mammals go to Europe

Well I came away from Versailles confident in the knowledge that King Louis XIV had an ego about the same size as France. In the lineup to get into the Palace, we met some Versailles Penguins, picking up scraps of food.  It was a carnival-like atmosphere.  Hall of Mirrors.   View from Marie Antoinette’s bed chamber. I think I’m going to start having busts and paintings of myself all over the manor house at home.  See how that goes down with the friends and fam.  Versailles was pretty spectacular, and nice to know that it’s bringing in some revenue finally after so many decades of decadence draining the coffers dry. After Versailles, ice cream was required to face the train ride back to Paris. We found a lovely place for dinner. One of our favourite pastimes. After dinner we went to the Musée d’Orsay, in a retired train station.  It is a remarkable museum, filled with Impressionist and neo Impressionist works of art. ...

We started our day with...you guessed it.   Coffee and croissant.  Made it a double.  Because tired. Mid morning we headed up to Montmartre and Sacré-cœur.  Paris is a flat city, and this is the high spot of the city, the neighbourhood on Montmartre.  The basilica at the top of Montmartre, Sacred Heart - is one of the city’s best vantage points.  We happened to show up to attend the noon Mass.  We walked up to the viewpoint in the dome of the basilica to have a 360 degree view of the city, including a bird’s eye view of the Eiffel Tower. We lunched at a little Montmartre cafe, Le Panorama.   Our bus me - and - ered back to the heart of the city, so we traffic watched (wow, really, Paris?)  Traffic circles representative of levels of Dante’s Inferno. Next stop.  The Louvre.  Once the palatial home of French kings, this expansive museum hold 35, 000 works of art.  That’s a lotta art.  I would guess w...

A full day in Paris is a very full day. Because busy and people and walking.  So lovely. First stop, croissant and coffee and our little patisserie across the street.   A little philosophy of life and talking to French people (FYI, they’re EVERYWHERE). A.  Dorable. Anyway. We then walked through the lovely streets of Paris, from the neighborhood we are staying and for quite a ways past our bus stop.  We got onto our OpenTour bus and toured the city from the top for a couple of hours...stopping occasionally for fun and food. It rained.  Paris is lovely in the rain, but I must admit, also wet.  So we busted out our dollar store ponchos, undaunted by wetness (we are, after all, west coasters).  Pictured here are a few of the hotspots we visited.  Including bookstores, gardens and churches from the last seven or eight centuries. St. Chapelle, commissioned by Albert’s forbear, King Saint Louis IX, was spe...

If you ever imagine that heaven will be boring, just forget about it.  Beauty never gets old.  Today, migrating north east from my corner of the globe to Paris via Iceland, we observed out our window, a perpetual sunset.  For five hours.  It paused for about half an hour and reappeared as a sunrise.  Quote of the day:  “We are about to go over Greenland.”  “I’ve always wanted to go to Greenland.” At 10:33 pm back home, we went over the northern tip of the mythical Hudson Bay. It’s possible that Iceland doesn’t exist.  But, then, there it is, looming, cool and treeless in the distant airport.  They had coffee there and spoke with fun accents and public washrooms are called “snyrting.” Fast forward seven hours.   It’s 5:29 am at home.  We are flying over Glasgow, and I wave to your ancestral land, Alex and all the Burnetts. We land in Paris, wearily find our accommodation and retreat there for a while.  We venture...

People are packing their bags.  That's a good sign.  We each have one very compact carry on (we are being dictated to by the small intercontinental airlines whose baggage limits are spare), and one checked back for the seven of us.  It is large and blue. The division of labour for packing and getting ready is actually not fair. See you on the other side.  Of the Georgia Strait.  

We are flying Vancouver to Paris via Iceland.  It's efficient, and we can say we've been to Iceland, even if only for a couple of hours. Here's what I know about Iceland.   Information regarding Iceland from my brain:___________________________. Am I going to find out more?  Not likely. Because I don't care?  No, not at all.   Because I won't make it out of the airport?  Bingo.  One day.  Maybe even one day soon, I would like to go to Iceland for the sake of Iceland.  But this trip is scratching the surface of France, and delving a little more deeply into Italy.   We will be in Paris for the first few days, then we'll be getting our rental van the day we leave to address points Normandy, Brittany, Loire Valley and Provence/Riviera before we fly from Nice to Rome.  I purchased a little picnic lunch pack yesterday.  In my romantic idealism about France, we will picnic, and and icepack and a place fo...

It was a particularly French afternoon in our back yard Sunday.  Being sunny and eating out of doors and even though the bubbly was Italian, it felt very French.   If you know what I mean. Joining us on the France portion of our adventure is this gal, here with my Sparky: Sister to Sparky  and Aunt Extraordinaire, fluent in French (thank God for small miracles) and fluent in fun, the main reason we expect great things from our travelling companion.  Prosecco required for planning purposes.  Read the riot act, decided some strategies and nailed down a few details that need attending to prior to departure. 

So for the last nearly three months, I've been working on Project 333  which has been fun and interesting and a highly recommended way to simplify your life. Just one more path to simpler. Upside of 333 at this time of my life, we are leaving on a trip and I am acutely aware of how very little I need. I've always travelled light, and now I'm even lightening up from the usual, because at the bottom of the suitcase, there are always a couple of unworn items. Here's the plan. Four weeks.  Two skirts, wear one.  One pair palazzo pants. One dress. Five tops.  Two cardigans.  Light jacket. Shoes, as always, pose the very biggest problem.  I've settled on three pairs.  Gaah.  I wish I could cut it down to two.  But no can do.  It hurts too much.  And I would experience Europe with regrets.  And we definitely don't want that. We are each taking a bare bones carry on, and sharing one checked bag.  Our carry ons are ...

So, in honour of our pending trip to France and Italy, I have invented (I might even say, "perfected") Vitamix gelato. I share it with you here: Step 1:  get a Vitamix. Step 2: crack six eggs and put the yolks in your Vitamix, make meringue or throw away the whites, I don't care at all. Step 3: whir the egg yolks in your Vitamix for 5-10 min. or until you are confident they are cooked. Step 4:  Add sugar to the egg yolks while whirring.  Enough to make them sweet. Could be honey or maple syrup.  I don't mind. Step 5:  Add half and half to your egg yolk, sugar mixture while whirring away.  Maybe about two cups.  At this point, you will need to put the lid on the Vitamix.   For splashing reasons. Step 6:  Start adding frozen fruit  a little at a time.  Like strawberries or blueberries or mango. Step 7:  Keep adding frozen fruit until your mixture is VERY thick, so that your Vitamix makes that "I can't handle any more" ...