July 1st, 2012
Still in Cannes......
One of my all-time favorite picnic combinations: fresh basil, tomato, and fresh mozzarella cheese. Mmmmm mmmmmmm good! AND so pretty!! =) LOVE the colors!
Dinner by the port. Starting with one of my new-found drink discoveries: un panache (half beer, half "lemonade"). Yum! Delightfully refreshing and delicious! Cheers/Sante!
My meal that night - yet another favorite: paella!! Scrumptious!
July 3rd, 2012
Isle Saint Honorat
Most amazing moment of the Cannes trip . . . turn a bend while walking the perimeter of the island to find THIS awaiting our shocked and enthralled eyes! SO COOL!!!
And this is what it looks like inside. Deceptive, eh? It was a gorgeously sculpted former monastery - who'd 'a thunk?!
July 4th, 2012
Eggplant pizza picnic by the Mediterranean. And made delicious left-overs for breakfast the next morning on the train ride to Normandy . . . .
July 6th, 2012
Helping prepare for my aunt and uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary!! What a whopping balloon to celebrate a whopping milestone!!!! (the sad part: this balloon popped later that afternoon, when he was trying to tie it shut. I was outside and I heard it. He had impaired hearing for a few hours).
Crazy French Parties! They know how to live it up . . .well into their seventies and eighties!! Yes, I did take a picture of my watch with my salad, because that is what time we were eating salad - still not the last course . . . that's not PM - that's AM!!! Dinner started around 8:30 pm and we had dessert around 2:30 am. It was an absolutely marvelous celebration full of fabulous food, care-free dancing, group singing and lots of talking. I'm so happy I was able to be there.
July 9th, 2012
Guard Geese in Normandy. Love it!
July 12th, 2012
Bike riding on the lovely island of Noirmoutier. Also have an odd obsession with "bike in front of window" pictures.
July 13th, 2012
"Fishing" for clams. SO FUN!! and delicious with garlic butter =)
July 16th, 2012
4 day exploration of Lille with Rose! A beautiful city and my first ever Couchsurf experience. Totally got me hooked!!! Thanks so much to Rose, Karine and Coline!!
One of my favorite parts of Lille. A mini little Arc de Triomphe. =)
Oh vegetables, how I love you! Here, the bulk of our ingredients for the dinner we cooked for our hosts. And also noteworthy because it was one of my first cooking experiences after the severe withdrawal of traveling and visiting family since June 1st. I was a happy happy girl!!
Stunning and awesome park for morning workouts and TRX!!!
One of the most awe-inspiring churches I've seen in Europe. (Lille - Eglise Saint Andre)
Touring the now museum, but former home of Charles de Gaulle. Fascinating! Plus an incredibly well-done temporary exhibit on Anne Frank. So glad I was alone in the museum because I was in tears by the end. Simultaneously horrifying, heart-wrenching, and inspiring.....incredibly powerful.
July 21st, 2012
Brussels!!!
Overall, not impressed with this city, but here are my favorite bits: 1.) comic-style murals scattered randomly through the city. Provided a very fun scavenger hunt.
I had the lucky chance of being in Brussels for the Belgium National Holiday. All kinds of cool stuff like fighter jets, and helicopters on display, an air show, a parade and fireworks!
This had nothing to do with the national holiday. =) Just a sign I found hilarious. I especially love the detail taken on the man's posture.....he's really got his hips into that ..... please, gentlemen, refrain from urinating in such a manner!!
Best "view of the city" from a 10 story parking garage . . . that's the Atomium in the background - constructed in 1958 for the World Fair - I didn't have a chance to visit it, but it looked pretty cool!
Favorite part of Brussels? My scavenger hunt for the 3 pissing statues! Here the most recent. =)
And here the original - Manneken Pis =) I didn't know he had outfits until I got to Brussels! There's a whole museum dedicated to his various outfits. I find that hilarious!
The Grand Place. My favorite place in Brussels. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. The amount of ornate detail on each building is mind boggling. I rank it as the "Most Gorgeous" square I've ever seen!!!
More of the Grand Place.
Upon strolling around the city, (still the 21st here, their National Holiday) I hear the ominous sound of . . . .these guys! An air show for the big day. Very cool.
So excited to have found a vegetarian place with delicious combinations of veggies, grains and legumes! Here, enjoying a picnic on the cathedral steps.
And the final statue in my quest. =) The sister, and second statue. Jeanneke Pis.
A trip to Belgium couldn't be complete (in my book) without a Belgian Waffle. With bananas and dark chocolate? Yes please!
My favorite part of the holiday celebrations? Free concerts!!! This group was absolutely AWESOME!!! African style music with such a fantastic rhythm that I COULD NOT stand still. I usually feel a bit inhibited and silly being alone and dancing at concerts, but this music just squelched that inhibition with its awesome-ness!!!
July 22nd, 2012
Day trip to Gent
Just another "no public urination" sign that I found hilarious. They've got both genders covered this time. And I find the guy to look more thuggish with his baseball hat and love that they gave the girl a pony tail. Oh street signs, they have provided abundant entertainment for me!
Fabulous view from a clock tower. Gent has this fantastic, massive pedestrian zone in the city center and here you can see part of it to the left of the cathedral with all the lightrail tracks. This town was one of my favorites! Plus I got to experience it during a music festival - bonus!!
hahahahaha! While eating lunch at a café by this canal, I was treated to this sight. FAN-tastic!! Love it.
What I did not love was finding a little centipede thing in my salad. I may or may not have taken this picture of myself standing in the street outside the restaurant after my lunch, being grossed out from the surprise critter in my food. Yes, I drew my best rendition of the bug on the receipt of my lunch. This is how I capture memories. hahaha.
Loved the architecture. This is still Gent, but Bruges was very similar. I took nearly 300 pictures each day in each of these towns. This is how I ended up with over 15,000!!!
Perfect day for a music festival.....or a beer by the river....or a paddle on the river - awesome!
A bike-friendly town! Reminds me of Seattle!!! =) I love it.
While journaling at one of the many music venue/tents, I met a really nice local couple who ended up buying me a local beer! The Gentse Tripel - a beer made and sold only in Gent! So cool! It was actually quite delicious.
A very happy Gentse Tripel consumer. =) Refreshing!!
And yet surprisingly strong! (for me, who knew very little about beer at the time... 8% what what?!). This beer was one of the helpful stepping stones in my crossing from non-beer-lover (imagine a kid's face who just tasted something horribly displeasing) to appreciater-of-stouts-porters-and-ambers. =) I'm even more excited to live in Seattle now that I appreciate beer!!
July 23, 2012
Day trip to Bruges
Drawn to this town as I'd heard it referred to as "The Venice of the North," and it did not disappoint! Here, my first encounter with a Brugian canal . . . =)
Absolutely adored the combination of unique architecture and the plethora of canals that is Bruges.
Swans everywhere!! Tried the get the back two in a pose where their necks created a heart, but I JUST missed that picturesque moment.
Beautiful blossoms added a gorgeous splash of color to windowsills, parks, and . . . yeah, everywhere =)
This was my view for my picnic lunch. Can you imagine having this as your backyard?! Incredible!
More of the typical architecture here. My level of obsession can be seen in the 278 pictures I took this day. And notice the stunning blue sky?? Yeah, had a marvelously perfect day for exploring Bruges. So grateful!
AND there are windmills!! What more can one ask? The stunning contrast of that gorgeous green grass and the beautifully bold blue sky makes me happy.
Oh yes, how about horse drawn carriages? That's a good topper. =) Modes of transport here included boats on the canals, horse-drawn carriages (though both primarily tourist attractions from what I could tell), cars (in reasonable quantities) and TONS of bikes!! Also a plethora of pedestrians.
One of the best busking groups I saw in all of my travels!! They were incredibly talented! I ended up staying and listening to them for so long that I missed the last entry into the clock tower (which I was bummed to find out, but still wouldn't trade). They didn't have a cd for sale, which made me sad as busker's cd's became my absolute favorite souvenir. Lightweight, compact, a fantastic reminder of my wanderings in those cities, AND creates links to all of the activities I do while listening to those cd's ....ie. my favorite is my Dublin violinist's two cd's that I listened to on loop while driving 2000 km around Ireland. Now I listen to those cd's and mentally re-live my trip. It's AWESOME! (and that was a really long tangent caption for one picture - ha!)
My personal favorite spot & favorite picture I took in Bruges.
However THIS was apparently the #1 most photographed tourist spot . . .
See - my little tourist map to show me . . .
But I am very perplexed because it is not nearly as pretty as my favorite spot . . . or any of multitudes of better spots to photograph . . . in my humble opinion. I made it to the little star on the map, but must say it was a bit anticlimactic.
July 24th, 2012
More of Brussels
And more of me being perplexed!! I had this map of suggested walking routes for tourists and I was really disappointed by all three that I tried. Really??!! That was the best they thought Brussels could offer?? This was part of the reason Brussels didn't impress me - the bulk of what I saw was really bland, run down, or terrible clash of modern and not-so-modern.
Favorite discovery of that day: finding the European Parliament!! Unfortunately didn't have time to take a guided visit, which would have been really cool, but I chose Bruges and Gent day trips instead, and I'm going to go with: No Regrets!!
July 26th, 2012
Luttange, France
Back with the family!!! Met up with my parents at a cousin's house (yes, that is a huge above-ground pool you see in the background, and yes, we did take full advantage!) But what is that in my hand?!! WOAH! It's a monstrous zucchini from their garden! Holy shlamola!! Amazing! And delicious. Here we were preparing it for ratatouille. =) YUM!!
July 31st, 2012
Sarrebourg, France
On to an aunt and uncle's house, and more food from the garden! (oh, heavenly!) Here I am reverting to the 5 year old child that lurks in me and am terribly entertained by this potato I dug out of the ground that looks like butt cheeks. Hahaha. (I realized later that some people might interpret that shape as something else, but I maintain my butt cheek interpretation).
