France

Ahhh. Paris. The city of light. Cool enough, when we were there Paris was hosting the 2007 Rugby World Cup. One of our first outings we headed down to the Eiffel Tower. It was beautiful. Lit with green lights, one of the colors of the reining World Cup team, and bustling with tons of people. It was about 10:00pm and still there were many toursit milling about taking in the sight. As we aproached the base of the Tower we stopped and just stared. Looking up and down taking in as much of the full view of it as we could before moving in closer to head underneath. As we stared at the Tower it began to twinkle. Hundreds of lights blinking on and off. It took our breath away.





Under the Eiffel Tower.

The rest of our time in Paris was spent doing the tourist thing, Notre Dame, Versaille and the Louvre. Our hotel was in Bastille area. We did wander around the streets of our neighborhood a bit. Most people spoke only French, the hotel staff and a couple of people at a restaurant we went to spoke English, but that was mostly it. My extensive French 1 vocabulary was not useful here.


Outside of the Pompidou.



Gardens at Versailles.


Outside the Louvre at night and the Arc de Triomphe du Carousel.


On a metro platform.





I thought this was only an American thing. I think it says "Jews for Jesus".


That's the Mona Lisa?!?

Non Sequitur

This may have been one of the strangest things I saw on this trip. By the way there is nothing in this toilet bowl except for tissue. I know I put it there. Anyway, there was a black light in each stall of this restroom in Victoria Station. If you know the place, it's upstairs in the back of the food court near the McDonald's. I can't figure out why they would do this? Security reasons? I didn't see this anywhere else. Someone throwing parties in the bathroom? I don't know, weird.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam. What can I say? Had a great time. One night. A long night. Our hotel, not so good. We wanted to stay out all night so that all we had to do is sleep there. That was pretty easy to do. There was so much going on all night in Amsterdam. All we needed to do for fun was walk around and take in the downtown neighborhood. We strolled through the infamous Red Light district, checked out a cafe, walked along some canals, got lost and enjoyed every minute trying to find our way back to our hotel. We came upon some really neat corners like Sint Olofsteeg. It is the oldest part of the Red Light district and the area where they first started building Amsterdam, I was told. There is an intersection of canals there and there happened to be a boat drifting down the canal. The tall flat rowhouses sitting right in the canals looked pretty surreal to me and the lights from the street and windows of the rowhouses created an eerie mood especially when I noticed some of the windows shining red.
Everyone has a bike. I'm sure of it. I have never seen so many bikes in my life. I did notice it was pretty flat place so I can see how bike riding caught on so much. People were really friendly too. People would ride past you on their bike, look at you with your map and a confused face, and stop, turn around and come back to see if they could help you. That happened twice to us.
We spent too little time in Amsterdam. I would like to go back.





Sint Olofsteeg.

London III

So our last day in London was spent at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Soho, Leicester Square, Primark, and the out to Dalston Junction to see a favorite band of ours, Caribou at Bardens Boudoir. Apparently the Tube strike ended the morning of our second day but the Underground officials did not have the ability to notify all the workers so the Tube wasn't up and running fully until we left. We still pressed on and found out how to get to the V&A by bus and Primark as well. (BTW, Primark is this really cheap store that is about a city block long and a city block deep, it's like a fashionable Target without the electronics, bath, snackbar, and kitchen departments) We had great time but again we were racing around. We took off in the morning, 8:30am or 9:00, to the V&A, great museum, free, so that made awesome before we even went inside. They have a great variety of art from the across the ages, if you get a chance to go check out their History, Periods and Styles gallery. When we left the museum we noticed that one or maybe more sides, we didn't check, looked as if they had been bombarded with some kind of weapon fire. I never found out what happened but I imaginged it was from WWII. Next we headed over to Leicester Square, we did an ok job finding it, but ended up getting off the bus in Soho, Leicester Square was not far though. While in Soho, we checked out a small photo gallery and saw some kind of weird wall art, it made my skin crawl. Our main purpose in going to Leicester Square was to find Primark, because that's were we could get turquoise skinny jeans, but alas Primark is actually on Oxford St. which isn't near Leicester Square at all. No worries though we found or way to Primark and got some nice pants. Later we headed back to the hotel, ate near by, rested up and headed back out to Dalston Junction to see Caribou. We got to meet Dan Snaith, front man for the band and shot some photos of him and headed back home, a great end to our time in London.


Side of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Looks like weapon fire, right?


Leicester Square. These show girl looking women were dressed for an event with the World Series of Poker.


Soho. The eyeball is an actual hole in the wall.


When exiting the Tube on our first time using it, there were no ads around. Weird. The Tube is usually bombarded with ads.


Caribou plays Bardens Boudoir.


Mr. Daniel Snaith, Caribou's main man.

The morning we left we spent inside Victoria Station. When we got to the there the Evening Standard headlines hit us with the sad news that Pavorrotti had died. It's sad to loose someone whose plight was to bring art to the masses. One hopes there will be someone to pick up where he left off. Unfortunately that morning, I was nursing a wicked hang over and Richard was running around to find a decent breakfast, kind of a wild goose chase if you have ever tried to find something good and quick to eat in London. We eventually settled on McDonald's breakfast sandwiches and then headed off to the train that would take us back to Gatwick Airport and head over to Amsterdam. By the way, if you are travelling through London and need to get somewhere fast by plane, DON'T FLY OUT OF GATWICK!!! I don't know what those people are doing at that airport but whatever it is they are doing they are doing it v e r y s l o w l y . Fly out of Heathrow.


Good Bye Pavarotti.

London's Gatwick Airport has a water theme going. At first I didn't get it, but now that I think about it, Britannia est insula. (Britain is an island) (that was for my sisters)

London II

Our stay in London was short. We tried to pack in as much as we could during the day, napped in the evening and woke up at night and went walking around. Our first day we noticed a lighted tree garden near the Tate and decided to return later so I could take some photos. That night we took the same path to the Tate which took us along the Thames and I shot some photos of the area. The night walk was just as interesting as the walk during the day, the mood was great, kind of eerie because the waterfront was almost completely empty. Just our luck, the lights were off in the tree garden. No worries though there were still many pictures to make of other things.


A footbridge across the Thames.


The Eye at night.




Same graffed area from London I.


The skyline facing St. Paul's Cathedral.


Lit trees. Very magical. Very nice.

London I

When we planned this trip we left alot of it pretty flexible, so if we were in some place for not too long we figured out a couple of different places we possibly wanted to hit and then planned one thing to definetly do. We were only in London for two nights so we figured we could see a museum or two, the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum, see a show, music that is, Caribou at Bardens Boudoir to be exact, and leave the rest of the time to walking around the London city streets. Well, we were pretty successful in our efforts to stick to the plan, but after getting to our hotel, dropping our bags and set off to see some sites, we were informed that the Tube workers were on strike and the subway was not in use. Great! If you have ever been to London you know the ease the Tube brings to your travel experience. They have tons of lines that go everywhere and it's quick. Most travel books will also list what Tube stop an attraction is near so alot of the figuring is done for you. Well, that strike really set in our Amazing Race experience. We had to quickly figure out London's urban bus service which I found kind of difficult. It took up a lot of time, but it made for really good exercise. For our first outting we wanted to go to the Tate Modern, after spending 20min trying to figure out a map we just ended up asking a bus driver which route to take to go to The TATE MODERN and we were off. Well, that driver sent us to the Tate Britian. Hungry and losing time on our first day, we asked someone at the Museum how to get to the TATE MODERN. They gave us a route told us it would be about a 20min walk and we set off again. Well, I guess if you have bionic legs it takes you only twenty minutes because we were walking fast, and it ended up taking us like an hour to get there, I did stop for a couple of shots, but they were shots like, I saw a boot on the ground, looked up at the London Eye and saw some skaters. No worries though, we burned lots of calories, saw some funny things and found out where to get turquoise skinny jeans.



This was taken our second day in London. The strike hassels lasted until about 7:00pm our second day.


Londoners waiting for the bus. This is right before we took the wrong bus route to the Tate Modern.


Now I only saw one of these boots on the ground. This is a pretty nice boot. I bet there is someone out there really mad trying to figure out how they lost this boot.


Looking up at the London Eye.


On the waterfront near the Tate is this little cut away area that skaters and graf artist do there thing.


Finally at the Tate.


St. Paul's Cathedral in background.


St. Paul's Cathedral reflected in a double decker bus. We didn't make St. Paul's in enough time to go in because they were finishing up a church service.

Uploading Europe

Two weeks in Europe. My boyfriend and I. Left September 3rd from Philadelphia, arrived September 4th in London, returned to Philly September 17th. Spent two nights in London, one night in Amsterdam, three nights in Paris, four nights in Barcelona and two nights in Amersham, UK. A chaotic trip. Felt like that show The Amazing Race. Had an amazing time. My boyfriend said, "It's going to be like Apocalypse Now, everything is going to get more surreal as we travel up the river." He was right. The posts above on this blog are photos from along the way, things that caught my eye, museums and other places visited.

Juniper St.

From above @Sansom.

Paper airplane graf

Good graffiti In an abandoned building on Juniper St.

My Old House

2101 Old York Hampton Hwy. Yorktown, VA.

The Raven Lounge

1718 Sansom St.

At VA Beach