Brooklyn: Don't knock it til you try it

BROOKLYN, NY - Our first stop en route to our new life in France was New York, New York; the Big Apple, the city so big they had to name it twice...sort of. We actually had the great pleasure of staying 'across the bridge' in Brooklyn, thanks to our new friends and home exchange partners Jen and Stephan (and their two boys, Maceo and Van).

The family (minus Maceo) stayed with us in TCI earlier this year when they came for a friend's wedding. We hadn't met them before but had connected with them on Home Exchange. It was bit of an unorthodox home exchange as we were still at home when they wanted to stay at our house, but Jen and Stephan didn't seem to mind sharing our digs and the girls got a kick out of hanging with baby Van, a kid brother for a few days.

Stephan (left) and Jen are very talented musicians and have jammed with the Boss

Jen and Stephan returned the favor when we needed place to crash en route to France. They have a great townhouse in Brooklyn, which I have to admit I had never been to before. We were pleasantly surprised (we shouldn't have been surprised since Jen and Stephan had talked it up so much when they visited us, even showering us with Brooklyn based gifts and paraphenelia - including, would you believe, wine?). On top of a super cool and eclectic neighborhood, and easy transport into the 'city', their place afforded us some much needed 'spread out' room to get our 8-suitcase packing strategy refined. Plus, it's pretty close to JFK, which made life easier.

Jen and Stephan were the perfect hosts (although Stephan had to head out to a gig in California while were there). They are both extremely talented musicians - Jen, a folk style singer whose dad was the great Harry Chapin, and Stephan a bassist in a jazz trio. Their home was large and comfortable, and we even got to meet two of their other friends who were visiting from North Carolina.

As part of their profession, they travel 'heavy' quite bit so they could identify with and advise on our suitcase challenges (perhaps not the additional challenge Chico presents). I'm just glad we didn't have to travel with Stephan's bass!

Stephan and his traveling bass

Jen and Stephan's place gave us a great base to launch our European adventure from, but more importantly, helped us to get to know two great friends (and two super kids) even better. Hopefully, we'll see them on tour some day - maybe even in France!