macaroons + castles

in the months leading up to our move to germany, wen and i became slightly obsessed with googling & bing-ing all things europe. many nights were spent wide awake and online … daydreaming, planning, researching, thinking, discussing, sharing. we couldn’t believe that soon all of these amazing things and places were going to be within reach.

my daydreams always, inevitably, led to paris. i took french throughout high school (and college), and for graduation i went to paris avec mon pere and fell in love. it’s been TEN years since that trip (ok, more than ten! good lord, i just did the math and almost had a coronary), and i can still remember feeling overwhelmed at how beautiful and magical every corner of the city felt. since then, i’ve daydreamed incessantly about going back, so when the whole germany opportunity came about, my first thought was, “paris! paris! when can i go to paris!?”

the answer? tomorrow! my lovely new friend from work, tauna, and i will be boarding a plane tomorrow morning and spending the next 3 days in la ville lumiere (the city of lights). my brain is swirling with macaroons and museums and cafes and walking everywhere and taking a million pictures and champagne and le marais and la seine and … and … and …

(clearly i should probably tame my expectations a bit).

(nope, sorry, can’t. way too excited).

stay tuned for details and pictures and way too many uses of the word, “magical” and “tres bien!”

in the meantime … i just realized i never wrote about our lovely weekend in fussen visiting neuschwanstein castle. this was actually one of wen’s pre-move obsessions. during our endless “we’re moving to germany!” internet sessions, he would often bring up pictures of castles in germany, and he loved showing piper these amazing places we would visit. given her affinity for all things princess, you can imagine the excitement. i think a picture of neuschwanstein castle was all it took for piper to say, “see ya, portland!”

so off we went! here’s all you really need to know about fussen and neuschwanstein castle:

fussen is the freaking cutest bavarian town ever. darling. literally so cute that we felt like we were in a fake town in disneyland. it was perfection.
neuschwanstein castle was built by crazy king ludwig – look him up. pretty fascinating stuff (won’t bore you w a history lesson, but it really was incredibly interesting!).
the castle is actually said to be the inspiration for the cinderella castle at disneyland. again, you can imagine the excitement of one little miss piper lane.

neuschwanstein is tucked up in the bavarian alps. just breathtaking. the drive through the german countryside, the views, the long journey up to the castle … storybook.