The Black Forest and entering Paris

 Sunday - 21 Sep

This morning we had a quick breakfast snack purchased at the Air Base before hitting the road about 8:00 am. We drove east from Strasbourg back into Germany and a ways into the Black Forest. Spencer suggested that we just explore for a while. And what beautiful country we saw! We saw cows, sheep and lots of well manicured orchards.   

We stopped at a colorful, roadside fruit and vegetable stand. It had cute wagons full of pumpkins and squash. The little stand was in the shape of a fruit. We bought some plums, apples, fresh apple juice and dried apple slices.

We left for Paris about 10:30 am and made our way in  on-again-off-again rain through green tree-lined hills and fields. We tried to stop in Mertz to get gas and something to eat but we didn’t find anything open, it being Sunday.

We finally found a place to get gas and food at a freeway service plaza. The sandwiches were much better than you’d expect. We had difficulty getting the gas pump to work with a credit card. Mine didn’t work because it doesn’t have the European chip and Spencer’s was declined. So I had to go in and communicate that we needed to pay cash for gas. It was quite comical with my zero skills in French. But finally, between hand signals and my translation app, we got the job done. I also accidentally ordered 3 sandwiches when I meant to order two, but we needed one  for Spence anyways. What fun this will be with no French abilities. 

Upon arriving in Paris, we couldn’t find the place to park by the subway station and we were pressed for time, so we went directly to the apartment. We were greeted by Song, who allowed us to park in the underground garage, which saved us a lot of money.

The apartment is beautiful, though not perfect for sleeping arrangements. It has two bedrooms with double beds and a twin bed. We moved two of the twin beds into one bedroom for Cooks, Gayle and I took the double in the other bedroom and Jenny/Camille slept a double mattress on the floor in the entry room with Spencer in the living room. We are on the 8th floor and have a nice little porch with large sliding doors that bring in a nice view. 

We walked along our street and took in the Paris Sunday atmosphere. It’s a nice neighborhood with mostly apartments with some shops and restaurants. We found a bank machine and were able to take some money out. We had dinner in a nice dinner in a Turkish restaurant. The food was good and reasonably priced.