I love the snowflake charms!

A Book Review

David Ebershoff, the editor-at-large for The Random House Publishing Group says this is "the kind of book you'll have to discuss with someone when you finish."

I couldn't disagree more.

Jennifer Dubois says her book was "loosely inspired by the story of Amanda Knox." Her use of "loosely" makes me laugh. It's completely and totally inspired by Amanda Knox's experience! It's Brazil instead of Italy and the names of her characters are certainly different, but so much is the exact same!

David, sweetie, the world has already discussed. For 6 years and usually after airings of "48 Hours" and "Dateline NBC."

Save yourself some time. Google Amanda Knox and read the Wikipedia entries. Only substitute Amanda with Lily, Meredith with Katy, and Raffaele with Sebastian.

Done? Good. Now you can say you've read this book.

From: Cheryl Ann
To: Cade
Sent: Fri, Sep 13, 2013 9:27 pm
Subject: Re: paris

Funny, I can't remember now. I'll have to look in the US Airways magazine on the flight home to see. They did have the Fast and Furious but I didn't watch it.

I'm going to bed now. It's 3:30am and we have to leave for the airport in a few hours.

I love you. Can't wait to see you!


From: Cade
To: Cheryl Ann
Sent: Fri, Sep 13, 2013
Subject: Re: paris

Just now got to my e-mail but good so what movies were they?


From: Cheryl Ann
To: Cade
Sent: Sun, Sep 9, 2013
Subject: paris

I'm here. It was a long flight. Watched 2 movies and played Bejeweled. Waiting to clear customs now then to the apartment for a nap.

Love you!

Paris - Tuesday Night

I've always wanted to go to the Moulin Rouge and tonight I was finally able to check that off my "To Do" list. Here's a picture of the iconic windmill. (I'm a little miffed they didn't replace the lightbulbs in the sign.)

 According to the program I forced Chris to buy, each title of a show at Moulin Rouge begins with an "F."

I was expecting to be blown away. In truth "Feerie" has been playing since 2009, so the dancing is certainly not cutting edge. They did do an "I Will Survive" number which our German speaking tablemate sang in perfect English. That made me giggle. (Or perhaps it was the champagne.)

The price of the tickets and the lukewarm show aside, I am very glad to have gone to the Moulin Rouge. Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening.

Paris - Monday

It rained most of the day today, but I didn't really care, because I'M IN PARIS! Here's what we did today:

In the movie Midnight In Paris, Owen Wilson's character spends some time at the open air flea market. I was intrigued so we started out the day at Marche aux Puces de St-Ouen (flea market). Due to the rain we moved through the booths rather quickly. When the rain started to get really heavy, we ducked inside this this little used book shop. We spent an hour browsing all the books. I also bought my first souvenir - a race car book for Cade.

 The rain let up and so we headed to the Galleries de LaFayette. Chris thought I might want to do some shopping. I was hoping to get some lunch at the food court but there was no place to sit so we decided to move on.

The Musee du Louvre was on Chris' must-see list, so we headed there. We both love Egyptian artifacts so we spent the most time viewing the Ancient Egypt collection. Of course, we had to see the Mona Lisa (it really is small!) and Venus de Milo.

It started raining again, and since we had the time, we decided to take in a movie. We went to the UGC Normandie Cinema, which was right on The Avenue des Champs-Élysées. What did we see? Lol, we saw White House Down.

Another Parisian landmark on both of our must-see lists was the Arc de Triomphe. I must that it was absolutely beautiful at night.

Up tomorrow: Notre Dame and the Moulin Rouge

Paris - Sunday

60 Rue de Longchamp, 75116 Paris, Île-de-France, France

This is the address of the apartment where we're staying for our week in Paris. We go through the black double doors and into the world's smallest elevator!