Ken and April's Visit to Ireland

Ken and April came to spend a week with us in Ireland. It's so awesome to show our friends this beautiful country.
.
Here's a link to more Ken & April's pictures in Ireland posted on flickr. These are pictures from Jay's, Karen's and Ken's camera.
.
The first weekend they were here we went down to Cork, Blarney and Kinsale. We went on a walking tour of Cork, Ken and Jay kissed the blarney stone and we had a great seafood meal in Kinsale.
.
We went on to hike around Glendalough in some CRAZY weather and head up to tour the Newgrange Passage Tomb.
.

Ken had been reading a book on the truth about Pigeons. Ironically we saw this truck and had to snap a few pics.
.
As part of our walking tour of Cork City we went to view this really cool map of the area. Our walking tour was actually a private tour, it was just the 4 of us and John, an guy who sure knew Cork.

We had a little bit of a hard time understanding his Cork accent. I think we got between 70-80% of what he was saying. Real nice fellow.
.

We took this one from on the bridge in Cork on the way to dinner. Beautiful sky that night.
.

The next morning we drove up to Blarney to see the castle and kiss the stone. Here we are just inside the grounds. That's Blarney Castle in the back ground.

. Jay and Ken in action-photo mode!

This is Ken kissing the Blarney Stone. It was great to get this on video.

And here's Jay kissing the Blarney Stone. We both tried to get as little lip contact with the stone as possible.

.Here's Ken trying to clean up the area a little by removing debris from the grounds.
. After leaving Cork, Blarney and Kinsale we were headed back to Dublin and stopped in Limerick to see the Rock of Cashel. We met these two really nice kids up there, Doncha and I can't remember the little guy's name. Really nice kids.

We learned a little new lingo from them. If something was really awesome, it was known as something really class.
.

Like usual, we took Ken & April to hike around Glendalough. This time we had the most volatile weather we've ever seen in Ireland.

We started the hike with nice sunny weather like above...

1. then it hailed 1/8 inch stones for 10 minutes... then sunny again

2. then hail again about 1/4 inch stones for about 10 minutes... then sunny

3. then while we were eating lunch it started to hail again 1/4 inch stones which turned into a snow for a few minutes... then sunny

4. then we saw the deer before it started hailing 1/2 inch stones coming down HARD

5. then we had 10 minutes of rain... then sunny when we got back to the car
.

We've seen a few deer here before, but never a stag... and never this close. This guy was really majestic!
.This is a picture during the last of the hail storms of the day. If you click on the picture and open it up a little bigger, you can see some of the hail streaks coming down. It was the craziest weather we've ever seen in Ireland.
. Here's one of my favorite trees in the whole valley. It's not nearly as big as this picture makes it look. I wish I had a wide-angle lens to get it without having it overlay the hills in the background. Nice tree, huh?
. There's a cool tree that fell over and started showing it's grain. This is a close-up of some of the swirly grain.
.
And this is how we ended the hike. Those yellow thorny plants have the most unusual cocoa-butter scent to 'em. That kind of scent belongs on a warm sunny beach with pretty girls... not a glacier valley in the mountains in Ireland. Still nice though!

The next day (with some slightly sore legs) we headed up to the Newgrange passage tombs. These things are dated back to 3200 B.C. That's right... older than the pyramids in Egypt!
..It's nice to be able to take people out of the city. This Irish countryside is really incredible.

Last thing we did before they had to head back to the states was a Dublin ghost tour. It's run by the Dublin Bus company.

Our tour guide took quite a liking to April. He was spooking her whenever he had the chance. Here, he's using her as a model to show how they use to grab bodies out of a coffin.
.

Cool night time shot of Ken & April in one of the most haunted places in Dublin... this is the haunted 40 steps. I liked the blood red sky in this picture.

Anyway, thanks for coming guys. We hope you had a great time!

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!
.
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.
.
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!
.

Though crowded, we were able to appreciate the extravagance of the palace. This room is only one example of the opulence!

.

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.

.

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!