Paris

This is a continuation of my report of our Europe trip in March 2008. We visited 4 cities (Venice, Rome, Paris, and London). This post is about Paris

One of my favorite things about Paris was the food. I was tired of Italian food after being in Rome and Venice for a week. I mean, all they eat is pasta, nothing else: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they are ok with it. Well I wasn't. So when we came to Paris and they had roast duck, steak with cheese sauce, delicious onion soup, pork chops with this fantastic mustard sauce, and sandwiches with so much flavor I was in heaven. The first sandwich I had was filled with mango and turkey and some cranberry sauce. It was like a blast of flavors in my mouth. It totally reminded me of the movie "Ratatouille" where Remi savors the taste sensation of Parisian food. I hear you Remi.

We made a stop at the palace in Versaille where King Louis the XIV lived and made the center of Europe. It was exactly what I thought a king's palace should look like: acres and acres of gardens with water fountains, huge ballrooms with frescos and paintings, giant fireplaces, and hundreds of fancy rooms and open space.

The hall of mirrors at the palace of Versaille

We spent 3 hours in the Louvre and saw the Venus de Milo, Madonna on the Rocks, some Michaelangelo sculptures, and of course the Mona Lisa, among so many other things, and we probably only saw 1/10th of the museum: this place is gargantuan. Here is the perfect reverse pyramid.

We visited the chapel St. Chapelle where they (the Catholic church) used to display the crown of thorns that was on Jesus' head (they say). Now they bring it out and show it at Notre Dame during Easter. We didn't get to see it at either place, but if it really was the crown of thorns, that sure would be something woudn't it?

Notre Dame was magnificent. Here is our token picture in front of it.

Heather losing her head at the Place de Concorde, where 1119 people also lost their heads during the French Revolution.

Eiffel Tower

Rome

This is a continuation of my report of our Europe trip in March 2008. We visited 4 cities (Venice, Rome, Paris, and London). This post is about Rome.

Rome is one of those cities where there is so much culture and amazing things to see, that you really should spend a couple of weeks taking it all in. Or if you have a limited time, you should see only a few things and let go of the rest. Not us. We had 4 days in Rome, and we saw it all! The great thing about Rome is it is all fairly compact. You can walk to most of the museums and monuments and when your feet get tired, as ours most certainly did, the bus system isn't too hard to figure out and very helpful. We were very fortunate because our hotel was right in the center of it all. If you type in "Rome, Italy" in Google Maps, it places a marker right in the center of the city, and is basically where we stayed, a block away from the Altare della Patria in Piazza Venezia, pictured below.

I was extremely impressed by all the great works that can be found in Rome. Some of my favorite sculptures were in the Borghese Gallery. Bernini sculpted Apollo and Daphne, where Daphne is turning into a tree before Apollo can catch her, and he sculpts every tree leaf with so much incredible detail. I also like David, right in the act of slinging a stone at Goliath. His face is clenched and his whole body is tensed up ready to unleash this stone which will immortalize him in history. His curly hair and the name remind me of Don Bennion's little brother David.



We stood in a 3-hour line for the Vatican Museum while it was raining. And you know what happens when you pack in a whole bunch of people into a small area and everyone is holding up umbrellas while its raining? Everyone gets wet from the runnoff from the umbrellas. At the end of the Vatican Museum tour is the Sistine Chapel. I had told Heather about it, how you enter into this big room and everyone is packed in there looking up and how amazing it was. Well, as we were going from room to room, Heather would keep asking me, is this the Sistine Chapel? I can't blame her though, the cielings of every room are so intricately designed, and after 2 hours in one museum you would think you would be close to the end.

We visited St. Peter's Basilica, one of the Catholic church's most sacred churches. The place is ginormous too! Supposedly Peter was killed in the spot of the church and is buried there too. I understand that at some point the Catholic church excavated the gravesite and found the bones of a man who lived during the first century and they say definitely maybe they are the bones of Peter. Then we climbed the 524 steps to the top of the cupola (dome) of St. Peters and took a few more pictures.

The climb to the Cupola gets pretty narrow at the top

The view from on top of St. Peter's Basilica. This is where Heather let me know that she is really afraid of heights.

The next day we did the Ceasar Shuffle, visiting the Colosseum, Nero's Golden House (his second palace), Palantine Hill (where the emperor lived), and the Roman Forum (the place of business during the time of Rome). Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum are now filled with a lot of rubble and broken stone, but using a little bit of imagination you can just imagine how magnificent these buildings were along with the whole civilization.

The gladiators standing around the Colosseum get angry when you take their picture without paying them.

Palantine Hill

Roman Forum

When I went to Rome a year ago, my supervisor got us a couple of tickets to go to Catholic Mass in the square of St. Peter's Basilica and the pope drove by in his pope-mobile. I thought it was a cool experience, so when we heard that we could get tickets for a papal audience on Wednesday in Rome, I thought Heather might like the experience too. Wrong! We spent 5 hours waiting in line, waiting in chairs, and waiting through a papal meeting where the pope welcomed all 3000 different groups who were there in 5 languages, and of course we were probably a football field away from the action. So here's Heather's reaction to the entire morning.


On the last day of our stay in Rome we bought this huge painting in Piazza Navona as a keepsake of our time there. We were so indecisive about the painting, it took us 30 minutes to say yes. Fortunatly for us the painter thought we were bargaining the whole time and kept dropping the price until we just couldn't refuse. However, now I know from my previous framing experience that framing it will cost even more than the painting. (by the way this painting is twice as big and we bought it for even less than that one)

Easter

Getting ready for the big hunt......

Cute Family Picture

Both boys actually looking at the camera & smiling, an Easter Miracle!

We had a wonderful Easter this year. Saturday morning we went to the park for the annual community egg hunt. Coby was a die-hard, running as fast as he could to get as many eggs as possible. Rett also got the hang of it but halfway through realized it was just as much fun to dump the eggs out as putting the eggs in:) I particularly loved that no matter how many eggs you collected, you turned them all in and everyone got the same bag of treats. Sunday we had our own egg hunt in the backyard and the boys got Disney movies, a tradition we started last Easter. I had bought Jacoby some Cadbury eggs (the large ones) and decided to add them into the hunt just for fun figuring I would collect them from the boys buckets later. As soon as the hunt was over and they were allowed to eat a few pieces, Coby digs through his bucket and I look back to see him hauling through a Cadbury egg. I think he ate it in about three bites! I should have known he would have gone for the largest candy in his bucket. After that I promptly removed the remaining eggs before we had some severe tummy aches!

Venice

View of Piazza San Marco from the top of the San Giorgio Maggiore church

We stopped at the island of Murano while we were in Venice. Its claim to fame is the glass that they produce. They sell Murano Glass at every store in Venice, marking up the price for tourists because its authentic "Murano Glass". Our guide book told us to walk around the island and stop in at the glass shops and get the free glass blowing tours they show to the tourists. When we first got off the vaporetto (the boat bus) there was an English speaking smooth talker pointing the way to a free glass blowing tour. I told Heather to forget that guy, there would be plenty of other shows and we shoudn't fall for the first one we see. After walking around the island for half an hour with no luck, we crawled back to that guy asking him directions to the show. Nice one Jacoby, real smart! We were amazed at the way they blow glass (when we eventually found a shop giving a tour). It looks like taffy that they pull and form into these fantastic shapes, yet they have to cut this taffy glass with scissors and it clangs when it falls on the floor.

Jacoby in front of the glass heating kiln

Heather and her precious Murano Glass

We took a tour through Doge's Palace near St. Marks Square. A Doge was the mayor of the city of Venice. And back in the day Venice was a power in the world and the Doge likewise. The palace was beautiful and ornate and fun to walk around. But in the lower levels of the palace was the prison. There is a bridge the prisoners walk across before they are locked up in prison forever. The call it the bridge of sighs, as the prisoner sighs with their last chance to look out at the beauty and glory of Venice.

Heather in jail. Sigh!

Venice had a small town feeling: there aren't too many people, it doesn't take too long to walk across the whole city, and even when you get lost, you are never too far away from the grand canal and it isn't too hard to find your way back. I really enjoyed getting lost with Heather, eating pizza and ham sandwiches (they called it toast), and being in love. We never had the chance to take a gondola because it rained both nights we were there (not because I was too cheap to pay for one).