it's not spring yet

Just after we thought spring had sprung, northern France got hit with a blizzard! Normally, we wouldn't mind, but I was making a trip to Paris to meet a college roommate and friends traveling from London. My 5:59am train made it safely to Paris while their two hour trip turned into TWELVE! Since it only snows a handful of times a year, I was happy to see the city of lights covered in white! I'm sad I didn't snap any photos, but it was pretty miserable to be outside!

My friends were only staying two days in Paris before a couple of them were making the trek to us so with one day wasted on a train, we had a lot of site seeing to catch on Wednesday! Most of the snow had turned to puddles by morning. Despite frigid temps, after filling ourselves with morning pastries, we decided to walk as much as we could stand so they could take in as much as they wanted instead of being stuck underground in the metro. Our first stop was Hotel de Ville...

Thankfully, next on the list was Notre Dame Cathedral so we could thaw out.

Across the street was Shakespere and Company... books, Books, BOOKS! From ceiling to floor, books filled every nook and cranny. It was a really cool place. We weren't really supposed to take photos, but I couldn't resist!

After a quick lunch, we saw the Louvre.

On our way, we came across the Lover's Bridge. I'd read about it once, but I thought they had banned it because of the weight the locks were putting on the bridge - guess not! The bridge is covered with locks, all shapes, sizes and colors, that couple's write their names on. After closing the padlock on the bridge, the couple is supposed to throw the key into the Seine River. The bridge was actually really pretty!

A trip to France is not complete without macaroons - even though I've heard they are orginally from Italy. After getting our fill, we finally made it to our last stop of the day...

An exhausting day of site seeing ended with wine, bread and cheese!

We caught the train in the morning to Lorient and had an eventful Friday night at a local pub. We were told the pub had a singer scheduled for the evening... ok! We didn't realize that meant a family of singers, sitting in the crowd, getting up every few minutes and singing - sometimes involving the crowd! To top it off, it was in the native Brittany language, not even French! We were the crazy Americans tapping our feet and bobbing our heads but completely clueless to what they were singing about! Even though it was only a one day trip, it was really great to have familiar faces around! We are ready for our next visitors... who will it be?!?