At night the Eiffel Tower twinkles every hour for 5 minutes. Check out this video I took:
That same night, I decided to take a photo of a person with the Eiffel Tower. So I turned on my small Canon Point & Shoot camera, and guess what icon it has for night portraits? (more…)
One of our days in Paris included a side trip to Versailles, the grand palace built by Louis XIV and also later inhabited by the famous Marie-Antoinette. This place is huge and immaculate. You might be able to imagine what the palace would look like – rich and lavish and gaudy. But you could never imagine the size of the gardens unless you see it yourself. There are statues and flowers and fountains and manicured trees and hedges and lakes and an enormous canal. And then, away from that palace, (more…)
I really love Paris! This city is just so pretty. There’s not really any better way to describe it, it’s just really really pretty.
Our first day here was awesome. We got up early and headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. It is so cool to see in person. I thought it might be one of those places that you expect to be amazing but when you see it it’s disappointing. It wasn’t one of those places. We rode the elevators all the way to the top.
One of the less endearing aspects of Bruges was the tourist carriage rides. They come flying down the narrow roads and alleys, CLIPPITY-CLOPPETY-CLIPPITY-CLOPPETY, and you have to dive out of the way — onto sidewalks that are already crowded — to avoid being run over by a big, sweaty, smelly beast. My advice: if you want the quaint experience of getting around the way people used to hundreds of years ago, try walking.
Eventually, we started to wonder, all these horses – and there are a LOT of these horses and carriages running around Bruges – but no horse crap. How’s that work? We figured they must use horse diapers.
What will they think of next?
But it turns out the answer is a clever device, a sort of crap-catcher. They attach it to the rear of the animal and it collects the payload in a little pouch at the bottom. Must be fun to empty that at the end of the day.
Still, a clever invention. Unlike a horse diaper, it’s hard to spot.
We spent one night and most of two days in Bruges, Belgium. Unfortunately, we chose the WRONG time to go – it was a Saturday and Sunday and completely overrun with tourists. The main streets were packed and it just wasn’t very pleasant. However, we found the town totally adorable, and just one or two streets off the main drag was empty and completely charming. (more…)
On Friday, my Mom, Ben and I rented bikes and rode outside of the city. It was really fun, and a bit of an adventure since the signs were hard to follow and we got lost. But the scenery was really nice and we got to see an old windmill!
Most people probably don’t picture canals when they hear of Amsterdam. But they should because they are everywhere and so pretty!
Now that I’m sitting here in the Boise Airport, I’m finally SUPER excited to be heading to Europe. However, the last few days have been a bit stressful. As we tried to get the house ready for our renter and make final arrangements before heading off for three months, the time we had left to finish everything just slipped away. And today when the taxi arrived (10 minutes early, which didn’t help), we scrambled to finish picking up and getting our stuff together.
Phew, but now we’re here. Yay! And as far as we know, we haven’t forgotten anything. So we’re good 🙂
So, our plan is to blog throughout our trip. We’ll see how it goes with frequency, but at the very least you should hear from us once a week.
The first stop is Amsterdam, where we’ll be joined by both of our Moms. We don’t have internet at our hotel there, but we might get a chance to stop at an internet cafe.
Bye for now!
It’s getting close, only one week until we leave for Europe!
Getting Ready
I have borrowed TONS of books from the library. I love reading guidebooks. If only there was more time in the day…
I also did a trial run of my new shoes and my loaner backpack. I hiked up to Table Rock with about 15 lbs in my pack. Success! No problems with either items. But my legs were a little tired.
Goals for the Year
On a different note, here’s a few of the things I hope to gain from this year of traveling:
- fun and adventure
- appreciation for different cultures and ways of living
- learn more about history and the world
- be brave and try new things
- improve my photography
- make friends all over the world
- remain flexible and open-minded
- learn a little of the local languages, and improve my Spanish
- share my experiences with friends and family
We just spent an awesome week in Banff National Park in Canada with our good friends Becky and Jenna. This has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world! We had an amazing time. Here’s some of the highlights.
Lakes
The Canadian Rockies have some amazing blue and turquoise colored lakes. The color is due to tiny particles deposited in the lake from melting glaciers. Some of them are opaque and milky-looking, and others are very clear. Even the main river that flows through the valley is turquoise.
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