Paris

What better way to celebrate the end of a long first year of teaching than go on a whirlwind tour through Paris? 

Can't think of one? Neither could we, so here are some photos that highlight our 12 hour tour of the highlights of Paris. We went with a church group that took a tour bus through the night, got dropped off in Paris for the day and hopped back on 12 hours later for the ride back. 

There may be nothing charming about this photo, but the atmosphere of the moment was a sweet taste of sleepy Paris. We had just gotten done squeezing the bus through the fruit trucks that were unloading for a Saturday market. The air was cool and foggy, but the outdoors felt good after the bus ride. 

This was our first site to see. 

Basilique du Sacre-Coeur

Not an old church, but a beauty all the same. 

In order to reach the church we had to climb this rather steep hill.

But if you don't have energy to climb the stairs you can pay a fee to take these little rail cars up. 

Next we headed to the modern / business district of Paris, set a little apart and above the old city center. 

There's Luke, walking around, in the silent glass and metal maze of the early Saturday in the modern district of Paris, led by our excellent guide (shorter, white haired man in the center, who happens to be a French teacher at our school).

I really don't know any of the particulars about each building, so I simply took photos for the sake of capturing images of this architectural 'gallery'. 

While wandering, Luke and I saw a familiar shape peeking out from between the buildings. 

Our fellow Grand Rapid-ians will no doubt recognize the color and structure of this statue. 

This Calder made us feel like we had happened upon an old friend. 

Despite the urban setting, they remembered to incorporate green space. 

If you were starting to think that Paris was artsy, you would be right on. 

I am sure that many a practically minded person will wonder 'what is the point?' when it comes to this reflecting pool with flashing colored bulbs on spiraled poles, but if you take it for the artistic space that it is it makes for a cool framing of the old city that you see in the background. 

And people familiar with Paris will notice that directly in the center of the photo you can see the foggy outline of the famous Arc de Triomphe which is was our next destination. 

Arc de Triomphe

If you really care to learn about it, a history book is a much better source than this blog, but I have to say, Napoleon and Romans, for as much as you got wrong, you were right that the arch makes a mighty nice frame for historical events and photos. 

Fun fact: Neatly lined up with the Arc de Triomphe original is this cube in the modern portion of the city. It stands with similar command, but obviously it's stones aren't nearly as weighted with history. 

Today, the Arc de Triomphe also commemorates the sacrifices of soldiers in WWII with the grave of this unknown soldier. I found that to be rather fitting, as all military triumphs in history come at the cost of many anonymous men/women. 

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That definitely sets the record for the amount of site seeing I've done before breakfast . . . 

More to come. 

Anniversary Dinner

We're not ones to announce personal celebrations on Facebook, but our little anniversary celebration turned into a little cultural experience that I wanted to remember, so it's memory will live on in this blog. 

These flowers aren't part of the cultural experience, they're just the beginning of the celebration and a display of affection from a fantastic husband. 

This was (just part) of the amazing chocolate collection that accompanied the flowers. 

The chocolate should outlast the flowers . . . but not by much. 

Our actual anniversary landed on a week day, so instead of going out to eat we tried a fun experiment. 

Our grocery store handed out some recipes last week (of course to promote their products) so we decided to try out their burrito recipe. 

It was more pretty Turkish tasting, there was curry in the meat and cabbage instead of lettuce. 

We just stopped expecting it to be a real burrito and it was good. 

But on Saturday we went to The Hague for a real anniversary meal . . .

At this family owned Indonesian restaurant in The Hague and we celebrated with a scrumptious sampling of Indonesian dishes.

But those 'samples' quickly filled us to the brim.

For those interested, on the left are your condiments, lightly sweet cucumbers, roasted nuts, pickeled veggies and spicy pepper paste. Those went on top of any of the dishes in the middle: sweet beef, savory chicken, sprouts, fried boiled egg, or beans. The brown meat on the side is chicken in peanut satay sauce -- probably one of the world's best ways to eat chicken.

During dinner the owner of the restaurant gave us a tip to take a walk around The Hague . . .

Which we did. Enjoying the views . . .

. . .  both traditional and modern. 

Until we made our way to our destination:

The Tong Tong Fair: the annual Indonesian celebration in The Hague.

Inside the gargantuan tents were countless booths and this performance that we happened upon just as it began.

A couple extra hours of rehearsal would have enhanced the quality of the performance but what they lacked in perfection they made up for with their enthusiasm for fun and the audience was pulled into the spirit of celebration. 

Of course there was ample food at this celebration . . .

  

. . . but since our stomachs were still recovering from our dinner workout, we only ingested the sites and smells. 

For the first hour or so, but looking is thirsty work, so we had to stop at we thought was a 'juice/smoothie booth'. 

What we ended up with looked like this:

Finely crushed ice with flavored syrup, topped with fruit and some sugary ice powder, it probably had the sugar content of cotton candy, but we were thirsty so we found it delicious in a liquid lollipop way.

Besides watching, smelling and tasting, we walked by booth after booth of people selling their wares. But these ladies were super efficient and decided to sow while selling.

Other vendors had also employed this technique as a way to attract attention and get something done at the same time, but what really struck me about these workers were the ages of their sewing machines.

I'm no antique dealer, but I'm pretty sure one of my grandmas has the black Singer sewing machine (in case you can't tell it's one of the kind that comes attached to a wooden table) on the left -- as an antique display piece! But there she was using it. 

A quick google search made me think that the machine was from the 1940's if not earlier. 

And the one to the right (also a Singer) is none too modern either. 

After about 2 hours of Indonesian delight we headed home with a few useful souvenirs to add to our home. 

Rice spoons, cinnamon wood coasters (we were sorely in need of coasters), and some spekkoek (rich layered cake) to top off the night. 

(Oh, and a special thanks to Mom & Dad Ridout for the anniversary card!)

Springing

Spring has sprung.
On the calendar . . . the actual Spring weather half woke up with its alarm then slapped the snooze and dived back under the covers. Kind of like what we wanted to do the five mornings after daylight savings/sleep deprivation day.

So, in an effort to encourage Spring to make leap out from under her gray covers I have added a little more color and vibrancy to our dwelling. Even if the message doesn't make it to Spring herself, it has at least improved my mood. .

Wanna see?
Scroll on.

I didn't actually buy these flowers, they were a gift from school for a parent night that we helped out with. The great thing about both working at the same school is often you get double the flower bouquets! (K, so it's not THE great thing, but it certainly is a perk.)

Some of the bouquet fit better here. 

While cleaning off our dining table in anticipation of company I came across family photos and a pile of construction paper that were as good as a match made in a scrap-booking class, and while this wall decor is more suited to a photo book-- it's doing a good job of a) not making more holes in the wall b) covering up some existing holes in the wall and c) costing $0. Plus, you can't see it, but it matches perfectly with our other wall hanging to the left. Does it sound like I'm trying hard to justify decorating my walls with plain construction paper? 

Time to change the subject. 

CUPCAKES!

We had a great 'woman's event' with church where the women got together and decorated cupcakes with fondant for the Easter Sunday coffee snack. I made this floral beauty, but I was also greatly impressed with the artistic talent that surrounded me.  

You can't see them well, but there were some really impressive creations among the 80 some cupcakes that we decorated. 

Unfortunately some things look better than they taste. 

Unlike a batch of cookie I made lately. 

Those have looked AND tasted horrid. 

Pre-baking these salmon colored lumps are actually a heart healthy concoction of carrots, bananas, whole wheat, rolled oats, flour and dark chocolate for redemption. 

(That's right, no added sugar, or butter.) 

It was one of those things I just had to try -- inspired by foodgawker and Pinterest to make something delicious yet impossibly good for you I thought they would be worth a try. 

One try, yes. Two tries? no. 

(Unless you're going to just make 8 or so to eat very, very fresh.)

When warm the chocolate did lend a slight element of edibility to these lumps, but now that it has been a week since they came out of the oven they are pretty gag-worthy. 

Why are they so terrible? 

Well, they're a cookie and they have some of the texture of a sea food-- like squid, and the taste of raw oats. Maybe the reason they're so health is because they are appetite reducers. 

That's a terrible place to end a blog post, so to ease your troubled minds and restore my reputation as a baker, take a look at this piece of winning banana cake. 

Alright, so all the banana cake won was a few Dutch hearts at a party, 

but that was all the affirmation I needed. 

Vatican Visit

                                                               
                                                            Inside these walls is . . .

    . . . St. Peter's Basilica. 

It gets to be a 'basilica' because of it's historical importance and impressive building. And it certainly has both in abundance. According to Church History, this is the spot where the apostle Peter was buried after his crucifixion in Rome. 

Impressiveness of the building? See those short little black blurs with a dot of red here and there in front of the building? Those are people. 

If you're ever 'in town' it's worth a visit. But I can't stress how much I suggest making your whole trip to Rome in the 'off season'. We didn't have to wait in any lines in the beating sun because there was none of either. And there were enough tourists as it was. Rome is not for those who hate crowds (even in the off season). 

Want to see inside of the basilica? 

I can show you a couple of pictures, but there's a reason that people book flights to Rome, there are somethings that photos just can't do. They can't usher you into the hushed, marble halls lined with pillars. They can't give you minutes to just take in the streams of light or to stare up at the painted dome. And gilding doesn't glint in pictures the same way it does in real life, nor does even a panoramic give you a vision of all the views surrounding you as you stand under a large arch. 

So here are a couple of photographs, but don't judge the place by them, they're barely a shadowy reflection of the real experience. 

Regal and elegant was our summary of the inside of the basilica. 

Few, if any, churches rival it in those departments. 

Of course The Vatican also holds the great Sistine Chapel, but the walk through this hall of maps and ceiling paintings was a good warm up. In fact, through out Italy and the Vatican Museum we started to realize that Michelangelo was just one of a great many artists who were painting ceilings because Italians love to have their ceilings turned into art. We saw it in palaces, and churches all over Rome and Florence. 

And what better way to exit a grand museum than by a grand spiral staircase? 

Roman Holiday

ROME, Italy!

This is the sort of thing that it USED to look like (this particular building is actually fairly modern and serves in part as a museum for a portion of the multitude of sculptures, etc. that remain from ancient times).

And this is generally what it looks like now. On camera the ruins look like rubble so I won't be including many photos. But what the pictures can't impress upon you is the enormity of those pillars. Those pure marble cylinders would take two pairs of arms to encircle them and the height reaches about 3 stories . . . and this isn't even a big temple. But you really have to stand in front of it in order to experience the impressive presence. 

Now here's a building that doesn't make your imagination work so hard. 

The Pantheon. 

Roman engineers of 100 AD, you did your job well. So well that your dome is still standing sturdily after all these years. To praise the engineering a bit more I'd like to add that the proportions of the sides of the building to the dome are designed so that if the building continued underground it would make a perfect sphere. 

Standing in this room increased my respect for math 7 fold. 

One of the reasons it continued to be protected and preserved is because it is no longer 'for many gods' (pan = many, theo = god), instead it belongs to The Roman Catholic Church. 

Why the opening at the top of the dome? A common explanation is that it symbolizes a gateway to heaven where most of the Roman/Greek gods had a dwelling place. 

What about rain? That's why there's a drain (the original) in the middle of the (original) marble floor. 

Trevi Fountain. 

An incredibly difficult place to take a picture where you and the fountain are the only ones in it because it is one of THE tourist spots in Rome. Understandably, this was worth the crowd because the water does flow in a beautiful and natural way and the sculptures are a vivid scene of man's efforts to tame water (symbolized by the wild horse figures). 

 But it was the Romans who knew how to tame the water, they had a 14 mile long aqueduct bring water to this spot for some of the city's aquatic needs. 

The Colosseum. 

This colossal greets you when you step onto the 'main road of ruins' as we called it in ancient city center. To me there is something about the raw, imposing stone that is more striking than our modern buildings that may be of the same size. And there is a sort of dignity in it's 'ruined' state-- as if it is saying "I've been through a lot". 

Some people wish they could talk to animals, that would be nice, but I think it would be more fascinating to hear a story from a stone such as one of these.

Inside view of The Colosseum. 

The flooring is obviously a modern addition but on the right you can see a portion of the marble seats that would have covered all the sides. And under the flooring of wood and sand are those famous passage ways that once had gladiators and all sorts of wild animals channeled through them. 

Tourism is thirsty work, but thankfully these fountains carrying clean water are there to quench your thirst. Supposedly in the hot months people line up to get a drink, and you can actually find these fountains in various forms all through out the city. 

We drank from one for the experience and it was really wonderful tasting and cool. 

But, we didn't want to ruin our week by accidentally introducing some ancient 

micro-organism that our city - water selves couldn't handle so we stuck to the Italian water with a sealed cap and label. 

It might not look like much now, but anyone who knows Roman history will tell you that this marks a very famous spot. The ruins of this fountain area are legendary as the very ground where Romulus tilled the earth, starting a chain of events that launched into one of the most extensive ancient empires to rule the Western world. 

Just around the corner from the previous picture you can see a site like this one. It comes from The Palantine which is a hill with a long history and a lot of ruins that seem to rise up out of the ground among the trees. 

The trees of Rome were something that we found almost as enchanting as the ruins themselves. They were like nothing either of us had ever seen before and they were everywhere giving off an atmosphere of Mediterranean climate and ancient feeling foliage. 

Speaking of ancient, this sheep really threw me for a loop with it's long busy tail. As a product of a modern and non-agricultural society I had no idea that sheep ever came with long tails. A quick google search informed me that tails on sheep are perfectly natural, and that the ancients used to breed for a thicker tail so that they could have the extra animal fat for cooking. 

That's right. Patches of Roman marble flooring. Some of it just lying there exposed to the tread of tourists beyond count. At first I was careful to walk around it, by the end of the trip I'd walked many a step on ancient marble. 

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Rome is overwhelming. People have spent lifetimes studying it and still there are stones left unturned, but I don't want this blog post to last a lifetime, so here's a string of photos for you to enjoy with minimal commentary. 

Pons Aelius. 134 AD saw the completion of the first construction. Of course there has been maintenance and reconstruction done to it since then. 

Rooftop gardens provide green spots for these city dwellers. 

Carbonara in it's birth place!