Volunteering at Arlington National Cemetery

This year I'm not volunteering at the White House.  Instead I decided to help with the annual wreath laying at Arlington National Cemetery.  Hans and I arrived by metro with over 5,500 other volunteers. 

Thanksgiving in Ithaca

My sister and her husband flew down to be with my nephew and his girlfriend in Ithaca, NY for Thanksgiving this year.  I hadn't seen any of them for the holidays for rather a long time, so Hans and I drove some quiet lesser highways in Pennsylvania and New York to meet up with them on Thanksgiving morning.

Missouri Friends and Family

One of my girlfriends from graduate school got married this month.  Since I hadn't visited any parts of Missouri since the move to Maryland five years ago, I jumped at the chance to support my friend at her wedding and also visit friends and family in other parts of the state.

 Also, Culvers' Butterburgers...

Arlington National Cemetery

Eternal Flame at JFK's grave.  Click the link below for more pictures.

Time Flies

The rest of this week definitely slipped by.  Between spending time with family and friends and doing a little nostalgic sight seeing the last three and a half days just breezed by.  This week was our anniversary and my dad's birthday.  Since he also retired this year we wanted to treat him and my mom to a nice meal, so up-up-up we went along the gondola at Alyeska to Seven Glaciers for a truly wonderful meal.

Too Many Moose

We spent most of the time with my folks, staying at their condo.  It was mostly a day of resting up and nursing my horrible mosquito bites.  After dinner Hans and I excitedly went back out to Kincaid Park for a round of disc golf, or so we thought!

Lurvely 'laska

This morning it was time to head back to Anchorage for the rest of our visit.  Half-way along our route we decided to stop at one of many random parking lots where you can just hop onto a trail.  I hiked Mt. Healy with an outdoor adventure activity through UAF when I was an undergrad and I remembered it was a kind of scrabbly but worth-it trek.

Daylight Hangover and Memory Lane

Rough morning.  I guess jet lag gets worse the older you get.  Go figure.  We got some "meh" coffee and went for a mild walk around campus.  Most things haven't changed, but the Duckering and Bunnell buildings are being merged into one!  It will be very interesting when it's done.  It looks like the design will take advantage of the southern exposure and hillside vantage.  The Wood Center has a new cafeteria being built, which is going to replace the dreaded Commons.  I was willing to finish the job and burn the empty Commons down but then someone told us the Campus Catholic Ministry was still using the building.  Oops.

Friends and Baseball in the Land of the Midnight Sun!

Still jet lagged, we were unable to sleep in very much.  I vaguely remember having a light breakfast in the hotel room from food we picked up at the grocery store last night.  There was an annual classic car show happening on the hotel property, so we woke ourselves by wandering around and looking at the vehicles.  Some of them we'd seen on the drive up from Anchorage.

350 Miles North to Fairbanks

I awoke sometime around 4am, still on east coast time.  This morning was one of those precious clear summer days in Anchorage.  We felt extremely guilty for leaving town.  Before heading up the Parks Highway I took Hans to Kincaid Park so he could see my brother's memorial bench.  We were amused that there was already a green Subaru in the parking lot, so I made sure to park right next to it.  When we came back from the bench, a third green Subaru had shown up.  Ha ha.  We took our time getting out of town.  We had a nice brunch at Middleway Cafe (one of our favorite spots) and got a few road snacks.

Half a Day in Sunny......Seattle?

Cheaper airfare meant a long layover in Seattle, which we didn't mind since we had just visited about  year ago.  We took the light rail downtown and headed straight for Pike's Place Market.  We had a tasty lunch at The Pike Brewing company and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the market.  There were Rainer cherries at a good price.  It was a clear 78-degree day so we had a little picnic outside with locals, families, and homeless people who'd come out to sun themselves.  Someone tried to sell us pot.  I didn't get a decent picture but you could actually see Mt. Rainer to the south!

Memorial Day Weekend in Pittsburgh

Friday: Nats vs Pirates at PNC park.  We lost.  At least the views were great.  We ate a late lunch at a gastropub where I had some tasty wings and Hans' burger came on a glazed donut "bun".



 

Force Majeure

Last night we saw our favorite comedian at the Warner Theater in DC!  We've missed out on seeing Eddie Izzard a couple of times ever since we were anywhere that he goes for his tours (not Alaska).

My face and abs still hurt from laughing so much.  His new material was pretty brilliant.  A late-arriving couple in the row in front of us almost got kicked out within the first 10 minutes of the show because the woman was ludicrously drunk and screaming "I love you!" and "You're fucking amazing!". 

Cherry Blossom Morning

Hans and I left home at 5:20 this morning to make sure we were at the Tidal Basin before dawn.  All the other kooky morning people and photographers of all skill levels and professions were hunkered down in the dark with their tripods.  Even the local news stations had claimed a portion of shoreline near the Jefferson Memorial.  Using a small flashlight, I set up somewhere between a couple of trees and Hans patiently waited for the sun to rise so that he could take telephoto pictures.  We had a lot of fun watching the starlings busily build nests in the cherry tree hollows.  Two hours flew by lighting-fast.  I've been downtown for the cherries a couple of times before.  The evening is wonderful for the sunset but I find that the early-morning crowd is more low-key and sparse.  Some people had set up coffee picnics and there were many couples and families having portraits done with professional photographers.  In the first light of day it's nearly impossible to take a bad picture!  Feeling hungry when we were done, we drove all the way to Baltimore for breakfast at our favorite diner.

Fin

I've been back for a few days now, finally not jet-lagged.  It's been nice to settle back into my routine but I do miss having a nice big breakfast prepared for me every morning!  Thanks to everyone for following along as I was madly posting and trying to keep up every day.  I'm so glad I did this trip with Maury!  If you'd like to go back to the beginning of the trip, click on the link below.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING!

France: Last Day in Paris

This morning we started at the catacombs of Paris.  The area in southern Paris was originally quarried as early as the first century for limestone, used to build Lutecia.  By the 13th century tunnels were cut into the limestone, which was used to build Notre Dame Cathedral.  The resulting empty space was later used to house the remains of over six million Parisians.  The total network of tunnels is about 200 miles, but visitors get to traverse only about a mile.

Between the 1700s and 1800s all of the graveyards in Paris were closed due to concerns over sanitation.  There were so many bodies overcrowding cemeteries and church yards that the bones were starting to break through the walls of earthen cellars of nearby buildings!  The solution was that the remains were all dug up and placed into the catacombs.  At first the bones were dumped rather unceremoniously, then they were stacked neatly and into patterns.  They are organized by which cemetery they originated from, though some bodies were taken directly to the catacombs during or after the Revolution.  There are many markers and memorials.

We climbed down, down, down, into the dark tunnels.  There is occasional lighting, but a flashlight helps.  There was a black line on the ceiling from the days when visitors had only flashlights or lanterns and needed to orient themselves.  I'm very glad to live in a modern age!  The ground was damp and slippery in parts, and Maury accidentally bumped someone's skull while nearly falling down (she did say "pardon").

After, we took the metro back to the city center and crossed the Tuileries gardens to the Orangerie museum, where some of Monet's famous Water Lilies murals are housed the way they were intended: Eight huge canvases displayed across two oval-shaped rooms.  We were kind of blown away.  The variety of light and color usage was beautiful.  If this trip had been a little later in the season we would have been able to see Monet's gardens and house at Giverny but in March it is still closed from the winter season.  I would have to say that the Orangerie was more than an acceptable alternative!

Since we were so close to the Louvre, we went in through the Carousel entrance, had lunch at the American restaurant with golden arches at the food court, and browsed part of the museum for a few hours.  It was nice that visitors were allowed to take pictures, but in a way I kind of wished that it was banned (see pictures below to see what I mean).  Still, we covered some of the more famous pieces like the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and Liberty Leading the People.

Maury and I were actually kind of tired after, so we went back to the hotel and had a nice rest before the final farewell dinner with everyone at a restaurant.  It was nice to say goodbye to everyone and take pictures with fellow travelers.  I was asked to give out the web address to my blog a couple of times so I hope that I accurately re-capped the whole trip!

After dinner Maury and I took one more stroll along the Seine to see the Eiffel Tour at night.  Tres bon!

Warning: not for people of "a nervous disposition"

 

The Orangerie

 Approaching the Louvre, Venus de Milo inside

 Sometimes you forgot you were inside a palace

 On the right, Michelangelo's Tortured Slave

 Mona Lisa's paparazzi

Most people would push their way to the front of the line and snap a

"selfie" with the painting rather than actually look at it 

This bridge was very close the the hotel

and I recognised it from the movie Inception 

The "little sister"

Au revoir!  Time to go home tomorrow.

-Dani

France: Paris!

What we did today:

• Climbed about 400 steps to the top of the south tower at Notre Dame
• Saw some incredible stained glass at Sainte Chapelle
• Went for a nice walk in the Latin Quarter and had a nice but cheap meal for lunch
• Saw many paintings by Van Gogh at the Musee D'Orsay that had been painted in Arles

First, I'd like to sadly report that Paris is pretty polluted these days (just this month there was a ban on half the city's cars to try to control the smog levels that are over twice what's considered "safe").  There's a very obvious haze over the city at all times and the air is fairly irritating, especially during rush hour.  Early in the morning it's still quite pleasant to walk around but at the end of the day I feel especially stinky and dirty.  Here's this morning's view outside our window.  It's not mist...

OK, now to the pictures of our adventure!

 Place de Vosages, a posh square built by Henry IV in 1605.

In the left photo, the corner house on the right is where Victor Hugo lived when he wrote Les Miserables

 City Hall for Paris (each district in the city has it's own city hall too)

A little teaser of Notre Dame

 Views from the Chimera Gallery (46 meters above ground), where many famous gargoyles can be viewed

 Back down on the ground, you can see where we were 69 meters up!

 The interior was a little tricky to photograph

 Jesus' crown of thorns (?) on the left

 Exterior view of the south tower

 On the right, pictures of Sainte Chapelle's lower chapel

Main chapel with exquisite stained glass and extensive renovation happening.

Each window was being carefully removed and re-soldered since the lead has been

badly damaged by time and mostly pollution 

 

We were only able to take a couple of interior shots of the Musee D'Orsay (which is inside an old rail station) because otherwise no photos were allowed.  We mostly went to the impressionism exhibits.  There was a special Van Gogh exhibit entitled The Man Suicided by Society, which explored an essay by poet and playwright Antonin Artaud (1896-1948).  There were many works based off of what Maury and I saw in Arles, so it was kind of profound to stand and look through the squiggly brush strokes and imagine the same scenes that we'd stood in front of.  There were many works done while Van Gogh was at a hospital in St. Remy de Provence, which we drove by on our way to Les Baux.

We also discovered the odd, satirical, morbid, and beautiful works of Gustave Dore, who was probably the most talented and versatile artist of his day (1832-1883).  I've decided I don't like Renoir.  Blasphemy!

A bientot,

*cough, cough*

-Dani