Home, sweet home (you didn't even notice, did you? *Grin*)
I'm back from the land of the "Kamikaze motor scooters," otherwise known as Italy. I also went to Paris, but there I didn't have a tour guide giving it a funny name. It was fabulous and if people ask me about it I'll probably talk their ears off, so be warned. A frantic list of places visited, some only for a short time, is Paris-Rome-Sorrento-Capri-Pompei-Assisi-Ravenna-Venice-Verona-Milan-Varese-Como-Lugano-Pisa-Florence-Siena. Whew! Some of the highlights:
-being at St Peter's on Palm Sunday for most of the Mass and a Papal blessing (me and 100 000 other people...). This was exciting despite the fact that I'm not Catholic.
-getting in to see da Vinci's The Last Supper in Milan (they only let 25 people in every 15 minutes, and even the tour groups can't get tickets most of the time), which was amazing
-getting to see my Dad in Italy, of course
-not getting pickpocketed, surprisingly enough, and although Dad had his camera stolen, it was on the first night so he didn't lose any pictures
-hearing a medieval music group at the Paris medieval museum sing a bunch of Minnesänger songs.
-climbing everything I could find to get a view of Paris, like the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the towers of Notre Dame. Elevators are for wimps! And yes, I did use the stairs. Don't be expecting pictures of me scaling the Eiffel Tower with magnetic shoes.
-the choir that was singing when I was at Notre Dame. Canterbury folks will understand my joy as they sang Biebl's Ave Maria (a la grade twelve choir!)
-the sheer amount of art in the past few weeks. Galleries like the Louvre, Orsay, the Uffizi, the Acadamia... it's also all over the Pitti Palace, the Doges Palace and Versailles. I feel cultured. Heaven for someone who loves Renaissance art. Mmmm Titian and Raphael. And, you know, Michaelangelo and da Vinci. Can't forget them.
-a mini Hums reunion with Leah and Luc in Paris
-a random conversation with two Italian ladies in the train station. They didn't speak any English and my Italian consists of about seven words, so it involved a lot of hand gestures and I actually relied on my French and Latin vocabulary to decipher what they were going on about. Good times.
-visiting probably a record number of Parisian museums and galleries in a week
-going to Switzerland on Easter Sunday, so I could celebrate the end of Lent with Swiss chocolate!
-the weather, which, except for about two days, was sunny and hot. I actually got a little sunburnt.
-Finding, and squealing at, one of Prof. Laird's Dante plaques in Florence (where they quote him mentioning certain places in the city). Some of the others on our group made the mistake of asking who Dante was while in my presence. I think I gave them a longer answer than they were expecting...
-I'm going to stop now, but I could go on for ages. Suffice it to say that I took over five hundred pictures in three weeks. Yikes.
That being said, it's nice to be home. Three weeks of travelling, living on cafe/restaurant food and sleeping in strange beds, is a long time.
-being at St Peter's on Palm Sunday for most of the Mass and a Papal blessing (me and 100 000 other people...). This was exciting despite the fact that I'm not Catholic.
-getting in to see da Vinci's The Last Supper in Milan (they only let 25 people in every 15 minutes, and even the tour groups can't get tickets most of the time), which was amazing
-getting to see my Dad in Italy, of course
-not getting pickpocketed, surprisingly enough, and although Dad had his camera stolen, it was on the first night so he didn't lose any pictures
-hearing a medieval music group at the Paris medieval museum sing a bunch of Minnesänger songs.
-climbing everything I could find to get a view of Paris, like the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the towers of Notre Dame. Elevators are for wimps! And yes, I did use the stairs. Don't be expecting pictures of me scaling the Eiffel Tower with magnetic shoes.
-the choir that was singing when I was at Notre Dame. Canterbury folks will understand my joy as they sang Biebl's Ave Maria (a la grade twelve choir!)
-the sheer amount of art in the past few weeks. Galleries like the Louvre, Orsay, the Uffizi, the Acadamia... it's also all over the Pitti Palace, the Doges Palace and Versailles. I feel cultured. Heaven for someone who loves Renaissance art. Mmmm Titian and Raphael. And, you know, Michaelangelo and da Vinci. Can't forget them.
-a mini Hums reunion with Leah and Luc in Paris
-a random conversation with two Italian ladies in the train station. They didn't speak any English and my Italian consists of about seven words, so it involved a lot of hand gestures and I actually relied on my French and Latin vocabulary to decipher what they were going on about. Good times.
-visiting probably a record number of Parisian museums and galleries in a week
-going to Switzerland on Easter Sunday, so I could celebrate the end of Lent with Swiss chocolate!
-the weather, which, except for about two days, was sunny and hot. I actually got a little sunburnt.
-Finding, and squealing at, one of Prof. Laird's Dante plaques in Florence (where they quote him mentioning certain places in the city). Some of the others on our group made the mistake of asking who Dante was while in my presence. I think I gave them a longer answer than they were expecting...
-I'm going to stop now, but I could go on for ages. Suffice it to say that I took over five hundred pictures in three weeks. Yikes.
That being said, it's nice to be home. Three weeks of travelling, living on cafe/restaurant food and sleeping in strange beds, is a long time.