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Friday, April 26, 2019

Home Again, Home Again!

Jiggety, Jig!! It was a long haul from Paris, to New York, New York to home. The first leg was eight hours, or should I say four movies? The second leg was three movies and then we were home.

We spent the night in New York because it is much less taxing on my body than flying straight through. Even breaking up the trip is difficult. I do not know why flying kicks my butt so hard, but ever since I was diagnosed with leukemia, it just does.

We arrived home at 10 pm and our wonderful neighbor picked us up and even stopped at the grocery store so we could get a few essentials.

Driving up the mountain towards home always makes me smile, and once we arrived home, and I got out of the car, I just could scarcely believe that night sky; dazzling with billions of stars. The air was crisp and the mountains smelled like home.

I am such a dork that I grabbed the flashlight and headed out into the yard, I wanted to see the daffodils, tulips, and asparagus!! I ran around the house, inside and out, just like a little kid on Christmas. There truly is no place like home, right?





Today I am still smiling, from the memories of the past six weeks, and the joy of being back home. I feel so blessed to have lived my dream and appreciate the spark of life that it ignited.

Living with chronic cancer has its' challenges; it can be depressing, wearing and downright annoying, but it does not mean I cannot continue to fulfill my dreams. I fight this disease every day, so that I can go on living, and enjoying this wonderful, fantastic thing we call life.

Follow your heart, chase your dreams and never lose your sense of wonder!

Thanks to so many who encouraged, supported and followed me through this priceless adventure.

FaceBook: CML: A Place for Hope and Humor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cmlmichele
Email: CMLMichele59@gmail.com

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Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Paris, France: Day Three

Welp, looks like I just had too much fun yesterday! Did not leave the room until 5 pm. We had plans to go to the Rodin Museum, but once I realized that it is closed on Mondays, that was that. No motivation and no energy at all. I am thinking all of this fun has caught up to me, BIG TIME!

Once we left the room, I was happy but sad to discover that our hotel offered complimentary cappuccino, 24/7. Happy I found it today, sad I didn't realize it before now. It was the best cappuccino I have had on this trip.

After slamming two of those down, we headed to the raunchier side of town and walked down to Moulin Rouge. Along the way, we stopped in a chocolate shop which had the most amazing chocolate sculptures of Notre Dame and the Arc de Triumph. They were impeccably recreated in chocolate, every little window, door, and sculpture; truly a work of art.

It was actually nice to stroll through the streets today, as there were not nearly as many people as there have been during the past two days. Walking along the tree-lined street, toward Moulin Rouge was also interesting with all sorts of advertisements from sex shops to table dances to Indian food.



Made from chocolate!



I am sorry we didn't have time to squeeze in a show or see the large windmill at night, but it was still fun to see the landmark that I have seen so many times before in movies and TV shows. I don't know what it is about actually seeing landmarks in person, but it is just so very cool!

have seen quite a few of these upside-down police cars in the city





Moulin Rouge!

It didn't take long before we turned around and headed back toward our hotel, and I was certain that I needed to have a ham and cheese baguette for dinner, as I had yet to have one of my most favorite things in Paris. Once again, I do not know why something so simple is so delicious!








I am leaving France with only one regret, and that is that I was unable to eat all of the things that I wanted to eat while I was here! Too many things with not enough room in my gut; total sadness.....

All in all, we managed to get out and about for about two hours, and I was done. Just too pooped to do anything except pack and hit the bed.

Tomorrow we will be flying to New York where we will spend the night before traveling home to Boise.

It has been an incredible trip with memories to last a lifetime. I encourage each and every one of you to follow your heart and to make your dreams come true.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Thank you for following me on this fabulous journey, and I look forward to hearing about the fulfillment of your dreams.

Bonne Nuit (goodnight)


FaceBook: CML: A Place for Hope and Humor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cmlmichele
Email: CMLMichele59@gmail.com

#chronicillness  #bebrave  #chronicmyelogenousleukemia  #Bosulif  #leukemia  #lovemylife  #cml #travellingwithcancer #family #europe #travelingwithleukemia #hopesanddreams  #gratitude  #grateful  #sacre coeur #airbnb #france #feelingbetter #paris #moulinrouge

Monday, April 22, 2019

Paris, France: Day Two

The breakfast fairy made his return with quiche Lorraine, almond croissants (my favorite) and plain mini croissants! I LOVE FRANCE! I don't know what it is, but best pastries EVER!

Somehow we managed to get out the door by 1:00pm, which may be a record. I guess maybe I was excited, after all, it is Easter, and I am in Paris! We shall see how long I last.

We weren't entirely sure what the day would bring, but we knew we had to see the Eiffel Tower which meant a Metro ride. On our way through the throngs of tourists to the Metro, we stopped momentarily at what I thought was a man doing a magic trick but was actually swindling people out of money.

He had three cups and one ball and he would swirl them around and someone would pick a cup and it would be empty. Of course, they were "betting" they were right, and I am talking like betting 50 euro!!!! And then he would swirl the other two cups and goad a tourist into picking one of the remaining two cups.; with the "crowd" chanting "Bravo, Bravo!" 50/50 chance, right?

Asshole

I saw him literally swindle 100 euro out of this poor guy; it sucked and I was so pissed! One hundred euro! I was just shocked and we saw it over and over and over. The guy always had two women who would "win" every now and then, but I am sure they were plants and they all shared the money at the end of the day. This was something I have not seen in all of my travels, thus far and it was shitty.
It really bothered me and I wanted to tell the unsuspecting people that it was a scam. I will be doing that tomorrow, given the opportunity.





Finally, we reached the Metro, and hopped on and then off at Arc de Triumph, which is so much larger when standing next to it, as opposed to driving past. After a few quick photos, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, which of course is fabulous and crowded! After walking over to the Eiffel Tower, and marveling in its' splendor, we quickly realized how hot it was, and how hot it was going to get, and decided to head out to the Catacombs, as we knew it would be cool underground.

view from below





Kind of a weird thing to do on Easter, but I was quickly reminded how my body no longer tolerates the heat and the thought of being out of the sun won.

A hop, skip and a jump and we were at the Catacombs, with a line, in the sun, around the building. I just followed it all of the way to the front, to see whether or not they had a handicap line, as I knew there was no way that I would be able to stand out in the heat for the length of time that it would take to reach the entrance. (probably several hours)





As luck would have it, there were que monitors right at the front of the line. I said, "Pardon, do you have a handicap entrance?" He told me to wait right there for five minutes and then he let us in. After going through security, we were granted two free passes, with the warning that I had to go down a lot of stairs, and then back up!

I assured them that I could although I was very slow! They told me that was alright, and we proceeded down the spiral staircase, and into the bowels of underground Paris. The amount of underground area is enormous, and there were tunnels everywhere; like in Budapest, although I do not believe that Budapest has more than two million skeletons stacked on top of one another the way they do here.

It truly was hard to wrap my mind around the entire experience and then trying to wrap it around the logistics of moving all of those skeletons from cemeteries to the underground tunnels.

I so appreciated the effort that some of the skeletal stackers actually tried to create a sort of monument to the dead by creating a heart and a cross out of the skulls. Most of the skulls were in lines, with the large leg bones neatly stacked with the smaller body parts such as the fingers and toes, and jaw bones and pelvises were thrown above or behind the wall of skulls and bones.

heart

cross

we think a cross?



It was a rather dismal experience, yet I am glad that we made the effort to pay our respects to all buried there.

Since we were in the neighborhood of the place where we stayed the last time we were in Paris, we decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. Our first pick was closed for the holiday and wouldn't be back until the 26th, so we went to our second favorite place, an Italian restaurant; luckily they were open and we were their first customers of the evening, as it was only 7 pm! lol





Of course, the first thing they brought us was olives, which Joe loves, and I still do not like (I tried them again!) and then they brought the BREAD and BUTTER! What the heck? How can bread and butter be so damn good? I could not help myself and I ate three pieces of the baguette and I wanted to literally lick the butter packet (I didn't); I just do not understand why their bread and butter is so much better than anywhere else on the planet. And trust me, we have eaten bread and butter in MANY countries!

Ok enough!! I also had lasagna and salad, and Joe had swordfish and pasta. By the time I got to my lasagna, most of it came home with me as I was already stuffed! Everything was just as good as we remembered and we enjoyed the quiet of the neighborhood, away from the hustle and bustle.




We toyed with the idea of taking a boat ride, to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle, but by the time the Metro train got to the Eiffel Tower stop,  I was just too pooped, so we headed back to the Montmartre area and back to our hotel.

We did muster up enough energy to walk up to Sacre Coeur and watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle in the distance, which was still magical. I just love the twinkling Eiffel Tower. We also took advantage of the Sacre Coeur having no line and went in to see if the dome area of the altar was lit up or not; it was, so that was an added bonus.







The views over the city and the sunset were spectacular, and it is now time to collapse.

I hope everyone had a fabulous Easter.

May God Bless, and Goodnight.

Not sure how I feel about this quote! lol left on our bed

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Email: CMLMichele59@gmail.com

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Bricks for the Brave!!