Final Travels

So it seems that moving home from a foreign country, moving to a new city, and starting a job all take some amount of time. As such, I've completely neglected posting my last few entries. Shameful, I know. Without further ado, here are the highlights of my final travels during April break and the month of May:

-The Paris Marathon, as seen by the previous post, was a total success. Katrina and I finished under our goal time of 4 hours, and got to celebrate with Mom and Dad who were finishing up their visit to me in France the next day. It was great to have the whole family together, albeit on another continent.

-For April break, Katrina, who stayed for 2 weeks following the marathon, and I planned to visit Belgium, Amsterdam and London. In Belgium, we traveled to Brussels (not our favorite, but easiest for traveling purposes), Bruge (tiny and touristy, but charming with delicious chocolate and beautiful sights), and Ghent (larger university with great medieval sights including a castle in the center of the city). Amsterdam was unique from every other place I've visited. It's architecture, layout amongst the many canals, attractions, and variety of inhabitants make it a nice change from many other European cities. A favorite of ours was definitely the Anne Frank House- a must see for anyone visiting or passing through Amsterdam.

-As I said, we also planned to go to London. The Icelandic volcano had other plans. What with the eruption of the volcano whose name no one can pronounce and the ensuing ash cloud, our flight to Gatwick was canceled and tickets on the Eurostar were going for about $350 one way. Preferring not to bankrupt ourselves, we decided to return to Paris and spend the remaining 4 days where we had started off (I know, how unfortunate for us). Once we returned to Paris, we made our rounds of some of the sights more off the beaten path, the best of which was visiting the Rue Mouffetard for the best crêpes you'll ever have. Period.

-Once my contract ended in April, Darcy (aka Darce Dawg) and I planned an adventure around Scotland as our last big trip before leaving France. Flying from Marseille, we visited Edinburgh, Inverness, the Isle of Skye, and Glasgow. Edinburgh was definitely my favorite of the cities we visited, with its well-preserved and far-reaching history around every turn, beautiful sights like the Edinburgh Castle and Arthur's Seat, and delicious food (haggis and whiskey, anyone?) The Isle of Skye was possibly the most beautiful place I've ever scene and definitely made for some adventures as Darcy and I drove our rental car around the island seeing all the peaks, valleys, ruins, and towns there were to see. We even got to drive alongside Loch Ness on our way to the island, although Nessie was MIA that day. The day of driving on the left side of the road almost came to a close without any major incidents...almost. (It's not my fault roads on Skye are one lane for two way traffic.) Overall, Scotland was without a doubt one of my favorite places I traveled to during the entire year.