Europe: Paris And Things

The last few days have been a lot of fun. On Thursday Emily had class the entire day so I spent most of the day wandering the sunny streets of Paris. My first trek took me to the Louvre museum (the largest museum on the planet!) where I had planned to spend most of the day inside touring around and looking at famous pieces of art such as the Mona Lisa, and ancient Greek statues and sculptures. However, when I got there I realized that it was the first day since I had arrived in France that it wasn't raining, and that maybe a day spent inside would be better spent on a typical rainy day. So instead of going into the museum I kept on walking and explored the Louvre Gardens and tried to get lost in the first district.

The following day, Emily had the day off from school so we decided to go and see the Arc de Triomphe and the famous Champs de Elysees which is basically the boulevard that Rodeo Drive aspires to be. The Arc was incredible. Check out a photo.


It's an amazing piece of art in and of itself, and looking at it from next to and underneath is incredible. The weather held out so nicely for us as well, no rain at all that day! Adjacent to this magnificent structure is the famous Champs De Elysees, which we walked down next.

If you're a big fashion person or just flat out rich than you'd probably enjoy this street a lot more than me, as it's home to a lot of Paris' big time stores like Louis Vitton, Cartier, ROLEX, etc. It was neat to window shop and I got to see a Peugeot F1 car in the official Peugeot store, but besides that it was more of just a nice place to walk through. We kept on down the boulevard and ended up at the next landmark known as the Obelisk of Luxor. A giant obelisk given to the French by the Egyptians in 1829. It's covered in crazy hieroglyphics too. Awesome. Check it out!


And yeah that's the Eiffel Tower in the background. This place is cool because you can see the Obelisk, Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe, and the Louvre all from this one spot. After this we walked back home and prepared for what would be a fun night, as the following day was Emily's birthday! Emily invited a bunch of her friends over from her classes here, so we all hung out with some music, food, and good wine. It was indeed a fun night for all.

Today being Emily's birthday, we did some shopping and went out to dinner at a great Belgian seafood restaurant. It was awesome! We're off tonight to go drinking again, so I'm sure more stories will arise. Good times in Paris for sure.

Tomorrow I leave for Brussels, Belgium where I'm going on a five day epic beer tasting adventure. Fun, Awesome, and Win.

Europe: More Photos

Hey all! Nothing too exciting to report today except I got a few more photos uploaded. Please head on over to my Flickr page to view them all. I try to update it at least once a day so check back often.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayonidas/

I did take a nice long walk along the Seine and ended up outside of the Louvre Museum, but it started raining heavily so I couldn't snap any photos. Tomorrow I'm going to tour the museum though, stay tuned.

Europe: Paris and Notre Dame

This morning Emily had to leave for school so I packed up and decided to head off into the city and do some wandering. First I made way to the local mall and to the mobile phone shop to see about getting a sim card for my phone. All of the "pay as you go" plans don't include data and charge you for it at a rather scary rate, so I didn't end up getting one yet. I still need to research more. After the mall I headed down Rue Beaubourg and snapped a few photos on my way to visit Notre Dame. As I crossed the River Seine I got lucky with a couple of nice shots of the river and the boats it held. The clouds were a bit murky and gave way to a few short spurts of rain but for the most part it was holding up as a nice day for the camera.

After snapping the photos of the Seine I kept on walking until I reached Notre Dame. It's really only about a mile from Emily's apartment, if that, so it's easy. The outside of Notre Dame is absolutely awesome. If you're anywhere near it you really can't take any pictures because it's too big... I needed to walk a good 50 yards back just to get the whole thing into a picture. It really is amazing though when you see it...it's inspiring just taking it all in even.




Awesome isn't it? That would be the front if you will, and it's the shorter side of the rectangular building. The long side is about twice as wide as that haha. It's HUGE. I went inside where a big sign said NO CAMERAS but as I got in and saw hundreds of other people taking photos I said what the hell. It was extremely dark in there but I managed to get a couple good ones.


The inside of the Cathedral is breath-taking. The statues, the stained glass windows, the golden chandeliers and amazing artwork on the walls and architecture...it's awesome. If I had to compare to some of the Italian churches I'd say I like the actual architecture and awesome power of this place a bit more, but Italy wins in the ways of their churches being much more filled with amazing artwork and statues and such. Still though, who cares? All of these places are ridiculous and awesome.

I've got a bunch more pictures of the inside of Notre Dame but they are dark and kind of hard to see what's going on. They'll be on my Flickr eventually. ;) Speaking of, check the link below to see these photos larger and a bunch more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayonidas/

Europe: Venice, Italy - Part V

Venice was great! We're now back in Paris with a grand pile of pictures to sort through and some fond memories of a really beautiful city. Our last night in Venice took us to a couple of neat little pubs where we got to sing some Italian karaoke and drink a few mojitos after a great dinner at one of the local eateries. Italian pasta and Venezian seafood is serious fantastic. We walked up and down the streets a bit more that day collecting souvenirs and seeing the sights one last time before heading out the next morning. One interesting thing that happened was that at 7am when we attempted to leave, the hotel was locked from the outside. We were literally locked in the hotel lobby for 30 or so minutes waiting for the clerk to return from whatever the heck he was doing. When he finally returned we headed to our bus and to Marco Polo airport.

I've started to sort through some of the photos so here are a bunch to get started with. There are oh so many more, but this should be cool to look at for now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayonidas/sets/72157622591833445/

Enjoy, and au revoir for now!

Europe: Venice, Italy - Part IV

Today is our last full day in Italia before we head back to France in the morning. We spent the morning wandering through the various market places and looking at all of the interesting things available. The fish market is incredible here, the amount of fresh fish they have for sale in the market on a daily basis blows away anything I've seen before. A lot of it is alive too which is neat. Fresh produce, meat, fruit, spices, nuts, everything you can imagine can be purchased on the streets of Venice in the morning.

I bought a few postcards to be sent to various deserving recipients in various places and here we are eating lunch at the usual internet hotspot. This weekend will be spent sorting through hundreds of amazing photos and getting them out to all of you cool people.

Ciao for now!

Europe: Venice, Italy - Part III

It's 5:10pm here in Italy, you USA'ers will probably be just getting to work around now. Therefore, I will write to you, from the future.

Today Emily and I spent the day island hopping through the "Venice Lagoon". There are three islands in particular that we hit up, Murano, Burano, and Torcello.

First we took the water bus to Murano "Island of Glass". Murano has been the artistic center of glass blowing and all things glass for 800+ years so it was really mind blowing to see the stuff in person. Luckily we were in time for a live demonstration of it as well. Watching these artisans work is absolutely insane!!! Pictures later (I know...sorry) but we got some great pictures of one of the artists making first a really neat Vase, and then a glass sculpture of a stallion rearing up on it's hind legs. We walked the rest of the island checking out the various artists showrooms and looking in awe at all of the amazing art. There were all sorts of great pieces in all shapes and sizes in all colors and price ranges. At one point we found this amazing hand made glass chandelier selling for a mere 4000 euros, (~$6000) all the way down to hand blown glass beads you could use to put in a necklace. Wine stoppers, quill pens, pendants, rings, all sorts of amazing art. We finished up our wandering on Murano and hopped on another boat off to our next destination, Burano.

Burano is the "Island of Lace", which sounds lame...but it was quite interesting. I can't really describe why without it sounding lame, but yeah it was neat to see the quality and craftsmanship of the various garments. Apparently Burano is to lace, what Murano is to glass. So if you're into that sort of thing then you can appreciate it. One woman gave us a short demo of how some of the works are created and even small things like pillowcases can take up to a month to create due to the intricacy of the designs and just how much quality and heart goes into them. After checking out the lace we wandered around the island a bit and got some great photos of this quaint little island town. I'll be sure to link to these later as they are really very cool and colorful. After Burano we hopped on a short boat ride to the next island.

If you were to compare the three island with Venice itself in the way of how modern they are, then Torcello would be last on the list. The island had maybe a dozen buildings on it, half of which were part of an amazing church that kind of seemed to stand watch over all of the smaller shops and houses nearby. There wasn't much else to do on Torcello except stand in awe at how freakin' old and amazing everything is. It was like stepping through a time warp into the 15th century. It was really a beautiful place to visit.

An hour boat ride later we were back in Venezia and here we are! Great photos today, lots of cool imagery to come this weekend when we get back to Paris and can sort photos.

Ciao!

Europe: Venice, Italy - Part II

Today Emily taught me a bunch of things about my camera that I had no idea. I've been using it like a big noob for so long that there were some basic things I hadn't ever learned that are now leading to some great photos! I'm afraid I can't show any until I get a chance to sort them and get them "show" ready...but I trust anyone reading this will come back in a few days for some great Venezian imagery.

We've spent the majority of the trip here so far just walking around and exploring every nook and cranny of this amazing city. I'm not a religious person but you really don't have to be to appreciate the amazing churches and religious architecture held in this city. Considering you're standing in a giant stone cathedral that is probably upwards of 800 years old is breath taking. Every inch, or centimeter if you will, of the buildings is pure art. The walls, the pillars, the great shrines, even the floors are all brilliantly laid tile and ornate paintings and mosaics of all different kinds. Gold, silver, glass, marble, it's awesome! You aren't allowed to take photos within the cathedrals and churches so unfortunately there won't be much of those, but we got a few in some certain places that I can post later.

Just wandering through every little alley and observing the daily life of the local Venezians has been so interesting and fun. It reminds me so much of Cape Cod. The city survives on tourism and fishing. You see the locals who spends all of their time catering to tourists and serving food, baked goods, wine, beer, etc., as well as the fisherman and boatmen who spend their days on the canals and sailing the Mediterranean to keep the daily fish markets stocked for us visitors and locals alike. Lastly you've got the unsung heroes of the city who keep it's pipes flowing, it's buildings standing, and it's streets and canals safe. Watching the tourists react to the different facets of the city and it's life within constantly takes me back to being in Orleans or Brewster in the middle of July. I remember my sister was asked one time where she went during the Winter when the Cape "closed". I can definitely see the locals here being treated much the same by the myriad of people visiting from every corner of the Globe.

That's all for today. Don't forget to check out Emily's blog for another side to this interesting story.

http://parisonastudentsbudget.blogspot.com