Expecto Patronum!

It has been a while since you all last heard from me. Sara's been doing the heavy lifting on the posts lately, but for those of you who were concerned about my absence, Sara has not left me behind in some small town in Italy.... I am in fact still a part of this trip.

So... after our few days in Taize, we left for a day and a half in Beaune. Beaune is in the Burgandy region of France, famous for its wines, Dijon mustard, and some regional dishes. Once again God provided us with the perfect little place for our time in town. One day ahead we called a number of different places that did not have rooms available, but I think both Sara and I were glad that we ended up where we did. For starters, as we pulled up to the little bed and breakfast, we were greeted by Oscar, the owners' giant black lab. Like I said, Oscar is one big dog, with a HUGE noggin. He was, however, friendly and even hung out with us as we sat outside and read our various installments of the Harry Potter series that we were working on.

ASIDE: Our friend Megan gave us a copy of the first Harry Potter book for trip, as Sara had not read any of the books and wasn't sure what the big deal was. Well... she's a believer now. We have had to find bookstores that sell English books all across Europe so that we could buy each of the books in the series as Sara finished the previous book.

So... back to Beaune. It was another quaint town with a lot of old stone buildings, narrow streets, and a lot of little shops and cafe's. A perfect place to kick back and relax a little bit before hitting up our last stop in Paris. The first night we sampled some of the regional specialties for dinner... I had beef bourguinon (beef simmered for hours in red wine with mushrooms and onions) and Sara had the coq au vin (chicken stewed in red wine). Both of our tummies were very happy after dinner. I have to admit, that my tummy has been happy very often throughout our trip. I think my bike trip across America a few years ago made me realize how much I appreciate food, and this trip has only confirmed those findings.

Our one full day in Beune was spent perusing the various shops. Sara found a nice tea set which we purchased. In the late afternoon, we decided to sample some of the wine the region is so famous for, so we went to a wine bar for a pre-dinner drink. I had no idea about anything they offered, but just chose a white wine because of the name. Well... the owner could not have supported my decision any more enthusiastically. He gushed about what a great little wine it was. I freely admit that I know nothing about wine, but apparently I have a spidey sense about these things.

After the wine bar, we headed back to our room to rest a little while before dinner. Well... Sara got to 'the point of no return' in the final Harry Potter book and had to finish it off that evening. Sara gets emotional sometimes, and after finishing the book, she was a puffy mess. The same thing had happened after she finished the previous book. After she had a good cry, she informed me that she was too emotionally drained to go out, so she sent me out into the rain in search of dinner for us. Being a good hunter gatherer, I wisely chose a Chinese restaurant just down the street from our hotel. Beyond hello, good-bye, and thank you... i'm pretty lost when it comes to French. But with my newly rediscovered Chinese language skills, I was able to get dinner ordered without incident. We enjoyed the delicious food and called it a night.

Arriving in Paris... sadness... we had to say a tearful goodbye to our faithful guide 'Penny' (our GPS) and 'Flash' (our car and home for the last six weeks). Sara is working on our Paris update as I write this, so I'll let her catch you up on the rest of our Paris stay.