Ciao!

Hello everyone. I am currently in Rome with my cousins and my brother. Last night we arrived in Rome and met up with my two friends from College Station. We went to eat at a real italian restuarant. It was cool.. kinda mafia like. Then we were going to walk to the Trevi Fountain but it started pouring rain! We were upset that we couldnt go but we just went back to the hostel and there were lots of people hanging out because of the rain. We met some girls from New Jersey and some other students from Massachusetts studying in Switzerland. We sat around and played a few games then we realized the rain had let up. So we suggested walking to the Trevi Fountain. Everyone agreed and off we went. Good thing one of the guys from Mass. had been there earlier that day or we would have been miserably lost! We made it there and got home around 2 am. It was a random evening, but it ended up being a fun one.
Allison and Scott left early to fly back to Texas, while the four of us slept in until 1030 AM! I havent slept that late in months. It was sooo good! We got up and had showers and made our way to the metro. We were going to Vatican city to see the Vatican Museum and St. Peters.
First stop, Vatican museum. This museum is huge! I had been here once before, but the boys hadnt. The highlight of this museum is, obviously, the Sistine Chapel. We went in there and Dewey bootlegged some pictures of the ceiling. It was funny.
Anyways, then we went and ate some "holy" pizza at the vatican pizzeria to tide us over until we could eat a real meal. Then we went next door to St. Peters. It is the largest church in the world! We saw michealangelos Pieta and the tombs where the Popes are buried.
We left there and made our way to Piazza Del Popolo to get some food.
Next stop, Coloseum. Well, we decided we would walk through there later on tonight because we were exhausted! So, I went and took a nap and the boys found a laundramat to do a little clothes washing. Thats where where we are right now.
Tomorrow, we leave here in the morning. Spence and Dewey are headed straight for Florence, and Will and I are attending to a special Gucci assignment before he heads back to Florence. Their plane heads out early sunday morning.
thats all for now... XOXO AJL

Happy Thanksgiving from Italy! We are all donning the Indian feathers and Pilgrim hats for our big feast at 1 PM.
Yesterday, we had a large time on the field trip. The day started out at 8 AM with an hour and a half bus ride to Orvieto. It was a dreary day.. Raining a bit. Once we got to Orvieto we had to go on this tram type thing straight up the side of a mountain. Once in the city we went inside the church. It was a beautiful Romanesque/Gothic Style Church. After a short lecture on the church we were free to roam about the city. It was a beautiful little medieval city and not crowded at all, which was nice. After some lunch and gelat (ice cream) we sprinted through the rain back to the bus.
Thirty minutes later we approached Civita! It was soooooo amazing! It was this small little city perched high high on a little hill. You will have to see pictures of it. To get to this city you had to walk over a foot bridge which stood many feet above the valley. You will have to see pictures of this place to understand the magnificence. Anyhow, stepping into this city was like stepping into a time warp. It still looked very medieval and there were very few people there. We went expoloring around the city and found a tunnel that apparently was dug by early farmers to store their crops in winter. We ate some pizza and headed for the bus. We got a two hour nap in and arrived home at 6 o clock. We had a great dinner then went to get cafe' (coffee) at this little bar down the street. Mario, the owner, was quite nice to us and he and Dewey, W&S had a large time discussing motorcycles in broken English, Italian, and Spanish.
This morning Allison and Scott left for Rome. We leave after lunch and we are meeting up with them for dinner tonight in Rome.
Hope you are having a great thanksgiving. We are missing our food, football, and most of all family.. :)
Ciao from Italy-- A, D, W&S

One more update for the fam because I know they are itching to hear about the boys....
They called earlier today to let me know when they would be arriving in Castiglion Fiorentino. It seems the Ferarri plant excursion is taking longer than expected so they will arrive around 8 o clock tonight. Also, Allison and Scott are arriving today around 6 p.m. We will hang out tonight at the local pub because a sister of one of my friends here is visiting and she is a country music singer so she will be playing live there tonight. So I figured we would go support her!
Tomorrow, all five of us will get up for the 8:30 school field trip to Civita and Orvieto. They are riding the bus with us. It is supposed to be spectacular. I am glad my visitors will get the opportunity to see a couple of small Tuscan towns, because Im not sure that they would have seen them otherwise. Then we will return to school that evening in time for dinner. Allison and Scott are going to Rome and Dewey, Will and Spence and I will be going thanksgiving day. Then they will return to Florence and I will return to Castiglion Fiorentino on saturday evening.
should be fun! Im looking forward to seeing them in a few hours. love to all- AJL

London is coming! Don't worry...
For now, the next installment of Roomate spotlight!! Yea..
LEEANNE is her name. She is a (5th year) senior English major from Weatherford TX. She is graduating this December as I am! She, too, will be moving back home with the parents for a while, so as you can already see we have a heck of a lot in common already.
Now, the family details.... Her dads name is Bullet Bob (so she tells me).. Bullet Bob has had a couple of occupations in life. First he was a lawyer in the military. They travelled all around the world, from Hawaii to the far east to Georgia. Now, he is retired from the military and he went to seminary and is now a preacher at a church in Weatherford.
Lee Annes mom is named Jennie and she is a high school counselor at Aledo High. She is a very busy woman.. she doesnt get the summers off like the teachers!
Bullet Bob and Jennie met at Ole Miss when one of them was in grad school and one of them was an undergad (i think).. as they are both from the Mississippi Delta.
Lee Anne has one sister, Sarah, and she is married to Jack and has two precious kids, Peyton and Bryce, they like to refer to as "the pookies, or the pooks." I have seen pictures and they are just the cutest things ever.. They are aged 2 and 1.
Lee Anne has high aspirations in life. Her dream job is to be an editor for In Style Magazine. Yes, she reads every issue cover to cover without interruption usually. She is always on the cutting edge of fashion and is really helpful to us not so fashion savvy girls. Well, we like fashion, but I think its safe to say Lee Anne loves fasion.
Another great hobby of hers is reading and writing. She writes for a maganize in College Station called The scene. In fact she did a piece for them entitled "24 hours in Italy." As far as reading goes, she has devoured more books this semester than Jessica and I combined. Let's just say her bookshelf at home has to be brimming with books!
She is just plain fun to be around. She is always making me laugh with her great sense of humor. She has been such a great member of our room. I love her so much because she is such a loyal person and is so generous with everything she has. In fact, when I want to borrow something of hers I am not allowed to ask anymore, I am instructed to simply go ahead and borrow it.. (except for the Prada purse, of course, but that goes without saying, right?? :)
I am excited about seeing her in the future. We have already made plans to go meet up with Jessica in Austin some weekend in the not to distant future. I can't believe the semester is almost over, It is going to be hard to leave these precious friends.

CELEBRATE!! Jessica is an aunt! We found out in London that Jamie, Jess's sister, gave birth yesterday (11/22/03) to a baby girl, Faith Bronwin Marrs! She weighed in at 9 lb. 7 oz. Wowee! Last word was that the baby is doing great and she will be going home tomorrow.
Jessica is so excited about her new niece... only two more weeks until she gets to see her for the first time.

Hey all! I am not dead, I just have been incredibly busy with school work. Yes, they finally decided to make us do a little work.

We are in London! We flew in yesterday, Thursday, and today we have been sightseeing. It is absolutely fabulous here! I love the atmosphere and the English language is great to hear again. No, we did not have to bring the pocket translator on this trip! Wahoo.
We arrived around noon time in london yesterday. We spent the day shopping around. There is plenty of shopping to do, mind you. Then we ate at the Texas Embassy, a Tex-Mex restaurant near Traflagar Square (sp?). And, yes, I know what you're thinking... wasnt there an anti-Bush rally in Traflagar Square last night? Yes, there was. Quite ironic to be dining in perfect texas style right next to a bunch of bush haters, but whatever. We had a great time. Perhaps the highlight of the Texas Embassy was the Aggie flag hanging proudly on the wall and the pair of JB SMITH SHERRIF TYLER TX prison boxer shorts hanging from a lamp. NO KIDDING!! I had my picture made with them.
Then we went home and went to sleep. We were exhausted.
This morning we got up and went to starbucks (another thing we miss from home, dearly). We then got the double decker bus tour from a very hilarious guy, malcom. Let me tell you it brightened his day to have seven girls from texas on his bus and he let everyone know it too.
Throughout the day we saw all the major sights. Westminster, Big Ben, Parliment, Tower of London, Globe Theater, London Bridge. It is great!
tomorrow we plan on going to the Tate modern and visiting the largest dept store ever, Harrods. Its famous im told.
then we are going to try to go see a show tomorrow night. I am so excited about seeing a show. We are going to try to get half priced tickets tomorrow.
On one last note before I sign off, this is my last big trip with all of my friends. That is so sad. Man has it flown by and I will not know what to do next time I take a trip and they're not there. We have such fun together!
Well, i will write more later.. maybe sunday when i get home.
Dewey, Will, Spence, allison and scott are coming this week! YAY.
bye for now AJL

Roomate Spotlight:
I have been thinking for a while that a roomate spotlight would be fun to do. Besides, these girls are some of my best friends now and a big part of my life. You, my readers, have no idea about them except maybe their names. Maybe.
So today I am going to spotlight my roomate Jessica.
She is a senior this year (class of 2004) and an architecture major. She is originally from Baton Rouge, LA, but now her parents live in Humble, a suburb of Houston. She comes from a rather large family. Mom and Dad, two older brothers and an older sister. One of her brothers is a swimmer who is training to compete at the olympic trails early this next summer. If he makes it he will be swimming for the USA team in Greece! So cool. He is married to a girl who is a diver. Cool, huh? Her other brother is in the Air Force. From what she has told me they are the typical older brothers who never grew up. Apparently, they still enjoy picking on their little sister!
Jessica's older sister, Jamie, is 25 and she, too, went to A&M. Her sister is excpecting a little bundle of joy any day now. Last I heard she was due in about five days. She is going to name it Faith, how cute!
Jessica has a cool story. She lived in Saudi Arabia as a young child. Her father's job took them over there to live for a few years. They have moved around quite a bit as I understand with his job. He is a mechanical engineer. Her mom is a stay at home mom.
And the family wouldn't be complete without a mention of the most important member of the family, Madeline, or Maddie the cat. The reason I am so well aquainted with Maddie is she sends Jessica greeting cards all the time and also Jessica had to call Maddie on her birthday the other day.
Onto Jessica-- She is a fun easy going girl! We have a lot of fun together and we have been on a lot of trips together this semester. We didn't know each other at the beginning of this trip but have become very close. She is hilarious. Sometimes she just says something and I can't stop laughing. She is blunt and tells it like it is. I like that in a person. I've noticed it's becoming harder and harder to find a good honest person these day... and she sure is one. She is a very talented artist and architect. The other day she just drew a model out of a magazine we had laying in our room. Both Lee Anne and I were astounded. It was amazing! Sad thing is, she isn't sure she wants to be an architect after all. She thinks maybe she would like to do something more along the lines of interior design possibly. But it's all about doing something you love, right?
she has the sweetest boyfriend ever. He sends her letters and all kinds of stuff all the time. As you might remember he left her a note on the Eiffel Tower. All the girls just gush over how great of a boyfriend he is. We all feel like we know Austin, even though we have never talked to him nor met him. Only thing is, he is a tsip. For those of you who don't know that means he goes to the other university in TX. oh well, worse things have happened.
Yay for jessica! I am so glad she is my roomate!!

Two tests down, one to go in the Psychology of Animal Behavior Class. Did I mention that my prof. decided to have three tests in three weeks? Yeah he sure did. Not sure what he was thinking when he did that. We, the students, always seem to manage, though.
Anyways, enough about that. Tests aren't that exciting to take, much less read and write about. Blah.
So lets talk about Munich, or Munchen as the locals like to call it. First and foremost, I would like to preface this post with a comment about the German language. To me, it bears no resemblance to any language I have ever heard in my life. The way they get that gutteral sound to come out of their mouths is beyond me. In my opinion, it is utterly confusing and perhaps impossible to speak and or understand. The havoc that my zero language comprehension caused upon my trip was perhaps the only bad thing about the whole weekend. Well, I take that back..the language barrier and my smooth move of accidentally shoving a straw up my nose were perhaps the only low points for the entire trip. And the straw up the nose incident wasn't so much a low point as it was an embarrassingly funny point. But, Ill get to the story a bit later.
Ahh, Munchen. IT all started off on a night train out of Florence. It was relatively uneventful except for the fact that we got real bonafide FEATHER pillows. A first for me and completely unheard of in the sleeper train world! Germans know how to outfit a bed, for sure! Oh, something cool did happen on the train. I heard a girl down the hall talking about how she went to Baylor. I thought to myself, now isn't that crazy. So, I went and talked to her. Turns out her boyfriend is named Travis Dunn and is from Tyler. I don't know him, but, as it turns out one of his friends from Tyler (will cagle) is engaged to Amy Gulley, who I went to school with and church with in Junior high!! How crazy is that!
So, we get to Munchen the next morning. The station is so nice and clean and new. Jessica, my traveling partner and my roomate at the school in Italy, got info from her boyfriend who studied abroad in Germany last semester. He told her that Germany was really clean, and he was right. First and only order of the day was to go to the "Cinderella Castle" in Fussen called Neuswanstein Castle(prob. butchered the spelling) about two hours away by train. We slept the whole way there on the train; we were exhausted! Once there it was so wonderful. This castle was up on a mountain and was surrounded by gorgeous trees that were turning in time for fall. We rode up the mountain and stopped at a bridge that overlooked the castle. There was a waterfall and everything. We got tons of pictures because it was one of the most picturesque places I have ever seen or been to. We got a tour of the castle which was built in the late 1800s for Bavarian kind Ludwig II. He, unfortunately, died before it's completion so it stands partially unfinished on the inside. After we toured the castle we walked around the town and had some lunch. We hopped back on the train and were back in Munchen about 6 p.m. That night we had some Mexcian food at a place that was highly recommended to us. It was a very crowded and very hip place to be. We were supposed to have reservations but we got a seat anyways, amazingly. This is where the dreaded straw incident happened. Jessica and I were finished with our dinner and sipping on our drinks, chatting and just having a good time. I pick up my drink to take a sip and I, by accident, jam the straw up my nose. It hurt so bad but it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing and neither could jessica. All the people around us were German, and they were just watching and laughing. I grabbed a napkin and headed for the bathroom to try and stop the bleeding. Luckily, it wasn't too bad of a wound. I think it might have wounded my pride more than anything. haha
so anyways, then we went to our hostel and went to sleep at like 10:30. still exhausted. Traveling really takes it out of you.
The next day we went to a science/history museum called the Deutches Museum. It is full of cool stuff like exhibits on everything from aeronautics to space travel to textile manufacturing to astronomy. It was so big and so fun. It was a real hands on kind of place. The highlight of that museum would have to be seeing a real live German U-boat. It was cut out on the side so I could see all of the insides of it.
After the museum, we just did a little strolling around the town and some shopping. There is so much shopping to be done in this city! Gotta love that. Jeff- there was a whole store that had those kind of knives you like, you know the one with the logo with the two little red men on it. You would have loved it. Did you know they were made in Germany? Im sure you did.
That night we went out to the classic tourist destination- Hoffbrauhaus. It's a gigantic place not too far from Marienplatz (if you know the geography of Munchen). We had some beer and brats. Some German boys sat by us but they didn't talk to us because I guess they didn't know English. After a lot of food and a lot of singing we went back again to sleep early. The next morning was Sunday, our last for Munchen. We went to see Olympic Park out in the outskirts of town. It was a really cool place. I have decided that I really want to go to an Olympics some day. Jessica's brother is a swimmer and is trying out for the 2004 games in Athens. I told her if he makes it I'll have to try to come.
anyways, we walked around the lake in Olympic park and sat on a bench and watched the swans for a while. I didn't know it at the time I was there, but my mom was at the olympic games in Munich in 72. She told me on the phone yesterday. Kindof cool to be retracing her steps.
Then that afternoon, we went to the English Gardens and walked through there a bit. It is a huge park! We had a Radler in by the Chinese tower and then we went and saw an American movie in English. We saw Intolerable Cruelty. It was ok, not that great in my opinion. But Jessica and I decided that was immaterial at this point. We saw our first movie in a theater in quite a while and we were just excited about that!
After that, we decided on one last authentic German meal. We headed to the WeissBrahaus which is by Marienplatz as well. I had the best potato soup of my life and some spinach and mushroom spatzle. It was yummy.
Well, thats the end of Munich, but hopefully not forever. There is so much to see there, as well. Jess and I had a wonderful time and we both agreed on the train ride home that it was one of the top 3 or 4 places we have been.
Well, that's about all for now from here. Tomorrow we go to the Borgello galleries in Florence for our field trip.
Not long until my visitors come to Italy. If you don't already know Dewey, Will and Spence are coming for ten days surrounding thanksgiving. Also, two friends from A&M are coming as well. It will be a crazy week but I am so excited!
Love you all lots! Eat lots of pie for me on Thanksgiving. Not sure what I'll be eating that day but I will be thinking of you all, no doubt! Ciao!

Two Blog posts today!! What's the deal, you may ask? Ahh, a little time and a lot of procrastination on an art history paper equal two blogs in one day!!

This blog has one purpose. It is a shout out to the one and only Lauren Taylor. Everyone, today is a very special day for this very special lady (my roomate last year). She gets her Aggie ring today!!!! I just wanted to use this public forum to say Congrats, Lauren. Way to go, you did it and now you can celebrate a job well done. A little advice on ring day, Lauren. Ring day is a special day. You get a solid gold symbol of the minutes, hours, days, months, and years of hard work you have put forth to your education in your life. BUT, not only is it a symbol of how far you have come, but also it represents the short time you have left at A&M. It might seem like a long way away, but believe me, it is closer than you can even imagine. The next year or so will go by so fast! Cherish it because before you know it you, like me, will be closing the book one chapter of life and opening the front cover of another. It's new; it's exciting, but you will never get to go back and live your last year of college over. Have fun and know I love you and am so happy I ran into you in the hall of Krueger three years ago. :)

if anyone has any advice for Lauren on ring day, post it up in the comments. She would love to hear from ya.

Im off to Munich for the weekend. I will be back on the blog Monday, most likely. Everyone have a good weekend!

Next stop, Sunday October 27, Florence Italy
The next day I got on the nine thirty train to Florence with the purpose of reuniting with my moms former roommate, TJ. The plan for the day was to attend English speaking church (finally) and then eat lunch and see some sights. After I got off the train I followed the directions to the church. It was a five minute walk away. Once there I was supposed to meet her in the foyer and I walked in and there were several people in the foyer but then I heard my name from the left and I turned my head and there she was. We filed into church which had just started. It was an American Episcopal church. Later, she told me that few people in the church actually came from Episcopal background. It was quite different from Grace in Tyler, more like Catholic and Methodist combined than anything in my opinion. After church, we stood outside and TJ and her husband and son introduced me to a few of their friends. We stood on the front steps and had some juice as I mostly met retired people from America who had homes in Florence and in America. One was a painter from somewhere up north and another was a guy from San Marcos TX. Wow, it was cool to hear a TX accent again.
After that we went to eat at this restaurant over looking Florence. The view was beautiful and we had some really good food. I branched out and had spaghetti with clams. It was so good! I hadn’t ever had it before. Then we had some friend chicken and some ginger cake for dessert. It was a nice leisurely lunch and we got to talk a lot about their visiting my family in Texas as well as memories TJ had with my mom many years ago in Europe.
Afterwards, they took me up to a lookout which boasted a spectacular view of Florence. They showed me where their house was and some monuments, too.
After that we drove back into the city and they took me to the train station. I hopped on a train and snoozed a little for the hour and 11 minute ride home. I was still exhausted from the two weeks of crazy traveling, no doubt. I hopped off the train in my nice church clothes with my camera and my borrowed purse and trudged up the hill through the light rain and wind to Santa Chiara, my school. Twenty minutes later, with a little mud on the bottom of my pants I walked in the doors of the school. I paused a moment. I was glad to be home.

Hello from Italy. All of us are so busy around here. That's why I have not been able to post faster about my long trip. We have started having tests, and papers due and it's like we don't know what to do or how to study because we haven't been for the past nine weeks. So, earlier today I had my test so I have a little time to write.
Update: this weekend Jessica (my roomate) and I are going to Munich. We had been saying all semester that we wanted to go and we took a look at the calendar and gasped at the very few weekends we have left. We decided it was either this weekend or never. And never just wouldn't do, so were going this weekend. We booked our train and our lodging so we are set to go. We have several friends that have been there and have informed us on the good places to visit and the good food places to eat. Should be exciting.
Tonight, its Tuesday and that means English conversation class. It's where the Italians from the community come to our school and we have an hour of English conversation. Tonight, however is a special night because it's the semester's talent show. No, I will not be performing but my roomate LeeAnne is singing some Patty Griffin and some Dixie Chicks. But there was a conflict with the conversation class and the talent show.... SO.... the solution is to have 30 minutes of conversation class and then take the italians to the talent show. Yay. Because LeeAnne would have killed me if I missed her singing and I'm basically in charge of the converstation class so I can't miss that either.
Ok, now onto my retrospective ride through our ten day break. Where was I? Oh yes, San Sebastian!
San Sebastian was a gorgeous place. We knew when we arrived that the one day we allotted for this picturesque seaside town would not be enough. Exhausted from Paris we sat out to find our hostel, Pension Amaiur. While walking through the streets I breathed in the early morning air and knew just what Erin was talking about when she said this was one of Hemmingway's favorite places and the setting for one of his most favorite books, The Sun Also Rises. I haven't read that book yet, but it's now on the must read list. We reached our hostel shortly there after and were greeted by the nicest Spanish lady. She informed us we could drop our bags in the living room and we could check in at 11 AM. The time then was about 10 AM. Starving after a night train ride and no breakfast we set off in search of food. Little did we know the first little eating place we came across would have an "Americano Breakfast" that we would talk about for the rest of our lives. Once we sat down and were served FRESH SQUEEZED orange juice we knew this was going to be good... scratch that... REAL good. A few minutes later we were greeted by gargantuan sized "American plates" brimming with fried eggs, bacon and toast. As we layed eyes on what would very soon fill our stomachs we became ecstatic. Eating that Americano breakfast was like filling my stomach with love. This is the first time in two months we have seen, much less eaten, something so American. Wow. it was great.
The rest of the day was filled with lots of chilling out. We read, slept, ate. Walked down by the beach. It was of course freezing but we bundled up and went and sat on a parkbench overlooking the bay. This was the day I finished the DaVinci Code. It's a great great murder mystery book--if you haven't read it, you must!
After that we went back to our "Pensione" as the Spanish call it. This place was so cheap and so nice. We had our own real beds in our own real rooms. And there was a kitchen and a room with a computer in it. And to top it all off, we had a balcony. All for 14 euros a night. I am soooo going go to back to that place someday. The next morning we went back to that cheery little spot to have one last Americano breakfast before getting on a train to Barcelona for all day (scheduled to be 8 hours, turned out to be 9 hours).
Once we got to Barcelona, we went to our hostel. Well, turns out that for some reason they didn't get our reservation right and they had us down for only one night instead of two. So they sent us down the road to another hostel and luckily they had room. So we stayed there and the next morning we had a nice slow start and headed out to our bike tour at noon time. On the way there, we walked through Las Ramblas, the main drag and got a burger king before we went to the bike tour meeting spot.
The bike tour lasted quite a while. We saw lots of cool stuff in the city including Gaudy's crazy looking Cathedral. We saw some city buildings and some other art deco type stuff that was cool. We ended our tour on the beach of Barcelona at a little cafe. We sat and had a sandwich and some Sangria wine. We were told by some friends that it was a must do and I will maintain that it was worth doing and if you are going to Barcelona you, too, must do it.
Afterwards, we went back to the hostel and then went out near the Olympic park to see a fountain, lights, and music show. There we saw some of our friends from our school that were also in Barcelona for the break.
The next morning we left on the plane for Milan. Turns out our friends were on the same flight as us out of Barcelona. Once we got to Milan we caught a bus to the Train station and got on the Eurostar all the way back to Florence. An hour and ten minute train ride later we were in Castiglion Fior. and were soo glad to be there. We had just missed dinner, so we went out to eat at one of our favorite places, Bar 23. Mario is the guy that owns it and he always loves to see us. He (rather his wife) makes some realllllly awesome food. So we ate a lot and then went home and went to bed.
Next installment: The very next day going to Florence to meet my mom's old roomate from a long time ago...
Ciao for now.

Paris: Installment 2
Oct 20, 2003- Our first stop for this day was Notre Dame Cathedral. It was very gothic and I got to see my flying buttresses that I learned about way back in ninth grade, I think. We took a few minutes and just sat in the cathedral alone in silence and took it all in. I wrote a few postcards and then we bought some tickets for a Gregorian chant the following night. We did a little souvenier shopping after that at some nearby shops.
Next stop was the Sant Chapelle. It is the little tiny but marvelous entirely stained glass cathedral inside the government headquarters in Paris. It was quite an ordeal trying to get through the security gates though. Seems there was a fight that broke out and so it slowed the operation down quite a bit. So we were getting a little impatient...but, it was really worth the wait because it was covered top to bottom with stained glass. It was full of beautiful colors that were so magnificent, and the crazy thing was the sun wasn’t even out that day but the colors were still so bright!
After that, we went for a gyro! French people love their greek food, lucky for me! The only thing they do different is they put French fries in the gyro. Weird, but good.
Next, was the Pompideu center. It is the awesome modern building. The novel thing about it is that the insides of the building are on the outside. It’s quite different looking, but cool. To us it looked a little like a gerbils cage. Inside we saw some modern art. I liked this museum even though it was modern art because I figured something out. Before, I hadn’t really liked modern art and I wasn’t sure why. At the Pompideu I figured it out. I don’t like modern art because I don’t understand what the artist is trying to say through his art, and unless I have something to read about the artist/painting I am probably not going to like it very much.
Oct 21, 2003—This was our last day in Paris and so we headed west of Paris to see Louis’ famous Versailles. I had learned about this magnificent country “villa” in high school and had always marveled at the sheer size and splendor of the place. Well, my thoughts proved true. It was absolutely huge! We walked through a lot of it and then had intended to go out into the gardens, which are much larger in size than the house. Well, the weather wouldn’t cooperate and it started to rain and it was so cold. Probably close to forty degrees, too. I was most looking forward to the gardens, but what can ya do, right? I put it on the dockets for my next trip to Paris, along with the night stroll by the Eiffel, and finding the inverse pyramid near the louvre (reference to the DaVinci code, it’s a great book).
After Versailles, we sat down for our big sit down meal of Paris. We make it a point to sit down at least once in each town to a real authentic meal. Just so happened we had been so busy that we hadn’t managed it yet. So, with the weather turning sour on us we figured we had the extra time to spare for our meal. We ordered a bottle of French wine, Beajolais. Jessica’s mom recommended it. It was pretty good, but no Italian Chianti, that’s for sure. For dinner, I ordered Au Grautin French onion soup. MMMM it was so good. And then I had some sesame crusted salmon and some kind of souflee, I think. We messed around for a while then at 8 we went to the Gregorian chant at Notre Dame. It was great. The acoustics were awesome for that sort of thing. There were five men and five women chanters. They would chant from different parts of the church and it would make different sounds. I really enjoyed hearing a chant in person. It was one of my “must-dos” for this semester. After that, we went to the station to catch our night train.
Next, San Sebastian and Barcelona