Wow - I suck at this!

The blogging, I mean. Here I had all these grand ideas of updating daily. Pheh! What was I thinking?? Well, clearly I was thinking I'd have some time to breathe here and there. Nope! Not happening! Ah well - I hope y'all can forgive me for falling down on the job so to speak. I *have* taken LOTS of pictures even though I haven't posted very many! From a quick count, it seems I'm over 650 pictures and 13 movies. And there's still Normandy to go see tomorrow! Hopefully when I get back (or maybe on the flight home) I'll be able to catch up on the blogging. Better late than never, right? Right???

Kitten Cam - 3pm Central Time - Friday!!

Hello all!! I'm packing up to go visit Carol, Andrew and the cats this weekend. Woohoo! Can't wait!! We're going to have a BLAST!! Just hope we get around to sleeping between all the chatting we'll be doing! Sooooo excited about meeting Carol (and the rest of the family) face-to-face!!!!! **yeah, I had to state that in case you couldn't figure it out from all the exclamation points**

Anyway, I thought it might be fun for the 'viewers at home' to try and take a look at the Eriador Kitten Cam around 3:00pm Friday afternoon (7/21, of course). I'll be hanging out with Carol, Andrew and the cats on-cam. The link to Carol's website is http://www.eriador-cats.com/. Just click on the box at the top that says 'Kitten Cam' and it'll run a Java script and you should be able to view the cam. And me and the kitties!!

Montmartre Cemetary

Yup, leave it to me to visit a beautiful and famous cemetary in Paris and take photos of CATS! Well! I miss my own fur-babies!! Unfortunately, these cats, while lovely, were quite skittish so alas I was unable to pet any of them. But they did cooperate nicely and pose for me!

This skinny little one was near the entrance. I should have known there would be more to see!

Can ya see the black kitty hiding on top of the memorial? And, no, I don't know who the crypt is for.

Here are a pair hanging out by their little house and trying to stay cool. Seems someone has built a nice house for the cats - they have food, water and a comfy bed! I was pleased to find they were being cared for.

And here's the last one we saw as we dashed out of the cemetary with one of the workers blowing a horrible whistle alerting everyone that the cemetary was closing. Lovely cat, though! And s/he was just loungin' away.

All together, we counted seven but I'm sure there were more we didn't see. And yes, I took a couple of pictures of the tombstones/memorials/crypts. The whole place was truly incredible! Hopefully we'll get a chance to go back so I can get some more pics. If not Montmartre, then Pere Lachaise - that's where Jim Morrison is buried after all. :)

Bastille Day at the Eiffel Tower

So we all decide we’re going to partake of the Bastille Day fireworks display right under the Eiffel Tower! So we head out with our bags full and were able to get there fairly early (6-ish) so we could find a spot of grass large enough for all eight of us (Allisyn, Delanor, Darlyne, Kerry, Michelle, Mieko, Nicole and me) to spread out our blankets and share the picnic we brought. Along with about 9 bottles of wine, of course! Because, after all, what’s a picnic in France without wine? So we gals had a great time laughing and eating and drinking (not too much) until it finally started getting dark around 10:30. Then the show really began…

Wow! It was incredible! Really! Never before have I seen such a breathtaking fireworks display! Let alone the fact that it was perfectly timed with various musical pieces by Mozart! I mean, the States try to do this, but it usually just turns out to be some sort of music at the same time as the fireworks show – they don’t usually fit so perfectly.

Of course, you have to take into consideration the location of the fireworks. Right under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in none other than Paris, France. *gasp* Okay, so it was us under the Eiffel Tower and the fireworks were at the far end of the Parc du Champ de Mars near the École Militaire. But hey…now we’re just being picky! J

Regardless of who was where – it was an awe inspiring display of pyrotechnics and lights! The City of Lights certainly won over this fireworks-loving-girl! And the whole thing was definitely worth the difficulty of getting home on foot (only about half way) through the insane and massive throngs of herd-mentality people! Sheesh! It was pretty nuts! But we finally made it to a Metro station and were able to catch the last trains ‘home’ to the Cité. *whew*

Check out the pics below I was able to get. I have a few movies too, but have to figure out how to do the YouTube thing. Will post link when/if I get that done.


The Eiffel Tower when they lit it





A couple of shots of the fireworks using the special setting on my camera. Interesting 'tracers'!

Diet Coke?

One interesting cultural difference I've seen while here is that Diet Coke is *not* Diet Coke here. It is "Coca-Cola Light"

I wonder if the word 'diet' is considered vulgar in France...?

Allez Les Bleus!!

And the city goes crazy again - just like Saturday night! It seems that France has beaten Portugal in a very close 1-0 match and will be heading to the Finals this weekend! No sleep for me tonight - at least not until veeerrryyy late.

It's an interesting thing to witness as we don't have anything like it in the States. I mean, maybe the SuperBowl or World Series comes close, but I've never heard this much commotion with either of those events. Everyone has been walking around sporting their team's colors and some even drape themselves in the country's flag! Definitely something to witness!!

Sorry, no pics. Wish you could hear all the horns honking - just nuts!! But a fun kind of nuts.

Wow, my head is spinning!

Paris. Wow, where can I begin? I’m still in a bit of sensory overload from the first day or so. The flight was good – uneventful – and thanks to an eye mask and a nice blanket, I managed to get a few hours’ sleep even though I slept through the breakfast service to do it. Ah well.

As soon as we landed in Charles de Gaulle airport, we hit the ground running. Grabbed our bags (mine was last for some reason) and met Dr. Marquardt who had our ‘Carte Orange’ so we can ride the public transport system all month. “DON’T lose this – it’s irreplaceable!!”, she tells us emphatically! So after getting our Carte Oranges set up with our photo, name and signature it’s off to the Metro for us! We got lucky (says Dr. Marquardt) because we had an accordion player on board with us to serenade us. How neat was that!

So…the Metro done, we hike across the street to the Cité Universitaire de Paris where we’ll be staying for the duration of our trip. We’re each assigned dorm rooms according to what they had available so we’re all over the place – one girl in the basement, a few on the first floor (second to us), most of us on the second floor (third to us), and one way up on the third floor (4th).

The rooms are fairly nice single rooms. They have what’s called a ‘wet room’ for the bathroom. This means that the bathroom IS the shower – no division – just turn on the water and get it ALL wet! Kind of neat, I think. Many of us are surprised that there isn’t any air conditioning. It seems that we’ve been fortunate enough to come during one of Paris’ rare heat waves. Oh joy. Ah well…at least we’re ALL sweating like pigs. But this too shall pass – at least that’s what the weather report says.

I've uploaded pics from the first day to Webshots. Here's the link:
http://community.webshots.com/myphotos?action=viewAllPhotos&albumID=551922043&security=DtPWVl

I hope that will tide you all over till I have a chance to upload more. I promise I will!!

Au Revoir!