In search of.....

Winter!!!!

I got teased by the latest noreaster that missed us on Sunday night. We were out late and the roads were even pre-salted! Then we woke up to green out the window which is a huge disappointment. I loook forward to storms like a little kid (probably 'cause I get the day off too). Then I was hopeful for tommorrow, but now it is just going to rain. This means we will be taking a now annual MLK weekend drive to New England or Northern NY to find snow. Wish us luck, because we do not always find it either! I feel confident about NE though since Boston just got slammed with our snow.

I just hope our only snow is not in Utah. I have not been able to go out to Rockefeller to enjoy the winter properly in so long......wahh!!!!!!! Damn, now that theme song to the show "In Search of" with Leonard Nimoy is stuck in my head.

I'm not worthy...

We hit a couple of open houses this weekend. One was a lark, and the place was literally a mansion. At least it was really impressive for 1,400,000. Usually at that price point here, the house is nice, but nothing super special. This house was totally cool. It was built in the 20s by some noted architect, and it was made of stone. Of course I kept thinking about how much it would cost to heat and cool a house that is 5,000 square feet! Anyhow it was actually priced well considering how amazing the house and property were. We are not looking into buying that high by any means.
We checked out another house (in Rye). It was 1,250,000. For 2,000 sq/ft, .20 acres and old (seriously, 1960s kitchen) and old baths. They made an addition on it, but I know the house was bought for 860,000 in 2004. I do not think so. You put on a coat of paint, and suddenly the house is worth that much? No friggin' way. I always tend to tell Mike what I think I would offer for various houses. Last night he put it in a spread sheet he made with local market trends to help us forcast pricing. I was pretty damn close. Maybe I should become a realtor. I will treat your kids and conduct an open house. I suppose my sellers would not be happy with me!
We are so ready to move, but with the delusional people out there, who knows what we will be able to get. It is just totally insane and makes me absolutely sick to my stomach knowing what we will have to spend even when the market drops this year. I am just not willing to commit to something that huge and not be totally happy. I just want to be excited about where we end up.

Belated Birthday Wishes

To KC,international man of mystery!

WNYC - Radio Lab: Sleep (January 11, 2008)

WNYC - Radio Lab: Sleep (January 11, 2008)
This is a fun episode. Cool stuff.

Damn resolutions!

This is the time of year when the gym is crowded with good intentions. I will give things a few weeks to clear out and I will try not to let the crowds annoy me. They opened this little annex with these awesome stationary bikes at the Y where in theory you can race others at the same time (they have not hooked the bikes up together for it yet). They have monitors where you ride courses like a video game. I find it pretty motivating. Mike wants to race me really bad, but he is just kicking my ass out there regardless (we ride the same courses). It tends to reward pure power, and these creaky knees have not been turning out the watts lately. All I know is that I need to get my joints in shape for skiing, even though snow has not appeared anywhere in these parts yet (at least ski-worthy). I need to recover from my vacation of eating, sitting, eating, and walking.

I was just reading a news article about workout music. It was all about high beats per minute with a constant rhythm. They were mentioning a lot of lame garbage. I acquired a nano recently and put together a gym playlist. I think I am an old fart for the following reasons:

1. Most of the motivational stuff is from the 80s and early 90s. I guess I have gone soft rock.
2. There is a lot of dirty Prince, and I have to be careful not to sing along. I do not think the people at the Y could tolerate "Irresistable Bitch" or "Lady Cab Driver"
3. I have come to the conclusion that anything from the Run, Lola, Run soundtrack is motivating.
4. You can always respond to Work Hard by Depeche Mode or The Pixies.

Speaking of the Pixies, I heard the Breeders are coming out to tour this year. I lost my Breeder's CD years ago, but that was an old gym CD.

I did make a resolution this year. I decided to try to play guitar 3 times a week. Wish me luck.

Top of Effiel

This is part of the view.

Eiffel Tower

sorry about the quality, but I hope you get the idea!

Paris, the final chapter

I am sure you are all sick of hearing about Paris, so this is the end. We got up on New Year's eve and took it easy. We visited the National Archive and the Picasso museum. We ate food from the street and strolled about. We had a terrific dinner (I ate Fois Gras), and met Mike at 11 on the Metro. We went to the Champs Elysee for the New Year's celebration. We walked in the festive crowd of thousands with our bottle of cheap champagne. At midnight, nothing happened! No countdown or anything to officially mark the New Year. Just people yelling, "Bon Annee" at random intervals. It was pretty funny that nothing happened, but it was still fun. When we got back to our hotel, things were really hoppin'. We had to leave at 6 AM the next morning, so we called it a night. When we made our way to the airport, things were still hoppin'.

Paris, Part 3

After our insane museum schedule, we decided to chill out. We aimed to go up the Eiffel the first thing in the morning (try to get there before it opened to beat the insane crowd). The tower was well worth the wait, and coming before it opened made the entire visit from start to finish last 2 hours. On the first deck they made an elaborate ice bar and you could put snowshoes on to walk the outer ring. It was not worth it since most of the snow they made had melted. We walked down from the second to the first level. We were lucky to get a clear day.

We hit the open markets of Rue Cler after the tower to buy some awesome breakfast. We even got some cheese at a fromagerie. After we ate the cheese, we left it in our hotel room. That was a mistake when we returned hours later. Our room smelled like the Fromagerie! We visited Les Invalides where the war museum and Napoleon's tomb are located. Man did Napoleon have Napoleon syndrome! It made Grant's tomb look spartan. The war museum was really great, and they had a amazing exhibit on WWI and WWII. I need to learn more about the wars.

We jumped on the subway to meet up with my friend, Mike. He is really my brother's really good friend, but we used to hang out when I lived in Ann Arbor. He lives right outside of Paris in Vincennes. We toured Chateau de Vincennes which is cool castle dating back from the 12th century. It was closed when we got there, but Mike sweet talked our way in (ticket sales were done, but they were still open for a half hour). We then joined his family for dinner. It was fun to meet his wife, try local foods, and meet his kids. His little ones speak English to him and French to their mom. We kicked ourselves out and made it back to the city.

http://en.chateau-vincennes.fr/

Now see if you can find what belongs to Napoleon in this group of pictures!

Eiffel redux

When we loaded up the digital frame for Mike's tanta, we scanned this picture of his Dad walking down the Eiffel tower. We decided to take similar shot!

Paris, Part Duex

By the way, our room in the city had a tiny balcony over a typically Parisian street (and the Eiffel tower looming nearby). The elevator was funny, and it could fit one person (barely). Our shower was the same, and I could not climb in without a body part touching something (despite my best efforts).

The next day, we hit many museums. We went Museum Crazy! We visited the following:
Musee Orsay
Musee Orangerie
Sainte Chapelle
Paris Archiological Crypt
Centre Pompidou

The Orsay is one of my favorites. It is housed in an old train station and features more contemporary works than the Louve. It has an incredible collection of Impressionist art. The building was amazing and it was great just to hang out in there. There was amazing art by the greats. A must see!

Orangerie is another museum that features Impressionist Art. It has some amazing Monet as you could see on the video. When I uploaded onto the blog, the sidebar on Youtube had a ton of other people doing the same thing that I did.

Sainte Chapelle is a 13th century Gothic chapel with some mind-boggling stained glass. I wanted to see it when our tour book described it this way, "floor is slippery with the drool of the awestruck tourist".

The crypt is below Notre Dame, and it unearths the Roman ruins from the city's beginning and explains how Paris came to be.

Centre Pompidou looks like an industrial habitrail for people. The view from the escalator was great. It was a modern art museum with other stuff inside too. It felt a little like a mall.

We followed that all up with a dinner in the Marais. It was a small place, and the food was amazing. I was too lazy to consult my phrasebook, and I ordered the crayfish salad by mistake there. The waiters ended up teasing me about it non-stop. It was funny. When we rolled back home, all we could do is stare at a show in French about some showgirls (I assume on the Moulin Rouge). The show went on forever, and I can now do their toy soldier routine as a result. I have no idea what these girls could have possibly been talking non-stop about, but there were a lot of boobs in the special. At one point, one of the salty men who run the show was measuring some show-girl's butt crack and writing diagrams on the chalkboard. I wonder if my arse would measure up?
Now just to blow your mind, my pictures in in reverse order!

360 Degrees of Monet

Checking out Monet at the Orangerie in Paris.

Strolling though Paris

So we got up the next day, and set out to wander about. We walked out of our hotel, and past the Eiffel tower. There was a massive crowd there. The entire base of the tower was full of people. The thing that suprised me the most about the tower is its immense size. It is HUGE. The feet of the tower spread out really far (Mom's estimate was a couple of football fields). So there were hundreds of people gathered there for a ride. We walked along the river and appreciated the views.

Many people say they have always dreamed of going to Paris. I thought it would be fun, but it was not a passion of mine. Now that I have been there, I think everyone should visit someday. It is now in my top 5 list of favorite cities. It is old and beautiful. Those who appreciate art must go there, and their museums are fabulous (high praise from somebody who lives near NYC).

Anywhooo, we walked about and finally found where to buy a museum pass. You pay for a pass, and you get to forgo many lines and it is cheaper in the long run. It was a Godsend when we were there since the whole world seemed to be vacationing in Paris between Christmas and New Year's. We headed to the Louve first. The Louve is at the end of this massive garden. It was so big I really could not take a picture of it at all. The sculptures were amazing in there, and the building is a work of art too. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo. it was comical to see the massive crowds around these works. I figured I would look at them since I was there. The Louve is world class and amazing to see.

We then headed to the Ile de la Cite. We checked out the Conciergerie which is an old prison where many people were excuted and imprisoned during the French revolution. We then wandered towards the mob scene at Notre Dame. We had dinner, and then returned to the church for a concert of Gregorian Chants. That was really amazing and beautiful. it is incredible how one voice can fill a huge cathedral.

Off to Paris

We got in the car the day after the party, and we heard the "other jeans" song. We spent pretty much the entire day driving, and then a frustrating hour returning the car to the airport. We took ill advice from the bitchy navigation system (a womanly voice we started to call "Victoria"). She must have had a boyfriend in the German countryside, because after perfect steering she sent us on a ridiculous route. Oh well, it was cool to see what it looked like in the area (Happy Accident-from my Ireland trip friends!) We ate lunch at a town called, "Kirchheimbolanden". I was excited to stop in a town with a name that long.

Car return ended up being a lot more work than I expected. Usually around the world, there are obvious universal symbols on airport signs. I furiously thumbed through the phrase book, but could not find the French term for "car rental" on any signs. We stopped at an airport map twice, asked for directions, and finally when about to give up, Mike spotted the little symbol we were searching for at another terminal. The stupid maps at there info stations had the rental locations mapped incorrectly. It was pretty maddening. I even spotted billboards advertising the car rental firm we used before finding out where to turn it in. By the way, we were upgraded to a Mercedes in Germany, but it was hilariously small. I will see if I have a picture to post. Of course the people working the car drop were aware of the poor signage.

We stopped in a town on the way to Paris called Rheims. There is a HUGE cathedral there (bigger than Notre Dame) called the Catherdral of Notre Dame, Rheimes. It was built in the 1200's, burned down, rebuilt, and really destroyed in WWII.

http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/org/orion/eng/hst/gothic/reims.html

It was worth a look, and it was really huge inside. It was also dark and candle-lit which made it more imposing. Holy Buttresses!


We took the train in, stumbled around for a few blocks with our bags, and we made it to our hotel. We had a little bite to eat, and took a short stroll. We immediatly became aware how close we were staying to the Eiffel Tower. As we marvelled at the sight of it lit up, the lights went out for the night.