Visiting Christine in Paris for Easter

Christine is living in Paris for the first three months of 2008, so we thought it would be the perfect excuse to visit the City of Light again. Having a second chance meant that we could see all the things we missed the first time around!
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This time, Jay had his new camera. His favorite place to play with his shutter speed was in the subways.
.Under threat of closure due to strikes, the first thing we did was to visit Versailles. Christine called ahead to make sure the museum was opened. They’re response was “Yes, but there is no guarantee about tomorrow.” We took that as a strong hint to take advantage of the day.
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We were glad the palace was so beautiful, because we had to queue for 2 hours to get in! Here are the storm clouds coming into our picture…a few minutes later, we had hail!
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Though crowded, we were able to appreciate the extravagance of the palace. This room is only one example of the opulence!

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That evening we rushed back into Paris to witness the World Pillow Fight Day. In cities all around the world, there was a synchronized pillow fight at 6pm. The one for Paris took place at the Louvre. Great fun!

The next day was Easter Sunday. We attended service at the American Church in Paris, as it was the only English speaking service around (that we were aware of, at least). The congregation was made up of people from around the world.

. Next up, we hit the weekend markets. Lots to see, but not much to buy, in our opinion. As a precaution against the ubiquitous pickpockets, Christine tucked in her bag underneath her coat and enhanced her caboose!

.Afterwards, we went to the Louvre. This was our second time here, but with all that there is to see, we could never see everything it has to offer no matter how often we visit! We found a self-guided tour on the Louvre’s website centered around the theme of love.

We learned a lot about the art they included in the tour, which included not only paintings but also sculptures and antiquities.

.On the way out of the Louvre, we spotted some policemen on roller blades. We thought it was amusing, but very functional!

Monday was our last full day, so we tried to fit in everything we could! We started by visiting the Conciergerie. It is part of the larger complex known as the Palais de Justice, which is still used for judicial purposes. It was interesting and had a rich history. Marie Antoinnette actually spent the last of her days here.

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However, after a little while, we started to be affected by the depressing mood of the place. Bad karma there, perhaps? Anyway, we got ourselves out of there to visit the church next door. As we were able to buy a combined ticket for both the prison and the church (funny combo, isn’t it?), we skipped the queue (we liked that a lot!).

The church, as expected was beautiful, and it felt very different from the much larger Notre Dame. Though we have seen what seems like a million churches in our travels, this was still worth a visit for us. It didn’t take long either!

.With a few hours left in the day, Christine and Karen thought they would try some outlet shopping (unsuccessful) while Jay went around the city taking pictures (also unsuccessful because of the rain). All was not lost, as Jay was able to take advantage of the clearer skies that evening to create some really beautiful photos.

Who can resist the Eiffel Tower by night...?

This thing just photographs so well!

Visiting Jen & Ben in London

We went to London to visit Jen and Ben. Since we have been to London before, we were keen to spend time just hanging out with them and seeing something outside of the city. We headed out to visit the city of Bath, home of Jane Austen and tour the Roman Baths.

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Bath is only about an hour by train west of London. We loaded up on coffee, muffins, a deck of cards and hit the tracks!
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It’s amazing to think about the amount of history here! First, we took a Jane Austen-themed walking tour. That really inspired us to rent some more of the films and read her books.

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Then we checked out the Roman Baths. As if we didn’t pack in enough activities, we stopped off at a local sports shop to pick up some cheap swimwear and spend some time in the thermal spa. We soaked our selves in water about 10 different ways!
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Here is a SUPER cool 360 degree view of the River Weir in the center of Bath. Pretty neat, huh!
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Here's Jay in front of one of the old baths turned into a more modern spa. There were no appointments available so we checked elsewhere to see if we could get something in later in the day.
. Here is the Pulteney Bridge from the north. It's one of only four bridges in the world that has shops across both full sides.
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From this side it looks strikingly like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
.The weather was mostly agreeable for our weekend. Here is Karen on our Jane Austen Tour during one of the five minutes it was lightly raining. We got pretty lucky by UK weather standards!
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This was one of the icon symbols for the town of Bath. There are versions of this face with wings all over the city. This was inside the museum on Bath.
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This is part of the outer building on one of the baths. This symbol shows they had a concept early on that the earth was round. We thought this was pretty cool.
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This is an attempt at an artistic shot of the great bath. This one is one of my favorite pictures from Bath.

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Here's another 360 view of the great bath. How cool is that!

.The next morning we had a leisurely blueberry and banana pancake breakfast before making our way to the flower market and some cool shopping areas. Here was a fantastic looking guy selling peacock feathers.

.We ad lunch at a cool Indian place. Ben's here suffering through what he thought were harmless peppers from Jen's plate. After we all tried some and we all suffering together!
. We got to the flower market a little late, but still did a little shopping.
. I had to add this shot outside an antique shop near the flower market. I thought it was pretty well composed for a wide aperture picture.
. On our way back to their place in Chelsea we went by this court area and watched some bicycle polo. They make it look so easy!

Leah's Visit to Ireland!

We spent Friday in Glendalough while Karen was at work. There's Leah in the background snapping away. It was nice to walk around with someone who takes as many pictures as we do.
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There were some spots near the waterfall that were so incredibly green with moss, trees and grass. It was really beautiful.
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I've said it before... this place photographs so well!
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We found a new little spot in Glendalough that was nice to explore, St. Kevin's Cell. We hadn't been in that part before and it was pretty neat!
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We had a pretty early night Friday. Leah had a little jet lag and was probably running on adrenaline the last half of the day. Saturday we spent walking through and sightseeing Dublin city center. Here we are in St. Stephen's Green.
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We stopped into Temple Bar, but it was too crowded so we had a pint just down the street.
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Karen and Leah on the north side of the popular Ha'Penny Bridge. It was built as a pedestrian bridge over the River Liffey in 1816.
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Sunday morning we started out to the Newgrange passage tombs in Co. Meath. These burial tombs have been dated to about 5200 years ago - making them older than the pyramids in Egypt!
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Here is the entry way to the tomb. The large square opening on the top of the doorway is what would let in the sunlight on the shortest day of the year. There is a lot of conjecture about the purpose and meaning of these tombs. Because there is no written account of them (it's a pre-historic site) the guides suggest that each visitor develop their own meaning and purpose based on individual observation and interpretation.
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Leah doesn't often pose for pictures, so this was a rare one! The weather was pretty agreeable today. Bright sunny blue skies nearly all day!
.These are the more common pictures of Leah... she's photographically vulnerable when taking her own pictures ; )
. I can't remember who, but Leah said someone she knew would get a kick out of this sign... "CHOPPER PARKING 50m".
. After our Newgrange tour, we headed south a little to Malahide Castle. Malahide and Newgrange are both not too far north of Dublin. It made the two trips really manageable in the same day.

What's amazing is that the castle is still in full original condition (except for the recently installed glass windows and TV antennas, etc.

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Here's a nice side view of the castle. Interestingly, with as many invading armies as came through Ireland, this castle remained in the control of the Talbot family for 791 years. There was only an 11 year period when Oliver Cromwell was in power that the Talbot's were dispossessed of the castle.

They took it back after Cromwell's demise.