They also suggested we try to see Versailles Palace later in the day to avoid the crowds. We took both pieces of advice! The day started with a stop at a different bakery. I got a raspberry beignet (French for a donut) and Lacey got another croissant. Both were delicious but not as good as the ones on Friday. We hopped on the metro and made our way to the south side of the main area of a neighborhood called the Latin Quarter. It’s called the Latin Quarter because the universities were based here...

We already wrote a post about Friday during the day. You can see that post linked here. There are a number of reasons why I wanted to split the posts into a day and night one. If you’ve seen our Instagram or Facebook pages, you’ll probably guess why haha. Also, we saw and did SO MUCH on Friday during the day, I didn’t want to make that post too long. When we last left off, we had taken a little rest at our Airbnb after a crazy day. While Lacey slept, I spent a bunch of time looking for a cheap but good French bistro or restaurant. We could have just eaten a falafel sandwich again or something but we knew we needed to have a true restaurant experience at some point. So I found a great website that listed 46 different cheap and easy food places in Paris. We ended up using this list a few different times later on as well. We got a little more dressed up than we normally do and then headed out. We had to take the metro to the Louvre and then walk just a few minutes North to get to t...

After the insane past two days, we slept great all through the night. We got a little later start than normal because our first stop was Saint Chapelle and it doesn't open until 9am. I got up at around 7:30am and did most of the blog post from the day before. Eventually, Lacey woke up too and we left the apartment at around 8:30am. We went to a patisserie just a few minutes from our place and got our first PASTRIES! YES! These were the things both of us were probably looking forward to most food-wise. I got a pain au chocolat and Lacey got a croissant. Both were so so so good. We made our way to the subway and took it a few stops to the same area we started in yesterday (like in the middle by the mall). Our first stop was Saint Chapelle. It's a church very close to Notre Dame built around 1200 AD. It's most famous for its huge stained glass windows. The bottom level is only about 10 feet tall and unassuming. Then you climb a small spiral staircase and it explodes open ...

Well, here we go with the first post about this trip. This is a kind of long one sooooo just warning you haha. Greg and my mom drove us to the airport which was uneventful. For some reason, I kept thinking this trip was a long ways away, even when it wasn't so it was surreal to finally be getting to the airport to start the traveling. Ready to go! Our first flight was to Charlotte, North Carolina. The flight was fine but of course, the guy in front of me put his seat back. Also, my headphone jack didn't really work (I had to push the headphone connection or I wouldn't get sound). There was one really big set of turbulence. Our second flight to Paris was pretty bumpy for the first couple of hours. It was definitely the worst turbulence either of us remembers. An older lady across the aisle didn't know how to work her tv which provided us a little bit of entertainment. I watched Marvel movies and Lacey watched Disney movies. I was very impressed with the movie ...