A lot of churches can be a lot of fun

It has come. The un-motivating force of being sick of school. He he. And by that I mean papers and assignments. I loathe you. So instead of thinking of that I have been baking, scrapbooking and thinking a bit about travels that have been.

That travels means churches. We saw lots of churches. You would think after being in the fifth one we would have been sick of it but they just seemed to be more intricate, have a more fascinating story and hold a magnificent mystique. Not to mention holding some pretty famous people from kings, queens, philosophers and artists (even if those said people never wanted to be there in the first place).

Two of my favs were Westminster abbey and an extravagant one in Sienna. So many wonderful stories, beautiful architecture and my love for stained glass came out. ahhhh. Heart. I have said it before, but one must do an audio tour where ever they tour!

Mark, enjoyed them too. Churches hold all the history he loves and with that many things to look and examine. Again something fun to watch in him as he enjoyed so much of it!

Well off to procrastinate some more!
love

museums i heart you!

i have an over fondness of museums. and in particular art museums. i don't know if i grew up with this taste. i know we visited quite a few when i was young, from the space museum, to a medical one in manitoba, to of course the provincial one where i live today. i think the one that impacted me the most was when i went to the beaverbrook gallery in new brunswick and saw "santiago el grande" by salvador dali. it was huge and magnifcent. it seemed like my dad and i stood there for quite sometime taking it all in. that was when i felt i loved art.

after that i took off. a high school trip to italy we traveled to florence and saw the "madonna della seggiola" by raphael and the "birth of venus" by sandro botticelli and the work of michelangelo's in the sistine chapel at the vatican. then jeaninne and i continued to hit hot spots in new york where i fell in love with the guggenheim, "starry night" by van gogh in the moma, and toured as much as we could in the met.

when the honeymoon trip came up i did have a few dreams of seeing other pieces of work. the real david in florence (something truly magnificent), was one. but the absolute, the one place that i wanted to spend a vast amount of my time and one of the MAIN reasons for going to paris was to visit the louvre and see the mona lisa.

luckily i married the right man as he also has a fondness for museums like myself. he tends to spend most of his time in the antiquities section, being immersed in the ancient histories and cultures. i humor him there, as he examines the walls with writings, the sculptures with intimidating beasts attached and the armor used in battle. AND he humors me in the art section. listening to the artists motivations, watching me as i piece out the detail of a painting and analyze the brushstrokes.

we did not take this louvre tour lightly. suiting up with our audio tours around our neck we ventured off to discover all we could. after that we got another tour this time with someone that specialized in art who could explain all the masterpeices in the museum and show us where they were. AND just a side note about that tourguide, we enjoyed him thoroughly as he had a combination of humor, passion for art and he looked like elvis!

after that (because certainly that is not enough time to spend), we ventured off again on our own private tour to catch more of da vinci's work, and see more french history.

a definite highlight and renewed love was found again.
love

the downright "dirty" of travel

i sometimes worry what people may think of my blog. not that i am writing it for people in particular as it is just some random writings to remember the positive aspects in life. however, i do not want people to think that my life is all "sunshine and roses".

i think i have made that plainly so when i am in school. i know i have complained frequently of how tired, stressed i am and just wanting a break from the assignments. however i don't know if i portray it so in my personal life. however, i do think that my personal life is just that, personal. sure there is bad, i think anyone would be lying to say that they have never had an arguement, or stressed on the person they love. however, sometimes i think we concentrate too much on the negative (which mark says is very easy to do) instead of striving to see the positive light, what one has learned and what to prevent the next time.

so in light of this, i am going to talk about the down and dirty (literally) of an experience that happened to myself in europe. this will show how my life is not roses and can (literally) stink!

mark and i used a wide variety of transportation while we were abroad. planes, trains, automobiles, boats and legs. what we enjoyed the most (as we do not get the same experience here) was train travel. trains were cozy, but still had room, air conditioned and we got the added bonus of gazing out the window checking out the different country side (i know, it sounds like kittens and puppy dogs).

then we boarded a train in italy. now i am by NO means insulting the transportation in italy as my scope is quite limited. BUT i will say that this train in particular was a little more rustic compared to what we had encountered in previous countries.

a little background on what got us to this train. we took a train from cardiff to london, where we were to meet a reserved airport taxi. unfortunately our train was late leaving from cardiff and the taxi left. mark (thankfully being assertive) got the taxi to come back, but wasting precious time as we needed to be on the plane boarding for italy at 11:15 am and we were in the taxi at 10. ugh. we managed to get to the airport at 10:45 (we may have been in panic mode, especially when seeing the monster lines to check in). however they called final check ins for pisa and off we went onto our plane. once in pisa, we caught a bus to the train station and caught our train with a mere 5 minutes to spare.

now you may ask, why is this important? well. with all the time constraints it left little in the way of a bathroom break for either of us. this brings us to the current train. as we were on our way to the cinque terre we rode in this train. it was okay although nothing to be exciting about as it did lack certain amenities like spacious seating and air conditioning that we praised about before. i had decided i needed to take a bathroom break. so off i went in search of a toilet on this giant train.

going through two train cars i found it. as i readied myself, sitting on the seat, i found it strange that i felt a gust of wind come up my back. i then proceeded to "relieve" myself, and mere moments later sheer panic came.

"omigoodness, omigoodness," i exclaimed as i felt tiny droplets come whoshing up, spraying my back.

stopping midstream i looked down and saw a giant hole in the toilet leading directly down to the ground. and yes by ground i mean the railway tracks. i just found out i was attempting to pee all over italy but they rejected that idea and the train gust brought it right back up to my back! not believing my luck (and yes, you think i would have learned) i attempted again. same result. stopping midstream again i slightly freaked (and oddly laughed at the complete absurdity of the situation) and attempted to work the tap of the sink.....yes you can believe that that did not work either (but it did as i found out from mark later on. apparently there was was a foot pedal that i couldn't see in panicked attempt for cleanliness).

out of the bathroom i left, a little smellier (that is an understatement) and i proceeded to tell mark of my mishaps. all this as i bathed in hand sanitizer. i don't think mark stopped laughing until he decided he needed to check this bathroom out. out he came, smug, strutting back to our seats, laughing again.

"what," i asked.
"the bathroom is obviously built for a man," he replied

grrrrr. so what is the lesson here folks as i strive to be positive.

LOOK BEFORE YOU PEE!

love

lets talk italian

ciao.

i really don't know where to begin but since i started this blog with the idea of talking about travel, i feel i need to go into all of the types of travel we have done. we really did have a trip of a lifetime thanks to my brilliant husband who researched and planned this whole expedition. really, it was fantastic! because of this i am going to do blog posts devoted to certain parts of the trip that created fantastic memories for both of us.

first off is italy. in particular, the cinque terre, along the italian rivera. this encompasses the five villages starting from riomaggiore, manarola, corniglia, vernazza, and monterosso (where we were staying). this was the "vacation" from our vacation part of our journey. to elaborate, mark and i love to travel. and when we travel we don't stop. we go from museum to monument to landmark from early in the morning till late at night. cinque terre forced us to slow down, and it was absolutely lovely.

our days consisted of waking up, going for a hike or kayak to the next village. due to the 40 degree weather we were "forced" to take a dip into the mediterranean. This part was cool as you could access the sea from many areas around the coast. There were many people just diving off the cliffs, although that was a little to adventerous for my blood.

then we would have some pesto pizza or fresh pasta. life really can't get any better can it?? ooo wait, it does! we would stop nightly at this local cantina where a gentlemen took us under his wing to teach us all about the local liquors made in monterosso. i wish i got a picture of him as he was quite fantastic! our nights ended usually on our balcony, overlooking the sky and listening to the music from the streets, drinking the liquors we bought. too mushy!?? he he. well it was our honeymoon.

but lets get the honesty train out here too. there was quite a few jellyfish and unfortunately mark fell victim to one of them. the little rascals. after that we took on jellyfish watch when we jumped into water.

and the amusing antidote was all the "openness" in europe with the topless sunbathers. i can always count on mark to take to a place with nude sunbathers (wink wink).

here are a few pics of our journey...

this is just a few of our beach adventures. note the jellyfish and mark's marked hand (that by the way still has a mark). one of the towns, vernazza can be seen at the bottom, on one of our small hikes. and at the bottom corner is mark doing what he did everytime we took a dip. the starfish. apparently he thought it was amazing how much he could float in the water because of the salt content.

this little bit is of our lovers walk. hence all the hearts and such. it was quite an easy pathway containing "locks of love" and in a shelter enclosed area tons of writings of people expressing their love for each other. very cute!

here are some last random pics. kayaking, swimming, having gelato (we may have had gelato taste testing twice a day, purely for scientific reasons...and because it was hot....and because it was delicious!). the little kitty at the bottom was eying the seafood being cooked in the restaurant while the next girl found fantastic acoustics in a square and starting to sing phantom of the opera. at the bottom on the right hand side is a pill box. mark was pretty pumped to see that as they were made in the war years.

that's all for now.
love

home in a foreign place

1998

spring break

tour of italy

picture taken in:

venice

picture of:

casey

found this place:

walking around

...we found a bit of home...

hotel canada