Last night while grilling some garden burgers, I didn’t notice that a wrapper to a slice of processed cheese had blown off the table. It didn’t take long for our new puppy, Hurley, to find it. While chasing him around the yard to get it back, I couldn’t help but think about the lolcats and their ongoing quest for cheezburgers.
Filed by Eric at 1:21 pm under Hurley, Life in General, Photography
No Comments
We went to the King County Adopt-A-Thon today and came home with an new puppy. He is a mix of a Labrador Retriever and something else that the rescue kennel was not sure about. We haven’t settled on a name yet, but so far we like Hurley, Wilson, Caesar, Gordy, or Indy. If you have an opinion or another idea, please leave us a comment.
Filed by Eric at 7:21 pm under Hurley, Life in General, Photography
2 Comments
So far this year we have had about one day of Spring-like weather. It is currently hailing and snowing as I write this. Here are some pictures from yesterday’s snow storm.
Notes: this gallery was created with the new “Gallery” feature in Wordpress 2.5. It doesn’t look my theme is compatible with 2.5, so it doesn’t have the previous/next feature to navigate the photos, but I still think it is pretty cool. The first three pictures were taken with my new camera phone.
Filed by Eric at 12:14 pm under Life in General, Photography
No Comments
We have finished uploading and captioning photos from our summer trip to Europe. We returned home with over 2,000 photos but we’ve selected about 400 of our favorite photos to post. This was a very time consuming process, but it is always fun to look back. The trip feels like it happened so long ago.
Here are some links to help you browse through the photos;
Filed by Eric at 12:01 pm under Europe 2007, Photography
No Comments
I had been to Rome once before, but it is one of those amazing cities you can visit repeatedly. On our first evening there, we did a walk-through of some famous sites such as the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. All of the sites were almost too crowded to be enjoyable, so we didn’t spend very much time at each one. At Trevi, we managed to squeeze our way in just long enough to toss a few coins in with a wish and take one of our patented self-portraits by holding the camera at arm’s length.
We woke early the next morning, pressed ourselves onto a rush-hour metro car, and stood in line for the Vatican Museum. Despite being there before it opened, we had to wait for two hours in a line that wrapped around the fortified walls of the holy city. The Vatican Museum has an an impressive collection of religious art and Greek/Roman sculptures, but everyone is really there for the Sistine Chapel. After passing through room after room of paintings, tapestries, and maps, you first enter the Papal apartments that were painted by Raphael. My personal favorite fresco there is The School of Athens. A few corridors later and you enter in the Sistine Chapel, packed with tourists standing shoulder to shoulder and bending their necks back to look at the ceiling. The ceiling fresco by Michelangelo is easily one of the most impressive and awe-inspiring works of art in Europe, though I personally consider The Last Judgment, painted on the wall 20 years later by Michelangelo, to be more powerful and thought provoking. I was also impressed that the museum guards made a strong effort to keep the tourists from taking photos, unlike the museum guards in the Louvre.
After a really bad lunch in a touristy restaurant nearby, we returned to visit the basilica of San Pietro, which is the largest Catholic Church in the world (though I read that there is a replica of San Pietro somewhere in Africa that slightly beats it in length). The mosaics here were the most realistic we had seen yet. We then climbed the steps of the dome, which was designed by Michelangelo, to the highest point in Rome. The view was great, but the platform was really crowded.
The next day, our last full day in Europe, we set out to visit the ruins of ancient Rome. We toured through the Coliseum, wandered the ruins of the forum, then explored the rubble of emperors’ palaces on the Palatine Hill. According to Roman legend, Rome began on this hill when Romulus and Remus were found by a she-wolf. For us, it was nearly the end. We then made just a few quick stops by the Victor Emmanuel monument, Trajan’s column, and one more Michelangelo statue, Moses, at the Saint Peter-in-Chains church.
From there, we had one last pasta dinner then headed back to the hotel to pack. Our flight the next morning was pretty much uneventful, which provided many hours to read. After sighting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the window of a bookstore in Venice, we decided to purchase it in Florence. By reading during our train trip and at night, LeAnn had read over half of the final installment in the Harry Potter series, and I had finished a few chapters. Since I was further behind, I got first turn at reading it on the flight, and was able to finish it. LeAnn almost finished it too, but she needed a nap so she had to finish it at home. I don’t want to say too much and risk giving away secrets, but I thought this was by far the most exciting book and the ending certainly did not disappoint (though I am puzzled about a few events in the end).
Oops, I almost forgot this was a post about our Europe trip… We are home now, after 20+ hours of travel from Rome with a layover in Philadelphia. I’ve uploaded 1,400+ pictures to my computer, and now I need to edit the collection down to a more manageable size. Hopefully, I will be able to post some pictures of our adventure in a week or so!
Update: view photos of Rome.
Filed by Eric at 10:23 pm under Europe 2007
No Comments
Our trip continued to be extremely warm, but we did find one solution in Florence- 3 square meals of GELATO! Along with the Renaissance, Florence managed to elevate ice cream to an art form. We tried quite a few flavors, such as zuppa inglese, tiramisu, mille folia, stracciatella, and something with hazelnuts… (please forgive our spelling)
When we arrived we decided to climb to the highest point of the city and made it to the top of Brunelleschi’s dome. (the main cathedral) There were about 473 steps to the top and the views of the Tuscan hills were definitely worth it. Once again it gave us a great perspective on what we were going to see in the city. Of course after we came down, we were really hot, so we had some gelato to cool us off.
The next day we visited the Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens (no pizza!), Santa Croce Cathedral and the Uffizi gallery. At the Pitti Palace we saw a bunch of Raffaellos and some elaborately decorated rooms. As we walked through the Boboli Gardens we were already exhausted and skipped the “grotto”, which we later learned housed some Michaelangelo statues. Santa Croce had some famous paintings too, but we can’t remember what they were right now. The Uffizi gallery had the 2 most famous Boticelli paintings, “The Birth of Venus” and “La Primavera”. The audioguide was extremely disappointing, so we cheered ourselves up with having some gelato afterwards.
The next day we saw “David” in the Accademia Gallery and then visited a series of galleries and churches with works by Donatello, Massacio, Fra Lippi, Giotto, and Luca Della Robia. You always hear about how amazing David is, but until you see it in person, you can’t imagine how impressive it really is. Look at the back of your hand, you see that vein? Well, Michaelangelo, somehow carved that into David’s hand, which is made of marble… The details are amazingly precise and slightly overwhelming.
Since we saw so much of Florence the first two days, on the third day we took a tour to Siena and San Gimignano. Yes, a tour, that just explains to you how tired we were and how much we didn’t want to figure out the bus schedule on our own. The Tuscan countryside is truly beautiful. We didn’t have much time in Siena but saw the ornately decorated cathedral and an altar painting by Duccio. San Gimignano was another walled city (we’ve managed to hit quite a few on this trip). What made San G pretty unique was its 14 towers and of course its gelato! We probably had the best gelato of the entire trip here, although that might be because it was so hot.
Tomorrow morning we leave Rome for home. See you soon!
Update: view photos of Florence.
Filed by LeAnn at 12:18 pm under Europe 2007
No Comments
We spent two nights in Venice in a tiny, and I mean tiny, hotel room. However, the room had the redeeming quality that it was on the Grand Canal with a view of the Accademia Bridge. Considering that there are only three bridges that cross the Grand Canal, this was a great location. With only one and a half days to spend in Venice, we didn’t spend much time in our hotel anyway.
Venice has a way of immediately winning you over. As soon as you step out of the train station, the Grand Canal greets you, and you are surrounded by palaces still showing signs of a glorious age. We took a vaporetto, which is a boat that functions as a public bus, the length of the Grand Canal to our hotel, passing by countless palaces, bobbing gondolas, and the Rialto Bridge.
During our first afternoon there, we climbed the campanile (bell tower) on San Marco (Saint Mark’s Square). This was a great way to get they lay of the land, so to speak. That night we hung out in a cafe/bar on the square that charged a steep cover, but provided live music and great wine.
The following morning, we returned to San Marco to visit the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica. Because of Venice’s position on the Adriatic Sea, it had a strong connection with trading centers in the Middle East, thus its art and architecture reflects the Byzantine Style. We were amazed by the opulence of the Doge’s (Venetian Duke) palace, which was on par with Versailles in terms of living in autocratic style. We were also impressed by the basilica, the only one we visited on this trip in the Byzantine orthodox style. The gold mosaics lining every inch of the dome were beautiful. We also visited the treasury, filled with treasures looted during the crusades, and saw some horse statues that date back to the era of Alexander the Great.
Despite being worn out from the heat and walking, we decided to squeeze in a trip to Murano Island late that afternoon. We took a half-hour long vaporetto ride that circled the island, and arrived a little too late to see a glass blowing demostration, but we did get to purchase some traditional Venetian glass.
We did not take a gondola ride during this visit, which we considered too expensive for the thrill of being run over by a vaporetto, but we did take a short traghetto ride, which is crossing the Grand Canal via a gondola in areas that lack a bridge. The traghetto cost .50 euros, vs. 90+ for a gondola ride.
The next morning, we caught an early train for Florence. By the time we get a chance to write about that, we may be back in Seattle. LeAnn just posted about our time in the Cinque Terre, so read below for a post about our trek up and down the terraced cliffs. We are now in Rome and we return home in two days.
Update: view photos of Venice.
Filed by Eric at 12:23 pm under Europe 2007
No Comments