Off to France....

[Canadian144]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to say I'm off to France.... first time visiting there. I'm away until the 20th... not sure if I'll have internet at the hotel I'm staying at. I'm gonna miss riding and my LTR!

Anyways take it easy everyone.... if I do have internet I'll try to post up some pictures for your enjoyment haha.

[Kickstarts-suck]

I thought you were already in Germany.. :confused:

[yam450_53]

Which city you going at?

[tri5ron]

Originally posted by Canadian144
Hey guys,

Just wanted to say I'm off to France.... first time visiting there. I'm away until the 20th... not sure if I'll have internet at the hotel I'm staying at. I'm gonna miss riding and my LTR!

Anyways take it easy everyone.... if I do have internet I'll try to post up some pictures for your enjoyment haha. Have a safe and fun trip.
Will you be going to Paris?
I proposed to my (now) wife on top of the Eiffel Tower, 14 years ago!

[Quad18star]

Make sure you check out the beaches of Normandy .... the greatest battle in Canadian military history was fought there. Take the time to remember the soldiers that lost their life on those shores.

[k4f5x0r]

Remember to bring your white flag.

[Quad18star]

Originally posted by tri5ron
Have a safe and fun trip.
Will you be going to Paris?
I proposed to my (now) wife on top of the Eiffel Tower, 14 years ago!

Look at you Mr. Romantic..... it's guys like you that that make it tough on the rest of us...

" But Ron proposed to his wife on top of the Eiffel Tower and all I get is a damn proposal in the front yard frezzing my *** off in 4 feet of snow" ...... Thanks Ron ... Thank You very FREAKING much!!!:mad: :macho :p

[Canadian144]

Originally posted by Kickstarts-suck
I thought you were already in Germany.. :confused:

Where'd you hear that from? :confused:


Originally posted by yam450_53
Which city you going at?

Right now I'm in Paris. On Sunday we're heading south to Montpellier, I'm taking some french course there. Friday is a french holiday, so we are heading futher south to somewhere closer to Spain. On Sunday, we are heading back to Montpellier, and I am stuck in the french course until Friday. Saturday we head back to Paris, and on Tuesday (the 20th) we fly back home.


Originally posted by tri5ron
Have a safe and fun trip.
Will you be going to Paris?
I proposed to my (now) wife on top of the Eiffel Tower, 14 years ago!

Thanks! And yup I'm in Paris right now. Very interesting city! If you live here, you basically HAVE to own a motorcycle or scooter.... traffic seems to just be awful. But today I saw so many nice cars.... including an Audi R8, 911 Turbo, Ferrari 458 Italia, BMW Z1, bright pink Lamborghini lp 670-4 SV, Audi A5 sedan, 1990's Subaru STI, way too many GSX-Rs/Ninjas/KTM Supermotos, and a YFZ450 (on the street!). Many other nice cars went by.... but I can't remember them all.


Originally posted by Quad18star
Make sure you check out the beaches of Normandy .... the greatest battle in Canadian military history was fought there. Take the time to remember the soldiers that lost their life on those shores.

I definitely would like to but it's not really along our route (I didn't book/plan the trip!). I would like to see it sometime in the future.

[tri5ron]

Originally posted by Quad18star
Look at you Mr. Romantic..... it's guys like you that that make it tough on the rest of us...

" But Ron proposed to his wife on top of the Eiffel Tower and all I get is a damn proposal in the front yard frezzing my *** off in 4 feet of snow" ...... Thanks Ron ... Thank You very FREAKING much!!!:mad: :macho :p
Hahahaha !
Well, let me give you the whole story,...
Then you'll probably REALLY hate me :D :D :D

This is gonna be really LOOooonnnnggg....

My wifes parents immigrated to the USA from France in 1964.
My wife was born in 1966 (on the 4th of July).
So all of her extended family is in France.

We had been together for about 3 years, and basically knew we would eventually be getting married. But with me traveling all around the world for work, as well as putting her through college, we were basically so busy, we didn't have time to get married.

She had not seen her grandmother since she was 10 or 12 years old, and we knew that her health was failing, so we had made tenative plans to spend Christmas in Paris.

Now around the end of September or first of October, I got work orders to go to Brussells Belgium.
I was told that I would be there 8 to 10 weeks. OK,... that's fine, I'll be back home about the 12th of December, so all is well, and we can make our plans to go to see her grandmother who lives in Paris.
So off to Belgium I go.
On the few days off that I had over the next 2 months, I made a few side trips, and ended up going to Amsterdam, and Antwerp, and a few other places.
Well Antwerp is the Diamond capitol of the World. It is where almost ALL the worlds diamonds pass through from mining to retail.
Antwerp is where the DeBeer's Corp is Headquartered.
The DeBeers corp owns or controls something like 75% of all the worlds diamonds and diamond mines. So suffice to say, it's about the best place on the planet to buy a custom made engagement ring, with some of the finest diamonds available anywhere, AND at about 50% the cost of buying in the USA.

So yeah, that's what I did, and I put a 1.2 ct. VVS1 E, Smack in the middle of a custom made setting surrounded by about .75 cts. of baguettes.

Well around week 8, I can see that we are not going to complete the project on time, and will be getting held over longer.
I tell my supervisor that I MUST leave by no later than Dec. 19th, due to the plans I had already made, so he had better start thinking about getting a replacement for me soon.

week 9 came and went, , and still no replacement. Week 10 came and I told my Girlfriend to get on the next plane, and come to Brussells. It was looking like we might be spending Christmas in Belgium.
She came... I continued to work 10-12 hrs a day, and she got to tour Brussells and nearby places for the next 2 weeks.

Do you know how hard it is to hide a ring box in your jacket or hotel room for 2 weeks without her knowing about it ?!?!?!

Then on December 19th, we were almost done with the repair of the aircraft, and when night shift was down jacking the airplane, (I was working day shift), they screwed up, and ended up putting one of the wing jacks right through the wing!
Royally screwed the pooch on that one.

Well I told my supervisor that I had stayed 2 weeks longer than was schedualed, and sorry, but I cant staying another month. I can come back around the middle of January if he wants, but I will be leaving tommorow.

I called my girlfriend, told her to pack our bags, go down to the hotel Concierge, and have a rental car ready for me in the morning.
We left the next day, and drove to a beautiful little village in Germany, to have dinner with a friend of mine. We stayed the night at his house, and left the next morning for France.

We then drove to my girlfriends Aunt's house, (more like a chateau), in a little village called Visoule' (sp?).
we enjoyed it there alot and stayed for two nights, then left for Paris.

We arrived in Paris on the 23rd, got to her grandmothers house, spent the rest of the day and night visiting with G'ma, and the next morning we hit the city.

Paris is Beautiful at Christmas time, but it is also FREAKIN ***** NUMBING FREEZING COLD!!!

We found ourself at the Eiffle Tower, (yes, this is the day of Christmas Eve), and about halfway up there is a little cafe. Bought some coffee and went the rest of the way to the top.

I told her that we should go out on the balcony at the top and she said "Are you Freakin' NUTS ??!?" Do you have any idea how cold it is up here, and in the wind too?!?!"

I said, "So what, lets go have someone take our picture"....
we steppedoutside, and out came the ring. I asked her, and she said.....
" YES, NOW CAN WE GO BACK INSIDE ??? IT'S FREEZING OUT HERE!!!"

True story.

We spent the next two weeks touring the city, and visiting with G'ma.
G'ma got to see her only granddaughter with her fiance', and got to at least see the ring on her finger.
Her health was bad, her condition was frail, and I knew there would be very little chance of her coming to see our wedding in the USA.

She passed away only a couple of months later.
My (now) wife, was happy we made the trip, and she got to see G'ma one last time.
It's all good.

[Canadian144]

Very nice story!

[Quad18star]

Good story Ron. Mr. Romantic !!!


I proposed to Melodie on Christmas day 2 years ago in the front yard of my parents cottage. It was getting late in the afternoon and all the Christmas gifts had been opened so she wasn't expecting anything. The night before we got a fresh dumping of about 4 feet of snow and told her I wanted to go out and get a few pictures taken of the 2 of us in the fresh snow. So she got bundled in a snowsuit .. complained about how cold it was ... we walked out into the middle of the yard and I got down on one knee and took ot the ring. I asked her to marry me .... and guess what her response was? She was so surprised , she started LAUGHING !!! I had to ask her a second time before she said YES. :huh


I know DeBeers well. They do a lot of mining up here in Northern Ontario. In fact they just opened up a brand new mine north of here a few years back. i got Mel a 0.70 ct princess cut with 0.30 ct side diamonds. Talk about expensive .. all Canadian diamonds.

[Guy400]

Did the French surrender as soon as you got off the plane? LOL. At least some of you attempted a romantic proposal. I'm about like Spock, very little emotion in me.

I was just out of college and still had my apartment. My wife and I had dated for about 5 months and we were coming back from visiting her parents and were just talking in the car. Somehow it just came up and we both just said, "We might as well just get married." Each of us said OK and that was sort of it. I bought a nice ring from a jeweler I knew a few days later and when it was done I went and picked it up. I was already late for work and my wife was waiting at the apartment. I raced in, got down on one knee, asked if she'd marry me, she said yes and I raced off to work. The whole proposal took about 5 seconds :p

That was 10 years and 2 kids ago...