Hello from HOME! Yes, we made it! I'm in Puyallup this morning and mom even had some mountain dew in the refrigerator for me in case I was in total withdrawl. Thanks to the magic of the world wide web, I was able to email her from one of those countries and let her know that we were going to need massage appointments this morning, so those are already scheduled!! I can't say I'd be sorry if I never saw that backpack again (now that it's empty)!! I was carrying 1/3 my body weight as luggage yesterday -- I don't recommend that!
I can't claim one favorite memory or place because there are so many different wonderful memories that can't be compared to one another. So here is a list of the first 10 that come to mind:
1. Seeing the David, in Florence. To think that he was carved from one block of marble, and to see the detail in his ribs and chest muscles and his veins and even the detail of crinkles in the side of his hand that was holding the stones --- I just kept standing there waiting for him to breathe or take a step, and I was just sure that if I touched the statue, it would be warm. It was just incredible. Even the toes -- yeah yeah, more on my eye level than the rest -- the toes were perfectly lifelike toes. Shoot, they even looked a bit better than mine!
2. Rembrandt's paintings -- the attention he put into painting the lace and the fabrics was what I thought was incredible. He really would have had to study that stuff and make a bazillion little brush strokes just to get it looking so incredibly real.
3. Amsterdam's Red Light District -- a reverse wow because after we walked through there, we all said/thought "That was it?" I found it highly amusing that like any other shopping experience, there is also an 'outlet' red light district area... heh heh/eeew
4. Neuschwanstein Castle - I wished he would have lived longer so that more than 1/3 of the castle would have been completed. It was beautiful, and yeah, overdone, but beautifully overdone. He sure got the concept of location,location,location! He had incredible views from that little home of his.
5. St. Peter's Cathedral in Vatican City. We visited there at 5 PM, at the conclusion of our walking tour, and at that particular time of day, the sunlight streams through the upper windows. Instead of a dark, drab, dreary church building, it was a breathtaking golden place that seemed light and airy! There was some singing going on somewhere and that added to the ooooooh effect.
6. Sistine Chapel - what can I say? To think that for Michaelangelo to do that ceiling, he had to paint on wet plaster and could only do so much at a time, and he couldn't go home, paint it, and bring it in .... he is believed to have locked himself in there (to keep others out) and said he would come out when it was complete. I would have enjoyed it more if the room wasn't so full of other people -- I would have liked to lay down on the floor and look up but that wasn't an option.
7. Rome - I loved Rome - the chaos, the noise, the history, and how you just had to turn the corner and you were in a totally different setting. I loved piazzas! For me, the defining moment was coming out of the subway station up to the ground level, walking out into the sunshine and boom, there's the Colosseum! That was a wow/holy cow I'm in Rome experience!
8. Paris - the Eiffel Tower. Like the David and some other works of art that I have seen in photographs and countless other ways, it was pretty incredible to stand underneath it and look up at it, and in this case, be up in it. From a distance it looks so delicate that it could have been made of toothpicks, and even as I stood in line to go up, I was marveling at how delicate and downright pretty it looked, despite being made of something far stronger than toothpicks! And then when it is lit up and does the twinkling thing at the top of the hour? Oh yeah, that was magical.
9. The British Museum in London -- looking at the Rosetta stone and learning about how it changed much of history as we know it today. It was about so much more than just interpreting hieroglyphics. Also seeing the Portland Vase was a wow because... it was really quite pretty, I had never head of it before so I learned something new, and because it inspired one Mr. Wedgewood, who despite failing at replicating it, went on to make some pretty famous china with this same two tone effect.
10. The people. I have to give our guide Dominique and bus driver Matieu, credit for why this trip was so fun and special. It will be hard to imagine going to some of these places again in the future and realizing that the group won't be there too. When we went to Versailles after the tour ended, it was so nice to run into other group members who also visited there on their own. In all the masses of people, we had friends!
I can't claim one favorite memory or place because there are so many different wonderful memories that can't be compared to one another. So here is a list of the first 10 that come to mind:
1. Seeing the David, in Florence. To think that he was carved from one block of marble, and to see the detail in his ribs and chest muscles and his veins and even the detail of crinkles in the side of his hand that was holding the stones --- I just kept standing there waiting for him to breathe or take a step, and I was just sure that if I touched the statue, it would be warm. It was just incredible. Even the toes -- yeah yeah, more on my eye level than the rest -- the toes were perfectly lifelike toes. Shoot, they even looked a bit better than mine!
2. Rembrandt's paintings -- the attention he put into painting the lace and the fabrics was what I thought was incredible. He really would have had to study that stuff and make a bazillion little brush strokes just to get it looking so incredibly real.
3. Amsterdam's Red Light District -- a reverse wow because after we walked through there, we all said/thought "That was it?" I found it highly amusing that like any other shopping experience, there is also an 'outlet' red light district area... heh heh/eeew
4. Neuschwanstein Castle - I wished he would have lived longer so that more than 1/3 of the castle would have been completed. It was beautiful, and yeah, overdone, but beautifully overdone. He sure got the concept of location,location,location! He had incredible views from that little home of his.
5. St. Peter's Cathedral in Vatican City. We visited there at 5 PM, at the conclusion of our walking tour, and at that particular time of day, the sunlight streams through the upper windows. Instead of a dark, drab, dreary church building, it was a breathtaking golden place that seemed light and airy! There was some singing going on somewhere and that added to the ooooooh effect.
6. Sistine Chapel - what can I say? To think that for Michaelangelo to do that ceiling, he had to paint on wet plaster and could only do so much at a time, and he couldn't go home, paint it, and bring it in .... he is believed to have locked himself in there (to keep others out) and said he would come out when it was complete. I would have enjoyed it more if the room wasn't so full of other people -- I would have liked to lay down on the floor and look up but that wasn't an option.
7. Rome - I loved Rome - the chaos, the noise, the history, and how you just had to turn the corner and you were in a totally different setting. I loved piazzas! For me, the defining moment was coming out of the subway station up to the ground level, walking out into the sunshine and boom, there's the Colosseum! That was a wow/holy cow I'm in Rome experience!
8. Paris - the Eiffel Tower. Like the David and some other works of art that I have seen in photographs and countless other ways, it was pretty incredible to stand underneath it and look up at it, and in this case, be up in it. From a distance it looks so delicate that it could have been made of toothpicks, and even as I stood in line to go up, I was marveling at how delicate and downright pretty it looked, despite being made of something far stronger than toothpicks! And then when it is lit up and does the twinkling thing at the top of the hour? Oh yeah, that was magical.
9. The British Museum in London -- looking at the Rosetta stone and learning about how it changed much of history as we know it today. It was about so much more than just interpreting hieroglyphics. Also seeing the Portland Vase was a wow because... it was really quite pretty, I had never head of it before so I learned something new, and because it inspired one Mr. Wedgewood, who despite failing at replicating it, went on to make some pretty famous china with this same two tone effect.
10. The people. I have to give our guide Dominique and bus driver Matieu, credit for why this trip was so fun and special. It will be hard to imagine going to some of these places again in the future and realizing that the group won't be there too. When we went to Versailles after the tour ended, it was so nice to run into other group members who also visited there on their own. In all the masses of people, we had friends!
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