Spring

Thought I'd show the neighbor's yard. It is full of daffodils and blooming flowers. For those of you who just got a foot of snow.... spring is just around the corner.

No pictures

Sorry, but no pictures today. We haven't been much of anywhere lately. Thought we would spend some time in London last weekend for the 3 day holiday, but I was still sick with coughing and cold symptoms so we stayed home.

Mike got to go to Germany this past week for an art program. 150 kids from all over Europe got together to learn about art, drama, etc. He had a great time and enjoyed hanging around all the talented left brainers! He did a charcoal self portrait that, for his first time, I thought was pretty good. If I get a chance, I'll scan it in and post it. (Our scanner is currently on the fritz)

I started a nursing job on base and have enjoyed working with the people. It's full time, so I hope it doesn't limit my traveling!

Anyway, hopefully we'll be traveling a bit more in the near future. So stay tuned

Lights of the Champs-Elysees

They had lighted trees all along the Champs Elysees. Here is a video of them (Watch the shooting lights.)

Beautiful!

Montmartre (the artists district)

Montmartre is known for it's artists. This is the area around the Sacred Heart Church. Here all the artists have set up their easels to sell their paintings. Some of them were beautiful!

A local women was playing this old music maker. She put a paper with holes in it and then wound the handle to make the music. She sang along with the music. It was all on a tricycle. Very entertaining

There were dozens of men and women running around the streets with paper clipboards, ready to draw your portrait.

Wandering the streets of Paris

One of the Metro stops in Montmartre district

View from the Metro Stop

Bart, Terri, Deb sitting at an outside cafe (and showing souvenirs we bought!)

It's cool out, but warm enough to enjoy eating outdoors!

Parking was amusing to watch (as long as you don't have to drive in it) Here was a typical parking scene. The blue car was nose to nose with the car in front of him too, so I don't know how he could get out without waiting for the cars in front and back of him to leave!

Notice the back car, it is called "Smart car" They are so tiny, we saw one parked; backed into a parellel parking spot and it didn't stick out! (Didn't have time to get that picture!) Evidently the Smart cars are coming to the USA but will be about 6 inches longer.

We all managed to keep together on the Metro except for this stop. For some reason you can get out of either side of the train at this stop. Well, we all got out on the one side except for our friend, Roger. He got out on the other side and when the train left, he had to figure out how to get to our side! After no success, he waited for the next train and then walked though the train to the other side!
It provided a lot of laughter. Of course, too late, we thought it would be funnier if all of us had walked through the train as Roger was walking though it and confuse him even more! (He'd still be on the other side from us! )

Up in the Dome of Sacre Coeur

Again we climbed spiral stairs (even narrower than in the Arc). Some of our group got claustrophobic and we spent some time reflecting on how an emergency crew would access the stairs if a medical emergency happened (Can you tell I'm a medical person?)

The view was spectacular though and we could see all of Paris.

Here we are on top of the Dome and walking around the periphery.

View of the Eiffel Tower (just to left of middle pillar)

Another view of the Eiffel Tower

Basilique du Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart)

Here we are at the base of the steps to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart or as the French so eloquently say "Sacre Coeur". It is in the Montmartre district and on a hill (Butte)that is the highest point in Paris.

This is a Catholic church and while we were there, they were having a mass. So we stayed for awhile to listen. However, since my high school french was many moons ago, I was unable to pick up the gist of what the homily was all about. It did give us time to look at the beautiful ceilings, altar etc.

Back view

In the bell tower is a bell that is one of the heaviest in the world (19 Ton)

I took this to show the gargoyle but although you can't see it well, the picture turned out pretty cool.

On top of the entrance is two horseman. They are the two French National saints: Joan of Arc and King Saint Louis IX.

Toilettes!

Okay, skip this if you are not interested in the bizarreness of European toilets...

(It's the first thing I notice when we go back to the States too. For example the USA has automatic flush toilets! They don't have them here, kinda takes you by surprise when you forget!)

Here are pictures of a typical toilet in France; they seem to think women still wear skirts and dresses.

Sign indicating that these toilets are unisex

This one was very sleek looking. Good sturdy door, almost prison-like.
The one before this was a roadside rest and was open to the outside. (No roof, 3/4 walls) but the worst part is.....

You have to stand up to pee!

This one had a bar you could pull down to sit on, but it was so smelly and dirty, I decided to pass on this toilet.

The roadside rest toilet had a automatic flushing system that got you very wet if you didn't move away quickly. (Guess who didn't move away quick enough!)

This toilet was in the city of Paris and looked like an "port a potty".
I didn't try this one so can only imagine the inside.

Arc de Triomphe

The guys in front of the Arc de Triomphe



Spiral Staircase to get up to the top of the Arc (267 steps!) We walked to the top and survived! Little did we know it was the first of many stairs we had to climb!

View of our hotel: Concorde La Fayette from the top of the Arc

Blurry picture of the lights of the Champs-Elysees (Street) from top of the Arc

Eternal flame commemorating the dead of the two world wars, at base of Arc looking out towards the Champs- Elysees

Eiffel Tower

At night with the blinking lights

View from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower looking up into the tower at night (Don's head too!)

The 6 of us (windblown)

Paris Jan 2008

Don and I went with 2 other couples to Paris this weekend. Drove over on the Ferry from Dover to Calais. All told it took about 7 hours to drive (Including the hour long ferry ride) Our last stop was the Louvre.


The Mona Lisa

Venus De Milo

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

View from inside the Louvre

The rooms of the Louvre themselves are beautiful works of art. This is one example

A little Louvre humour.....

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and the make such an obvious error, he replied,"Monsieur that is the reason I stole the paintings. I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.

And I had De Gaulle to post this on my blog because I figured I had nothing Toulouse.

St. Ives

Before Christmas Don and I went to a town called St. Ives. It had this neat bridge. Unfortunately, I just noticed the yellow sign that says no cars on the bridge. Guess who took his BMW over the bridge? Whoops!



Town view from the bridge

Words

Spent this first week back in England, going to a British fashion show and getting my hair done. The reason I bring this up is my confusion over some of the terminology used at both places.

At the fashion show, the MC kept saying the model was wearing a jumper. Much to my surprise, the models weren't even wearing a dress. I thought the MC was a little dippy. But then found out that jumper in "British" is what we call a pull over sweater. Evidently they call a jumpers, pinafores.

Then, when I went to get my hair done, the receptionist wanted to know who was I here for: Kate the beautician or Kate the hairdresser. HUH? What's the difference?
Beauticians give facials, massages, pedicures etc. Hairdressers, obviously only do hair. Well, now I know! Maybe I should have said Kate the beautician and gotten a wonderful massage!

Cheerio

Christmas in Ely

Did get a picture and video of the Ely City Band playing Christmas music the weekend before Christmas. It was where the outside markets are on Saturdays.
We found a "Christmas pudding" which was popular. They seem to be like our fruitcakes. I brought some home to try and you'll have to ask my sister-in-law, Sue, how good it tasted. (She did not like it, however, my mother-in-law and I didn't think it tasted too bad!)

Happy New Year

Sorry for the long break in postings. Christmas was busy. Don, Mike and I flew to Ohio for the holidays and spent 2 weeks visiting, packing out and shopping!

Christmas in England is pretty much the same as in the USA. Lots of shopping and decorations. We tried to get to London for the sights but got fogged out.

Here are some of our pictures of Christmas in Ohio

Christmas at Jon and Sue's

Day after Christmas at Kathy and Keith's

Mike's Senior Picture

Mike 2007

SAME dinner - St. Catherines College

Last night, Don and I had the opportunity to attend a dinner at St. Catherine’s College in Cambridge University. It was a function sponsored by the Society of American Military Engineers. (SAME) of which Don is a member. There are quite a few British Engineer members that work for the American Military and they helped to set it up.

It was awesome to walk into the courtyard of the college and enter the hall through a very old doorway, that you hit your head on to go through (and I’m 5’3’’!) and still has a gate-like latch on it (no lock). There was a crack in the wood that you could look right through to the inside! I felt like I was going back in time!

The room for our dinner was one of those old, dark oak, hand-carved, wood paneled rooms with oil portraits of past collegiate/important people hanging around to watch you eat! Since the school is approaching 900 years old, these portraits are very old! The windows were stain glass and they had books on the shelves that could have been as old as the school!

(See blurry picture below)

We had a fascinating speaker on the history of Cambridge; the city and the college. I’ll try to remember the highlights.

The college is one of 31 colleges in the University of Cambridge. It currently has 600 students, so it is one of the medium size colleges in the University. Although in each college you can obtain any degree, the colleges have specialties or stronger emphasis on certain degrees. I think St. Catherine’s focuses more on the medical fields.

The town flourished when the Danes used it for a shipping center. This is remarkable in itself as Cambridge is 60 miles inland! So they used the river to bring goods to the city. The college is on the river. The story is that Cambridge and the College had about 6 bridges over the river and at that time the barges were powered by horses towing them from a path along side the river. Well, due to the bridges, they couldn't tow from the path so the Danes put stone and rocks in the middle of the river so the horses to go into the river and walk. They were up to their necks in the water, pulling the boat!

This also explains the punting dilemmas that people encounter when they try to punt.....losing your pushing stick to the river. The rocks are only in the middle of the river. On the sides of the river is mud. So when you punt, you want to stick to the middle of the river so your punting stick doesn't get stuck in the mud!

Before the meal we all met at a pub that is the oldest in Cambridge and since it is in the middle of all the colleges, has a long history of famous students and people lunching, drinking and sharing ideas there. Shakespeare himself was one of the famous occupants, performing one of his first plays in the courtyard. The Eagle, as it is now called, is most recently known for Crick and Watson who entered the pub and announced “we have found the secret of life!” in 1953. These are the guys who discovered DNA. Their laboratory was around the corner from the pub.

Now we went to this pub before we heard the speaker and so now I have to seriously doubt my powers of observation….. The speaker told us several things about the pub that I’ll have to go back sometime to observe as I saw none of what she described! (In my defense it was rather dark and crowded and we weren’t there that long, and I was busy meeting new people and doing what I like to do…talk)

The speaker said the pub started in the 1500’s as a Coaching Inn by Corpus Christie College. In the courtyard, there are numbers on the walls that are the original numbers of the stalls where the horses rested between trips. (There are two 26’s as the lead horse worked extra hard and so they had two horses for that position)

I didn’t see the numbers.

Another was the sign that tells the story of the guys who discovered DNA.

I didn’t see this.

The last, very obvious thing, (if you happen to look up) is the names, burned with cigarette lighters, by hundreds of US and British soldiers that frequented the place in WWII.

Now how could I have missed that?

Anyway, this ceiling is now protected by the government and can never be taken down or covered up. Relatives of all the names, except for 3 have come in to see the names on the ceiling. Supposedly, the names of the crew of the Memphis Belle are there with a drawing of a naked lady underneath.

Okay, so I have to go back to see these things…during the day…when it’s not crowded….and have more time…..and aren’t meeting new people….and not talking!

The college history was interesting, but I especially liked the stories about the pranks students have pulled over the years. The story the speaker liked best, was when they put a car on the roof of one of the colleges, but I liked the one where they floated a Volkswagen down the river on two punting boats (Flat bottom boats), tied it to the bottom of the Bridge of Sighs and removed the boats. It was suspended from the bridge for a week, until they figured out how to get it down. (The river is on the backside of the colleges)

All in all, a fascinating evening. Good company, good food and a good speaker! What more could you ask for?

Back home to England

While most of our trip was cold and rainy, the last day was beautiful and this is the sun setting on the hills of Scotland as we were driving home. Don and I agreed that Scotland has better roads than England. (Notice the 6 lane highway with an actual berm!)