Probably the biggest highlight of being here for us has been having the 5 friends and family come and stay. I think we both enjoy showing off 'our' new city to people and exploring new places with friends. We hope that we can do more of it when we return to the States.

Our first guest, Rachel (Nicole's sister), arrived the same morning we returned from NYC, where I picked up my Visa. I can't say we had everything sorted here when she arrived, not that we do now either, but we made do. She was a good sport about it all and we really had a great time during her 10 day trip here. I think we have subjected everyone to our brand of travel while they were here, we tend to be on the move a bunch. So Nicole showed Rachel around the sites for the better part of a week while we met up at night for other excursions.

The Friday she was here was the Good Friday Holiday. We decided to take a coach tour of the western part of the country. The weather was still very chilly and quite windy in several places. Our first stop was Windsor Castle, which happened to be closed for one of the two times it was for the year. Even though it was blustery and cold, the sun was shining. Then it was off to Stonehenge. Birds were having trouble flying into the wind at this site and it didn't take us all that long to make our way around the circle. Next it was out to Bath. I wish the tour would have had more time to explore the coast here, because the town had some nice charm to it. Plus the Roman Baths were amazing. All in all we really enjoyed our first coach tour and it was a very good value to boot.

The following morning, Saturday, we headed to Paris. We had been to Paris for I guess about 4 days before, so we knew the sites we wanted to show her, plus some that we missed the first time around. It was still chilly, but we really had a great time and enjoyed our couple days around the city. We even were able to participate in Midnight Easter mass in Notre Dame. Being one of the first buildings that inspired me to be an Architect, I was definitely in a good spirits hearing the choral songs in these caverns. Crepes were probably a big highlight on Rachel's list and Nicole even found our little Patisserie from our first trip. We had a blast.

We returned to London for a couple days before she left and managed to find a few odds and ends that she had not already seen . We know how much fun we all had and it was truly great to show someone around and have someone as great as Rachel be our first guest. Maybe next time the weather will be a bit more hospitable.