Paddle Boating in Hawaii

My friend Mary Ann is also a blogger.  She was with me on our day of paddle boating around Waikiki... here is a link to her blog with some pictures from that day...  enjoy.

http://thegirlontheplane.blogspot.com/2010/09/paddle-boating.html

Joyeux Anniversaire en Paris!

The 3rd of September marked my 34th year on the planet.  Ladyfriend was going to make me a birthday dinner (she makes killer chicken and spinach enchilladas) and I was going to open my presents.  Around 12:30 in the afternoon, my employer called to give me their birthday present, a trip to Paris.  I am on call this month so I don't really have an flexibility.  My birthday plans with Ladyfriend had to be postponed til my return on Sunday.

I don't get to Paris that often (my Europe flying seems to be limited to London or Madrid) so I decided to make the best of it.  We were full on the flight over, but it was a laid back crowd and an uneventful flight.  When we got to the hotel, our rooms were not ready, so we got a free breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  I went with Kathy and Gus, two of my co-workers, to the Monoprix to get a few provisions for the layover.  They made me buy this butter, Sel du Mer (Sea Salt) which everyone raves about.  I have to say it was pretty good.

Nobody wanted to do anything.  They all fly the trip on a regular basis.  I was not about to spend my birthday weekend sitting in the hotel so I decided to head down to the Eiffel tower that afternoon and join a Fat Tire Bike tour! http://fattirebiketours.com/paris.  The company offers tours in Paris, London, Berlin and Barcelona.

I joined up with the evening tour around 7pm under the Eiffel Tower.  I was in the first group of bikers.  We were assigned to a guide named Brian, who incidentally hails from Dallas and actually went to school in Denton, my hometown.

We spent about 5 hours on the tour, riding around the city.  I was a bit nervous riding down busy city streets, but we were a group of 25, so we were a force to be reckoned with on the road. Brian said the drivers were more afraid of us that we were of them.  We stopped on the island of Ile St. Louis to try some berthillon ice cream.  It is unique to this area and is hand made fresh every day.  It doesn't keep long enough to be shipped anywhere, so this was the only place you could get it.  It was delicious.  I had the raspberry sorbet.

We ended the tour by taking a riverboat ride down the Seine.  Our guide brought along red wine, so we got to have the total french experience!

Skirting around Earl

Ended up flying a San Juan trip at the end of the month.  It was a non-event except for the Hurricane that was smashing into the island of Puerto Rico.  Two neat things on this trip.  First:  My friend Jeanette and her boyfriend were passengers on my flight into Puerto Rico.  A total surprise!  It was nice running into her.

Second: We had Russell Hitchcock from the 80's group Air Supply on board our flight home from San Juan.  A nice guy and interesting to talk to....