TRAVELING TO FRANCE!!!

So Burger and Waterfront (Jan Byyny?s horse) began their travels on Sunday Oct 11. The plan was for Sarah took the 2 boys up to Gladstone Sunday afternoon for the night and then have them to the JFK Vetport by 11 a.m. on Monday for their evening flight to Amsterdam. Pau is in the South of France. Travel to Pau is very expensive mainly because of the cost of ground transport down there. The only direct flight into Paris was out of Chicago (a long trip there from the East coast) and then we would have to hire a professional shipper (very expensive) to haul the horses down to Pau. We chose to fly through Amsterdam because we could rent a lorry from Nathalie Pollard?s uncle who lives in Belgium and the horses could rest for a day and night at his farm on the way to Pau (about 3 hours from Amsterdam on the way to Pau). This option would be a huge savings to us and it would be nice for the horses to have a good place to rest in their travels. All the traveling went smoothly bar having a flat on the way to Gladstone and concern about not getting another flat in NYC on the way to the airport with the horses. Something, I am not sure what, is wrong with my trailer so fortunately Matt Flynn, a friend of mine in New Jersey, cam to the rescue and lent his rig and groom to get Sarah, the boys and all the equipment into the city on Monday morning. This was no small feat as the trailer was absolutely loaded to the gill with equipment. We had all of Burgers stuff, all of Jan & Waterfront?s stuff, vet equipment & farrier equipment. Needless to say, there was A LOT of stuff to move from one trailer to the next. Thank you so much Matt!!!!!
Reports from Sarah was that everything went very smoothly on the travels to Pau. She said that Nathalie?s uncle?s farm was spectacular and they were very sad to have to leave there. Thank you so much for setting this up for us Nat!!!! (pictures to come from Sarah soon).
I am currently at CDG Airport in Paris waiting for my flight to Pau. I flew to France yesterday morning and spent a wonderful day and night with my parents in Paris. I have never been to Paris and I absolutely fell in love with the city. We went to the Louvre and the Musee de Orsay (where all my favorite impressionist works live). Both were so wonderful. I love going to art museums and could spend all day there, however, I was determined to see as much of Paris as possible in one day, so I had to settle for just hitting the major pieces! Then we had lunch ? a nutella and banana crepe for me (exactly what I was craving!!!!) and then we bought a ticket to ride one of the double decker buses around Paris to sight see the major monuments. I know this sounds very touristy and cheesey, however, it was exactly what I needed. I had flown the redeye into Paris, I had a limited amount of time to see everything!!!! It was a beautiful sunny day in Paris (veeeery cold), the front of the top deck had a wind shield so we could stay a **little** warmer, and it had a really good audio bit explaining the history of the various monuments and of Paris. LOVED IT!!!! We did get off at Notre Dam and wander through on our way home. Everything was gorgeous!
That evening we went to Tallievent for my birthday dinner?. It was an out of this world experience. Unbelieveably good food!. I think they may have used the savings for my future wedding (the joke is no wedding in sight haha!) to pay for the dinner!!! Thank you much mom & dad. I truly do have the best parents in the world. They are so much fun. Thank god we took the bus on our sight seeing tour & not rented vespas as we had originally planned because I think they would have accidentally pulled an Evil Kaneevil (spelling? Sorry?) somewhere and the day would not have been very good hee hee!!!