Europe Recap

We recently returned from almost two weeks in Europe, and I thought I'd record the highs, lows, and "buffalos" (surprises) of the trip before it recedes too far into memory. This trip wasn't on our radar at all in January and was catalyzed by WanYing winning a place on the US National Paraclimbing Team in February. So now we're doing a surprise world tour to attend Paraclimbing Worlds competitions (it's the World Cup of climbing). What a delight!

Highs

• 
  WanYing winning her category at Worlds! She had stiff competition in her category, left qualifiers in first place, and emerged on top! Since it was the whole reason we were in Europe in the first place, it seems like winning should be at the top of our list of highs. If you missed her climb, check it out here (starts at minute 41) - it's amazing! 
• 
  Hanging out with Laura and Pau in Valencia. Since we were going to be in the neighborhood (the competition was in France, and all European countries are basically next-door neighbors), we decided to begin our trip in Spain. Our connection to Laura goes back as long as our connection to WanYing - Laura was a high school student who sponsored a Chinese baby in an orphanage nutrition program. That baby became our daughter, and we have stayed in contact ever since! This was the first time we visited Laura and Pau in Spain, and it was wonderful. They took such good care of us, and we are still a little wistful for the plates of jamon iberico and fideua (paella, except with noodles instead of rice and seafood instead of rabbit). 
• 
  Mont Saint-Michel. We ended up with a spare day in central France and drove to Mont Saint-Michel. An abbey and medieval city that took over an island that, once upon a time, you could only get to at low tide - it lived up to the hype. 

Lows

• All the peeing in the street in Paris. I mean, come on.
• Norman food. It turns out, we are not made for Norman food. Steve says I should have known what I was signing up for when the English translation on the menu said "pig parts." He was right. The "best" one on the plate was the smoked tongue sausage, which tells you everything you need to know.
• 
  Vending machine pizza. When we were in France a few years ago, Steve became enamored with vending machine baguettes. We found a machine, but it was out of commission for the month of August because its supplies were on vacation (ah, Europe), so we followed Google Maps to what we thought was another. It turns out that it was a pizza vending machine, and we figured we had come this far; we might as well get two (this was a huge mistake). We sort of finished one. It was not good, but it was memorable.

Buffalos

• 
  The Banksy museum in Paris. This was a little spur-of-the-moment excursion that ended up making our highlight reel. It's always fun when you get surprised by something random and fun. 
• 
  The Paris Catacombs. We definitely didn't know what we were signing up for, and the whole experience was memorable and disturbing (so many similarities with Norman food). It turns out that 10 million people were exhumed from their graves in the 18th and 19th centuries, and their bones were moved into the catacombs, which were originally tunnels left over from limestone quarries under the city. It's a sobering experience to walk the almost two kilometers of hallways lined so densely with bones. It's solemn and lovely and weird. Definitely memorable.

We had an amazing trip - we cycled through Paris, went to a macaron-making class, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, wandered in the Louvre, cycled 20 km (and back!) to a castle, ate snails, swam in the Mediterranean Sea, admired Paris from the top of the Arc du Triomphe, walked through Valencia, painted on the banks of the Seine, and marveled at the stained glass of Saint-Chapelle and Notre Dame. 

Now to start planning for WanYing's next competition - Korea and Japan, here we come!