Blog Archives: April, 2004
Spring theme
If all has gone well, you should now see a spring theme for my website. I decided that it was time to migrate away from the winter blues. If you notice anything wrong, please write a comment below with a description and which browser you are using so I can try to fix it.
Technical notes: Safari users get fancy glowing highlights around links. All users except Windows Internet Explorer users get a fancy background on the menu bar at right and special effects when hovering over (based on Complex Spiral).
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Last day of rain
Flower in the gardens of Versailles, Paris Great days lie ahead of us! April 30 marks a wonderful turning point in this and every year of our life. For some, it’s the personal tax return deadline in Canada, but for others, it is the last day of rain until the fall. And let me tell you, the end of April showers here in Oxford will not be mourned. The last few days have been dreary – not enough rain to fire up some good thunderstorm music like Die Walküre (Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries), but just enough rain to make leaving the house an unpleasant task. The arrival of May flowers (and, I guess, the end of tax season) will be welcome.
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I am not a freak!
After arriving back home on Sunday, I’ve been settling back into life in Oxford. This term I start major work on my Master’s thesis. Current deadline is May 7th for submitting my dissertation proposal.
Shopping list The main topic of this post, however, is to elicit reader sympathy and feedback confirming that I am not a freak. This morning, I, as many people do on a regular basis, went grocery shopping. In order to go grocery shopping, I wrote up a shopping list, as is common practice. Here’s a picture of my shopping list.
When EvilHousemateCaroline saw the list, she asked why it was written scattered all over the page, and I explained that the list is laid out according to the store layout. She called me a freak! Can you believe that? Lots of people have organized shopping lists. When I tried to explain this to FormerlyNiceNowEvilHousemateJane, she also called me a freak. I guess these Brits just aren’t civilized enough to understand such complexity.
Update 2006/08/16: See this follow-up post.
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Still walking in Paris
It’s Tuesday, so we must be in Paris. That’s a line from some movie somewhere, we think. We just found an Internet cafe that actually allows us to connect Laura’s camera, so here are some more pictures.
Gondola in Switzerland This first picture is the gondola we took to get to our “hotel” in Switzerland. No, Laura’s camera isn’t broken, it really was that foggy.
Olympic Museum entrance, Lausanne After our fun in the snow we ventured to Lausanne, where we went to the Olympic Museum. Laura tried doing chin-ups to see if her strength could compete with that of Olympic athletes and couldn’t reach the bar.
Notre Dame at sunset Laura and I arrived in Paris two nights ago on Easter Sunday and attended evening mass at Notre Dame (if you think your church is crowded on Easter, you should see Notre Dame!) and then went for an evening cruise down the Seine.
Laura and I in Paris Yesterday we did a walking tour of Paris, and we estimate that we walked somewhere around 25 km. Along the way, we visited the Louvre (The Mona Lisa: we have bigger bath towers than that), the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower (yes, we climbed it, and yes, it’s a bit shorter than the CN Tower Climb), and a night time walk along the Seine. Today we visited the Palace of Versailles and the Moulin Rouge. Tomorrow night we head off to Edinburgh to visit Laura’s uncle Ronald (who, we hope, will be able to drive us so we no longer have to walk 25 km a day).
Eiffel Tower at sunset And tonight, as the sun set in Paris, we sat along the Seine with our baguette, Camembert, and bottles of juice, wondering why we should leave and thinking about the next time we come back. (Of course, now we’re in a far less idyllic Internet cafe with English-speaking tourists, but it feels like home, except for the Windows XP in French thing. At least it’s not in German.)
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The pictures to prove it
Yes we actually are in Europe and here are the pictures to prove it.
Inside the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican Tonight we find ourselves in Lausanne, Switzerland, staying with Edouard (who I worked with two summers ago at Sun Labs). In addition to teaching us lots of interesting French slang, Edouard is also providing us with the ability to upload pictures from our trip. And also a place to stay for the night. We can only upload a few pictures, so by popular request we’ve got a few from Rome and one from Switzerland.
Laura and I in RomeThe first is from the dome in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican looking down on the main altar. We reached the top after an hour and a half wait in line and about 300 stairs, nothing big for veteran CN Tower climbers like us.
Pope John Paul II The next shot is of Laura and I in the Forum with Rome in the background.
Reviewing our Wednesday photos from our Papal audience, we found our memory cards were full of “Pope… Pope… Pope…”. So here’s one of them.
Laura tobogganing in Switzerland Yesterday we arrived in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, a small town in more or less the middle of nowhere, to which we had to take a gondola to reach our hotel. To our surprise, there was half a foot of snow on the ground. We made the best of it and went tobogganing in the nearby town of Murren, and fortunately made it down Mt. Schilthorn without testing out either the Swiss health care system or our overseas insurance coverage. After visiting the Olympic Museum today in Lausanne, we’ve decided to form a Canadian tobogganing Olympic team. Any takers?
From here we’re off to Paris for 4 days and then visiting Laura’s uncle in Edinburgh. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures of LAURA AND DOUGLAS!!!!! (cue theme song)
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Last night in Rome
This morning we went to our audience with the Pope. No, it wasn’t a private audience, but it was more than just ‘standing beneath his window’ – the open air Popemobile drove by, then he gave an address and blessed the crowd. We were about 15 rows back, got some really good pictures (which, unfortunately, we can’t share with you because apparently no Internet café in Rome thinks that tourists would want to use digital cameras with their computers).
We’ve walked a lot. And we don’t just mean a lot, we mean need-new-shoes a lot. Fortunately we get to sit for a few hours on our train ride to Venice tomorrow. Ciao from Rome!
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In Rome
Laura and I have discovered you can conquer Rome in a day. We arrived last night into Rome and today have been to the Vatican, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps and the world’s largest McDonald’s (it has marble columns inside).
At the Vatican we waited in line for an hour to go up the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica (it was well worth the wait, and as an added bonus Laura now knows what it’s like to go to Walt Disney World). We attended a small intimate mass on the altar of St. Peter’s, and have an audience with the Pope on Wednesday. The line for the Vatican Museum was longer than the Vatican is in length, so we’re going to try again tomorrow morning. I guess it must be some important week here.
After a day at St. Peter’s, we started our night walking tour (albeit at 4pm). The Colosseum is magnificent at night, as is the Pantheon, and the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II, apparently the first King of Italy, although for all we know he could be the manager of McDonald’s. We’ve seen 4 or 5 of the 11 obelisks in Rome, they all look similar.
Laura and I tossed a Canadian coin into the Trevi fountain, as tradition has it that tossing a coin into the fountain will ensure your return to Rome; hopefully the tradition still holds for Canadian currency, even if it is worth a little less (okay, a lot less).
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Traveling with Laura
Laura and I in London Laura and I are off to Rome in a few hours. We spent the past few days in London and Oxford, and after Rome we’ll be in Switzerland, Paris, and Edinburgh. Ciao!
