Vacances Part 2: Giverny

Giverny is a town about an hour outside of Paris by car to the northeast. It's where Claude Monet lived. Mr Monet apparently was a pretty wealthy dude, and his family had a strange fascination with Japanese culture. Behind their big country house was a big garden packed with flowers. Behind the big garden packed with flowers was a big garden with a pond and bridges and water lilies and bamboo (very Japanese-inspired). If you look up Monet's paintings, you'll see a lot of paintified versions of what we saw in real life. In his versions he must have edited out all of the tourists with cameras though.

Welcome to Giverny. If this is your cup of tea, than Giverny is your cup of tea.
On the topic of tea, do they sell "Lipton Gold Tea" in the States?
In the little pyramidal tea bags? That stuff is good.
We had two full days of meetings that just ended, and I have a sore throat.
I drank it literally all day yesterday and today. Mmmmm.

Heeeeeey Sawyer! Camera's this way. Yeah, you could throw up an Uncle Ryan grimace while watching the bumblebee in the flowers, but that just wouldn't make you a team player now would it? You do want to be a team player don't you?

Spring. Over at Claude's house. In a nutshell.

"Say cheese? Well which one? There's Bleu, Emmental, Leerdamer, Mimolette, Conté, Gouda, Rapé, Camembert, Brie..."

You know how Gushers are a fruity explosion of flavor in your mouth?
Well these flowers are a springy explosion of colors in your eyes. Now. Yeah.

Aww. It's Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. So cute. All squinting in unison. Just right.

This incredibly large ancient sand sculpture inspired all of Monet's Last Supper paintings.
Of course I'm kidding.
Monet didn't paint the famous Last Supper painting, Da Vinci did.
You probably also knew Da Vinci was an inventor.
You may not have known that Da Vinci invented a time machine in an old Italian Delorean, traveled to 2010 and saw this sand sculpture, and then was inspired to paint the Last Supper.

Vacances Part 1: Circus

2 weeks ago we took some final exams and such for the semester of language school and then were set free for 2 weeks of fun! We decided that this time would be best spent getting outside of the 12 million people urban center that we call home, and so we planned a few short getaways. Some were related to our work and language learning, some purely for our own sense of adventure. But the first weekend found us at home still, and what better way to kick off a vacation than a trip to our (almost literal) backyard and the circus!

The circus seems to come to our town quite often. I'm not sure whether it's the same one over and over, or a bunch of different ones. We feel like since we've been here in January, the circus has already come through about 3 times and one could only expect summer to pack in more circus fun. This particular circus was put on by an Italian company, and their sign boasted our old neighbors (African safari animals), cousins (camels), our hometown KY memories (horses), and some new interests (tigers). Let's check it out!

Mama and Sawyer, prepped and ready for the big show.

Ooh! It's a tiger jumping through fire!
And it totally looks like a Bengals mascot print I've seen.
Worth the price of admission right there.

We'd heard back in Africa that tigers were being introduced to the wild in South Africa.
Something about too many people in India and no place for the tiger to make his bed.
Now we have conclusive proof that lions and tigers will get along just fine and be friends.

The high-flying acrobat types.
Dude only did 2 things that really made me think he was totally nuts.
1 was acrobatic and blindfolded,
the other was walking out in a mesh shirt with a rocking 4lb mullet.

"Daddy, these people are weird, all flying in the air. I think I'm gonna scan the crowd for some ladies. Could you please let go of my hands so I don't look like a baby?!"

I've heard of spitting camels.
But do all camels foam at the mouth all the time?
Or did ours have rabies?

And nothing really to do with the circus, but this is cute:

France travel notes

We are midway through travels of our first French vacation. In the past few days, we’ve been to Giverny (Monet’s gardens), Mont Saint Michel (1000 yr old monestary/church on an island), Omaha Beach and the American War Memorial/Cemetery (WWII, D-Day), and lots of amazing little villages and towns, some extremely old. We’ll have many pictures and stories to post in a couple weeks once we’re back home and settled, but we leave again tomorrow and must get to laundry and packing. So in the meantime, here’s a few observations from our first time outside of Paris in France:

-French people LOVE their picnics. It’s interesting when traveling... there are rest areas and picnic tables aplenty along the major roads, but very few little towns with fast-food restaurants like in the States. You stop at a rest area around lunchtime, and you are literally surrounded by people having picnics. Baguettes, cheese, wine, meats, and berets are everywhere! Actually no berets... in 4 months the only people I’ve seen wearing berets are goofy-looking tourists.

-Not only do the French love picnics, but they will literally pull of the road, lay a blanket in the grass, and take a nap.

-The French way of curbing speeding is strange. There are these little radar boxes that check your speed, and if over they take a picture of your license plate and you get a ticket in the mail. Seems like a good idea, until you see the GIANT signs that are a couple hundred meters before every radar box warning you it’s there.

-Telling a British person your son has a “bloody nose” may get you a funny look in return.

-Rural is rural. From the USA to East Africa to France, there are dirt roads, one-lane bridges, and cows that randomly take over the road.

-Cows in France are really big.

-I wanted to take a night picture of Mont Saint Michel, and I had to wait until 10:20pm for it to get dark enough! I’d heard it can be light here till almost midnight in the summer. I’m starting to believe it.

-It’s entirely possible to feel more spiritual depth standing on a beach where thousands of people died than standing in a 1000 yr old church on top of a big rock. The God I know inhabits the hearts of man, not buildings, so I guess this makes sense.

-Saying that a particular region of France is known for its cheese is like saying a particular State is represented by a star on the USA flag.

Hey Grandpa, you think engineering school will take me?

Before hitting the road

We are about to embark on a series of small journeys (finally getting outside of the city!). Little time to think and type. So here's some fairly recent photos to freshen the place up until we get back and I overload it with pictoral fun. In a week or two... Monet's gardens, Mt St Michel, Normandy's beaches, and maybe a shot from somewhere down south.

Does that look like NASCAR or Formula 1 abilities?