Europe 2017

We landed in Paris, cold and about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. But our exhilarated. We were in Europe for the first time!! Well, first time to visit Europe for Ernesto, first time to Western Europe for me. And first time there together. In fact, first time together to another country besides El Salvador. This was epic for us - a long road getting there. It took 7 years to get married, then another 3 to get Ernesto's Green Card - HURRAY! That is another side story in and of itself, but anyone who has ever gone through anything with immigration will understand when I say it was laborious, tedious, and lengthy. But a great end result for us!

We made it to 3 countries this trip: France, Italy, and Austria.

 Of the three, we primarily traveled in Italy - from north to south. But we landed in Paris, and off we went, straight to Notre Dam as we had a long wait until our night train to Florence. Notre Dam was impressive, massive, exquisite with detail in the Gothic turrets. Walking inside was breathtaking - getting to see the artwork of wooden carvings that I'd learned about nearly 20 years prior in my art history course at IU was unreal. Finding out there was a terrorist attack at Notre Dam on a policeman a couple hours after we left Notre Dam was chilling. We were lucky to have missed it. This was only the beginning of our adventures in Europe. More to come...