Sunday July 5th Pont au Mousson

We had breakfast at the Abbey with a bunch of the wedding guests that were staying there. Since brunch ended at Noon, many people were bleary eyed from the night before. Loraine’s bags were already gone when she woke up, so she put on the only other clothes she had besides her wedding gown, a gag outfit ofcowboy boots, a vest, jean skirt, and plaid shirt.

We signed the guest book and made arrangements with Mike and Annabelle to go to the nearby city of Metz for the day. We drove about half an hour to Metz and found some free street parking on Sunday and headed towards the old city. We passed a cool carousel on the square, passed a lookout point and park, and made our way to the old square with a fabulous cathedral with stained glass windows. When we walked in, a live choir was singing music (it was Sunday after all) and the effect was awe inspiring. We walked around the church and paid the 2 Euros to go down into the crypt below the pulpit.

We had a snack at a local patisserie: quiche and café. Then we hopped on the local tourist tram with the audio tour. We called it the Tool Bus because you look so ridiculous on it. It took us all over town, pointing out the sights and giving the briefest attempts at explaining their importance.

After the tour, we headed back to the car, except we were kinda turned around from the bus tour, which had doubled back on a lot of the walking we had done that afternoon. So we looked at the photos that we took of where we parked the car and realized that we took pictures of directional signs instead of street signs. We started walking back in our best guess of where the car was, but quickly lost the scent of the trail. We had to use all kinds of clues: the street maps, the compass, our shady memories, the photos we took, and our route into town to eventually find the car. Not through the most direct route possible, but we found it nonetheless. I really thought we weren’t going to find it for a minute, so I was proud of our team work and problem solving. And that nobody lost their head.

We headed to Loraine’s parents house to visit with them and drop Mike and Annabelle there for the night. We had a light meal in their backyard with leftover baguette from the wedding, cheeses, prosciutto, spreads and fresh picked cherries from their cherry tree in the back yard. I told Loraine’s father about the George Washington story about the cherry tree. And as I was telling it out loud to a foreigner, I realized how dumb that story was as a story of our founding father’s character.

We drove back to Pont Au Mousson and walked to town to eat at the Italian restaurant the Abbey recommended. We ran in to a bunch of Nathan’s family at the restaurant and joined them for dinner.