O'Learys' in Essex

After five days in Washington D.C. we went to Essex, Massachusetts and stayed with our friends the O'Learys'. Essex, Massachusetts is about an hour northeast of Boston on the coast. We know the O'Leary's because my Dad grew up with Mrs. O'Leary in Talkeetna. They also have two boys, Bennett is 10 and Vaughn is 7 years old.

Playing at Patton Park. General Patton lived in Exxex, MA.

Down at the beach with Bennett and Vaughn.

Every day we would play sports with them at their house. We played wiffle ball in the back yard and basketball and street hockey on the driveway. My favorite was home run derby wiffle ball. I liked it way better than street hockey because I didn't have hockey sticks wacked at my legs and feet. My brothers favorite was street hockey. 

Bennett and I going head to head with the puck.

Bennett shotting hoops

Vaughn and I racing for the ball

The boys showed us their collection of Japanese erasers. They are mini erasers in the shape of animals, vehicles, sports equipemnt and food. We bought some erasers at the Silly Goose toy store. I got an elephant, penguin, seal, robot, soccer ball and a hamster. I regret not getting the dolphin. Later I traded the hamster for a puffer fish with Vaughn.

It was a blast staying with the O'Leary's. Plus, it was awesome seeing friends after being gone for 10 months. The O'Leary's usually come to Alaska in the summer but this time we visited them at their home.

We also made smores in their backyard fire pit.

Back in the USA

I was giddy boarding the plane in Paris bound for NYC. Standing in line on the jet way I struck up a brief conversation with a lovely NYC couple returning from their honeymoon in Paris. I was talking to a real American citizen, speaking real English, agreeing on how thrilling it is to travel internationally but so thankful we are to be heading home - back to the USA.

My feelings surprised me as days prior I was questioning if I even wanted to be back in the USA. I am fiercly patriotic and in love with my country but our adventure opened my eyes to the world, seeing new ways of life, new ways of thinking and that made me want to continue, explore more. From that aspect I was not entirely sure I was ready to come home. However, my feelings betrayed my thoughts as they usually do. I was excited!

The boys were equally excited. As we were disembarking the plane, on US soil, they were jockeying for who would be the "first one back in the US. The first one 'home." We left the plane saying thank you and goodbye in French never looking back.

We turned the corner into US Immigrations and saw a huge Stars and Stripes hanging proudly and we all squeeeled with delight! Full of American pride we marched past the long, long, long, que for "visitors" to enter my country then past the line for legal alien residents and went straight to the, shortest line of all, the que for U.S. Citizens!

Post number 37 opened and as we appoached the counter the immigration agent, a big black man with a wicked New York accent, was complaining to his fellow agent in post 36 how much he hates the new passport machines and thinks its absurd our government wasting so much money on new equipment when the old ones worked better, processed faster and didn't breakdown as often. We stood quietly in front of him while he finished his rant. When he was done he asked for our passports and processed us through. Listening to him made me smile, chuckle actually.

You see this is one aspect that makes our country the greatest on the planet. Here is a government employee sharing his disgust on wasteful spending which he is FREE TO DO. NO WHERE did we see a scene like this. EVERYWHERE else immigration agents sat quietly in their cubicles motioning the next traveler through doing their job with no conversation to their fellow worker, or to the passing traveler. Sometimes I would try to engage the agent in conversation but was usually unsuccessful.

We've been around the world visited 22 countries on 6 continents and we all agree that the United States of America is still the best country on the face of the earth; even with all our problems.

Our immigration agent as post number 37 turned out to be a friendly man who we had a lively conversation with as he processed us through with a "welcome home".

I took the opportunity give the boys some insight as to what they just experienced and it started a wonderful, thought provoking, how governments work conversation that I love having with my boys. God bless America, Land that I love!

Baguettes, Brassieres and Cigarettes

Four nights/five days in Avignon, four nights/five days in Normandy and five nights/six days in Paris has left me a bit bewildered at daily life of the French. How can a country consume so many baguettes, smoke so many cigarettes and drink coffee all day long yet remain healthy and beautiful? And our country? Well...


Baguettes
In France you can find a boulangerie or practically every street corner. Combine that with patisseries and you get an intoxicating fresh baked goodness smell wafting from their doors. One morning we could not resist and stopped in for breakfast. After ordering quiche, sweet pastires and coffee we sat down and watched what we dubbed "the great baguette frenzy." We witnessed a steady stream of people coming in empty handed and walking out with one, two or three baguettes passing up the plethora of delectable that we would have chosen. There were old men, young ladies, mom's with kids, husbands with their "list", old ladies, young men and every one in between buying baguettes. We figured the baguette frenzy happened everyday since we all know that baguettes are hard as rocks the second day and not worthy of eating. The boys and I were highly entertained watching this intriguing phenomenon and speculating what they did with all the baguettes.

Two baguettes in hand

Brassieres
Yes, Starbucks exists in France but the authentic choice is a brassiere. This is a cafe sort of place that serves espresso, cocktails, cigarettes and very, very light snacks that makes our American snacks look like a meal. Brassieres are teaming with people in the morning sipping demi-tasse cups of espresso, smoking cigarettes and munching on a piece of a baguette. Mid-day and afternoon it's the same scene. By early evening and beyond they are still smoking, munching and drinking but for some the espresso has been replaced with a beer or cocktail. Brassieres act as a sort of before work, at lunch, afternoon cafe break, after work/before dinner gathering spot. The "hey let's meet for drinks and a smoke" place. The coveted seats are the ones outside on the sidewalk. And when seated around the small round tables, everyone, no matter how many are in one group, sit facing the street not each other as if watching the stage performance of Life and People.

Smoking
Cigarettes are everywhere, and almost everyone in France smokes. Non-smoking is not part of their vocabulary. I think the only place in France smoking has been officially banned is on the Metro, TGV and busses. As soon as French folks in transit disembark from their journey they are lighting up. The brassieres sell cigs, as do tabac shops. The tabac shops are nothing more than a small stand on the street selling cigarettes, newspapers and a few other sundries. All the smoking became quickly annoying since as Americans, where non-smoking is en vogue, we are not used to breathing cigarette smoke in lieu of air. Our day at Disneyland was spent breathing more second-hand smoke than real Parisian air. And, a friend once commented that she knew she was back in Paris by the smell of smoke lingering in the air. I recently read an article about France's new smoking ban in cafes and restaurants but I am not to sure who is enforcing this and how because we saw no smoking ban in effect.

As to my original question of how French stay beautiful with this style of living, here's my theory how. Walk to metro/bus station smoking a morning cig, munch on your baguette on the ride, meet friends at the brassiere for a quick espresso and another smoke. Head to the office, work the morning, walk to lunch at another brassiere for an espresso, smoke and baguette. Walk back to work. Leave work and walk to a brassiere to meet friends for a beer, smoke and baguette. Hang out have more cigs and drinks. Maybe walk to a restaurant for dinner at 10:00pm or just stay and have another smoke, drink and baguette.

All of the above has a 0 caloric net effect since the walking and the caffeine jolt from the espresso speeds the metabolism to burn off the baguette. And the cigarettes have a negative calorie effect acting as an appitite suppressent. So by the end of the day, if they even choose to eat dinner, the French are in a perfect position to enjoy a small three course meal late in the evening with minimal effect on their waist line. Viola! C'est bon!

Paris

We stayed in Paris for five days and I was very disappointed with what I saw in the city. People told us that it is an amazing city. I happen to dissagre. Some people believe it to be one of the best city's in the world but I wasn't impressed. The first thing I didn't care for about Paris was all the dissorganized art museums. I didn't like them beaucuse, when we went to the Manet exhibit about one fourth of the paintings were not created by Manet him self but by diffrent artists. That doesn't make much sense to me when people are comming to see Manet.

The seccond thing I didn't like about Paris is all the long lines to see the atractions. We wanted to go to the top of the Efile Tower. When we got there about 300 people were in line. So we dicided not to go to the top. Two other long lines we had to wait in were the Louve and the Musee De Orse.

Eventhough I didn't like Paris much here are some pictures of the places we visited in the city for you to enjoy.

  

Here is the Notre Dame and its stained glass windows.

One of the famous rose window. They were a lot more beautiful in person.

Inside the cathredral

This carving above the middle door shows an angel, a demon and Christ above all. The line of people on the left are waiting to go to heaven. The line of people on the right are going to hell. In the middle the angle an the demon are using a scale to judge the peoples lives.

Here you can see the famous flying buttresses on the back of the cathedreal.
They also were more beautiful in person.

Cameron and I found this fun ride in the park behind Notre Dame. We had a blast.

 

Here we are at the entrance of the
Louvre with the glass pyramid in the background.

 I loved these crowns, they also had a crown for a young child.

Here are some of the armory items from the Greek empire.

Taylor was happy to see these coins from the middle ages. I thought they were cool too. We couldn't find out where they were from or the age because the description was in French.

You may be wondering why there is an obelisk in Paris? It was a gift from the Egyptian President.

We climbed the staris up the Arc De Triomphe.

This photo of the Eiffel Tower taken from the Arc De Triomphe.

On our second to last day in Paris we went to Disneyland. We had a lot of fun. I was so excited to be there.

The Bayeux Tapestry

Normandy is famous for its history, especially World War II. Most people only know Normandy for WWII. When we were there, we discovered something that was almost 950 years older than WWII. The Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry is 70+ meter long or 87 yards, (that's almost as long as a football field),and tells the story of William the Conqueror ascension to the throne of England in 1066.


The story begins with Old King Edward of England living his last days with no heir, so he sends Harold Earl of Wessex to find William the Duke of Normandy. William at the time was at war with the Kingdom of Brittany and away from his Capitol, Bayeux. So, Harold set off into the English Channel to find William. When he was mid-way through his journey he encountered a storm. The next day he landed not in Normandy, but in Brittany. The locals took him captive, and brought him to their capitol. When William captured their capitol he found Harold. Harold told William that he was the Earl of Wessex, sent by King Edward to find him.

On their way back to Bayeux they encountered and defeated enemies. Harold showed a great amount of valor thus William knighted him on the battlefield. When the company got back to Bayeux William immediately summoned his half brother, the Bishop Odo to prepare the Cathedral Notre Dame de Bayeux for Harold's official knighting ceremony. Harold then swore his allegiance to William and that William would become king of England after Edward.

When Harold returned to England he found that King Edward had died while he was gone. The people had no idea that Harold had made an allegiance to William and they pressured Harold to become king. Harold accepted and thus broke his allegiance to William. When William heard of this he then ordered all of his men to invade England. At the time of this England was already fighting the Vikings in the north. When William came and landed in the south Harold diverted all of his men to fight William and his men. When William was ready he attacked Harold's 7,000 ill-equipped men with his 7,000 archers swordsmen and knights. William devastated Harold's army and Harold was shot in the eye by an archer. William then slowly started to conquer all of England. In 1066 William the Bastard (this was is name for real) became known as William the Conquer.

I have always heard of the Famous tapestries that the Normans made. But I never knew that there was a huge one that defined Norman history. I really enjoyed going to Bayeux and seeing this made it even better. The reason why there is no pictures of the actual tapestry is because it was prohibited. Instead here are photos of the cathedral where the tapestry used to be displayed.

Bayeux cathedral Notre Dame de Bayeux in the background



Cathedreal