Bonjour France from the whole Mischpacha Ehrlich/Shanker/Michaels

For 10 days I had the pleasure of touring France with my extended family; my parents celebrating their 80th birthday's this year, my sister and her family and my family for a total number of 12 people.  It was a wonderful trip of touring, eating treats, and traveling as a family.

We were able to travel to Normandy right before the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, stay in apartments in Paris for 5 days and walk, walk and do more walking over all of Paris.  We visited old favorites: the Louvre and loved the Musee D'Orsay with all the Impressionists and that is just the tip of the iceberg of our visits.

A pre dessert of cheese and candied plum

After walking many miles, which I know we did as my pedometer registered over 30,000 steps for 4 of the 5 days of our walking.

To make sure we didn't die of hunger every night we had delicious meals and finding places where they could seat 12 people was not an easy task.  Once finding these restaurants making the reservations was also a challenge.  Special thanks to Arthur Ehrlich for finding the restaurants and to Neil Leiter for making the actual reservations for us in FRENCH.  Every night we dined at about 8:00 pm and were finished by 11:00 pm at the earliest.  We enjoyed all of our meals as we ate from the Basque country, at a Vietnamese restaurant and a European restaurant.

Jonathan with WWII Jeep

Here is a top ten list of what we learned while in Paris:

1. Butter is a MAIN food group and it is used in EVERY meal.
2. If you are in Normandy near D-day it is like being in a time machine back to WWII.
3. Using the Metro (Mass Transit) while easy does NOT mean there is NOT a lot of walking or going up and down 100's of steps.  
4. In the Marais (Jewish quarter) you can get a Schnitzel of course aptly named: Le Schnitzel
5. Even the Pacific Rim restaurants have fully stocked wine cellars 
6. When touring museums it is more fun if you act out the painting or sculpture
7. Ice at a restaurant means 2 cubes for the whole table of 12 people
8. High School and College French skills go a longway in communicating with people
9. If Taxi drivers get in a fight while you are in the car they will not charge you the full fare



Acting out Rodin's sculpture 

10. A family vacation in France is a wonderful way to start the summer of 2013

BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE Marian Lee and Jerry; 80 years old and as we say in Hebrew Ad Meah V'esrim, until 120.  Where are we going next year?

Marian Lee and Jerry Happy 80th!