The big news since the last post was of course the Highfields' visit. It was truly wonderful (for all of us) to have them with us, and I think that they enjoyed themselves tremendously as well.
Nice
The French Riviera was stunning, as I wrote in my last post. We were blessed with perfect weather for our entire stay, which is apparently highly unusual for this time of year - so score one for Climate Change! I'll let the pictures do the talking... There are probably way too many this time, but there was so much cool stuff, and lots of good shots of the girls & the Highfields...
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| Holli loves her window seat, but she does make use of it. The city of Nice is dead-center, with Cap Ferrat sticking out from the coastline just below it. The airport is on the far left - directly across from Nice. Holli captured a better view as we left. |
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One of many pictures from the pebble beach directly in front of the hotel.
Not the most comfortable place to sit, but not bad either - and the views are well worth it! |
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| The water was warm enough for (young & energetic) people to get in, which they did a few times. |
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| The girls worked on some art while we were here. This is Lucy's castle. |
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| And Lilli's precarious stack of rocks topped with sea-glass. |
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| Don't know what to say. |
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| This was the place to sit - comfy chairs and service! |
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| Our future marine biologist getting some dolphin-riding practice at the carousel next to the hotel |
Circumnavigating Cap Ferrat - what a great national resource!
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| Lilli inspecting a cactus |
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| That's big! |
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| This one however obviously does not impress Eliza. |
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| I think these two had a good time, and will hopefully be back! |
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These two certainly had a great time, and will hopefully get a chance to come back!
We had dinner at this place just about every night - it was fantastic! |
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Super star!
I have no idea who taught her to pose, but I could probably narrow it down to 2, or 3 or 4 people... |
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I got a kick out of this as we were looking for a place to eat dinner our first night there.
This is a French clothing store named after our home state, which is definitely NOT famous for clothing of which I am aware unless you count the seersucker suit. Also notice that they have registered Kentucky as a trademark. |
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| Lilli found a cool tree in the park near the hotel. |
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| Overlooking Cap Ferrat, on our way to see Eze and Monaco. |
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| Eze from the road below |
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| These are the "streets" of Eze. No cars obviously... I believe our guide said that about 15 people live here full time. |
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| Not only narrow, but steep! |
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| Thought we might be able to slip in here for a few minutes un-noticed, but alas we had to keep climbing. |
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| The views were worth the climb however. |
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| I believe they refer to this as the Devil's bridge - something to do with a local legend... Impressive regardless. |
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| Last picture before heading to the airport |
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| And the previously-mentioned better picture of the airport. I think KLM should buy this picture from us! |
Paris
We made a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to drive to Paris for the last weekend that the Highfields were in town. What a great decision that turned out to be! After some careful negotiation between Holli and the Westin staff, we were upgraded to an incredible suite so that we could be attached to our three lovely girls. The pictures of Eliza above probably give you a good idea of why we might not want to leave them in a room on their own overnight in Paris.
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| Sweet suite! Hey - that's somewhat more original than Nice is nice! |
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| These panoramics never look as good unless they are full-size, but this is the view from the hotel... Louvre to the left, Eiffel Tower to the right. Awesome! |
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| Outside of the Westin, ready to see Paris! |
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Like typical tourists, the Eiffel Tower was the first place we went. It was incredible.
I accidentally cut Eliza mostly out of the picture - she has a strangle hold on Papa's leg. |
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| After dark, they illuminate the tower with twinkling lights for about 5 minutes every hour. |
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| We took bike taxi's back from the Tower to the hotel and got a nice tour of the area along the way. |
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Outside of the Musee de Louvre.
You could walk around and look at the details on the exterior of the building for a week and still not really see everything! |
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| Eliza carried that Eiffel Tower with her all over the city. |
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| Notre Dame de Paris. The detail is endless. The architecture is unlike anything else I've seen. |
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| Inside the Musee d'Orsay, a converted railway station on the Seine. |
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The Arc de Triomphe on our way out of town.
Do you see those lines on the road? No? Well, that's because there are none, except for the one down the center. It is a complete free-for-all driving in this city! Fortunately, after driving in Amsterdam for a few months now it didn't really phase me, but I did get a kick out of it! |
Brussels
We decided to stop for lunch/ dinner in Brussels on the way back from Paris (it's about half-way through the 6 hour drive). We had absolutely no plans nor any idea where to go, so we found a garage near a restaurant well-reviewed on Yelp and started walking. We decided against these two:
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| Can you believe that a) Chi-Chi's is still around, and b) there is one in downtown Brussels? |
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| Mei Wei Lou - reminded me of one of Mom's best friends so I had to take a snap. |
We found the Yelp place, but they had no tables available. It was cold and windy, we hadn't eaten for several hours, and frustration started to kick in. About that time, we looked down an alley and saw what looked like an old church that we should go see.
The alley opened up to this incredible courtyard called simply the
Grand Place.
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| Unknown - will do some more research when I go on my Belgian Beer Quest. |
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| Getting to see this magically put everyone into a great mood, and we were able to enjoy our dinner after all! |
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| Did I mention that it was windy? |
Amsterdam, the Highfield way!
The Highfields DID spend some time here with us in Amsterdam. They took a couple of canal boat tours and got to see some things that we have not seen yet (due in no small part to our children's dread of going on another boat tour after falling asleep on the one we took over spring break).
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| The Hermitage Amsterdam, a branch of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, Russia, located on the Amstel river. |
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| The Highfields got out of the boat some as well. This is the burning bush from the Westerkerk, one of a couple of very old churches that they visited. |
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| We made a trip to the Rijksmuseum one day while the girls were in school. As with the Louvre, you can only see so much in a couple of hours, but they did get to see the Night's Watch. |
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| Mr. H and I stumbled on this at Rembrandtplein a few days later. I had no idea it existed! |
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| The most famous park in the city, more so for the things that happen inside than for what is inside. |
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| Some improbable residents of Vondelpark. |
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| The Grim Reaper, always hanging in Dam Square. Reasons unknown... |
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| The requisite shot at the iamsterdam sign |
We also had a lot of downtime hanging around the apartment. The girls were so very happy to have them here!
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| Lilli was excited to see that she has outgrown her grandmother - rather significantly! |
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| They also had to do some foot-size comparisons (Lilli's are a lot bigger than any of the four on the right) |
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| There was quite a bit of cards played during the visit. Lucy and Eliza managed to win about 90% of their games against Papa - Gin, War, Trash - the game didn't really matter. Eliza also got quite a few extra stories read to her! |
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| A new feature of dinner during the last couple of weeks was Lucy's Dessert Tray. |
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| I think that in the end, Papa was the most at ease just watching and exploring the neighborhood. |
Eliza celebrated her 6th birthday on the day that the Highfields left us. We had a nice family dinner the night before where she got to open presents from here and abroad. I think she was pleased with her haul!
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| The MLP on roller-skates from Nana was a big hit. |
Life (after the Highfields) goes on... But it is both figuratively and literally a darker place. We're already under 9 hours of daylight and losing another 3 minutes per day! By the time we come home for the holidays the days will be only 7 hours and 45 minutes long - nearly 2 full daylight hours shorter than Louisville.
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| The Rijksmuseum on the way home Monday night at 6:00 pm. The sun set just before 5:00! |
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| This is a shot from school at 8:20 a.m. the same day! |
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I thought I might get so spread out a little while Holli is in Moscow this week... Not so much.
This is what I woke up to Tuesday morning. |
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Tuesday night was a big night in Amsterdam, where they celebrate Sint Maarten on 11/11 each year.
Children carry lanterns around the neighborhoods and sing songs to neighbors and receive candy.
Since they don't really do Halloween here, this is kind of a nice alternative! |
Daisy Update
I guess I never really paid much attention before, but I began to get a little concerned that something was wrong with her as she appeared to be staying in the same place for the entire day (8:00 am to 6:00 pm anyway). So I looked it up... turns out that cats normally sleep for 15 to 20 hours per day. How is that possible?!?
In any case, she is improving, but still has a limp, and may for quite some time yet. It doesn't really affect her - she still plays, aggressively chasing hair-bands (not the 80's kind, like Def Leppard) across the room and sliding into the furniture. She has claimed a favorite blanket though.
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| Holli "objects" to her lying on this new blanket, but she is not really believable. |
Dad's corner
All of the girls' after-school activities ended last week except for Eliza's ballet, which makes this week MUCH better! Less stress, less sitting around in the school cafeteria (where other parents mostly let their kids run completely wild/ unsupervised), more time for homework, dinner/ baths, etc.!
I'm still trying to ride as much as possible, but the trips cut into my schedule a bit. I did have
one unbelievable ride in Nice - along the Grande Corniche, around Eze and to Turbie. The scenery was incredible!
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| Route des Grandes Alpes is right! After cruising the flatlands of Holland for several months, I've forgotten how to ride on hills, much less the Alps! If I look a little winded, I was - but I managed to keep the pedals turning for the entire ride except for a few stops to take pictures. I was pretty happy with my "performance." |
Most of my normal rides are from home to the beach at Zandvort and back - about an hour each way. I usually stop long enough to take a picture of the beach - sort of interesting to see the changes through the seasons.
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| Trampolines in the foreground. September 1. |
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| September 25 |
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| October 3 - Stuff's getting packed up & put away. |
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| October 27 - nothing left but sand. |
Not all of my rides have gone so smoothly; I've crashed twice in the last two weeks. I'm fairly accustomed to this when mountain biking - I tend to try to do things that are challenging to me so I end up a little bloody once every month or two on average. But both of these crashes were on flat surfaces - the problem in both cases was water.
I hit a 3 ft wide patch of wet leaves last week, doing about 20 mph on my road bike as I was taking a sweeping 90 turn. The front tire immediately and completely lost its grip and I went down, skidding about 20 feet into a curb. The asphalt pushed my left-hand levers in and apparently my shoulder pushed the right-hand levers in, but no real damage done (to the bike) other than some scratches on the shifters. After resuming my ride, I noticed that my shorts were a bit shredded, which got me thinking "that's about where I keep my phone..."
I had checked the phone out to make sure that the screen was OK after the crash, but I pulled it out again to take another look. I'm always cognizant of how I put the phone into my pocket so that the glass is towards me so that it is protected. However, the new iPhone - with its protruding camera lens - outsmarted me. The one corner that met the road was THAT corner, and it did some damage.
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There's supposed to be a sapphire lens in there. I guess it is somewhere on the bike path!
Glad the salesman talked me into the insurance! It helped that two people came in with broken 6's while I was getting mine. |
The second crash was just yesterday. I was hoping that the 10% chance of rain would hold off, but no luck. I took my mountain bike out this time because I was hoping to check out a BMX course on the west side of town. It was closed, but I wanted to get some miles in anyway so I kept going - in a light drizzle most of the way. I noticed a gravel (walking) path that meandered alongside the bike path so I decided to ride on that for a while - kind of pretend-mountain-biking. For some reason, the path-builders installed short rock walls on either side of the path, and in those areas they substituted wood planks for the gravel. The wood was wet and had some moss/ algae on it, and so the first patch that I hit had a remarkably similar result to my last crash - no control, immediate crash. I was going a little slower (16-17 mph), but I had no chance to catch myself. The bike was completely unharmed this time, but I tore a hole through my glove and into the palm of my left hand, and jammed my thumb pretty badly.
These experiences have made me feel much better about our decision to buy a trainer - it will be very handy to have the option to stay indoors and still get a decent workout without worrying about the hazards!
On the reading front, I finished several books since the last post. I needed some lighter material after Anna Karenina! I burned through two or three Reacher novels and a couple of Alex Crosses while on vacation(s). I've now decided to read the Jack Ryan novels all the way through since I couldn't remember which I haven't read. I'm going in "chronological" order as opposed to the order in which they were written. Mostly-so anyway... I started out of order with "The Cardinal in the Kremlin" but am now circling back with "Patriot Games", to be followed by "Red Rabbit" and "The Hunt for Red October."
TV has taken a backseat to reading, other than Boardwalk Empire. I heard some people grousing about the ending, but I thought that it was much better than the Sopranos' - at least you KNOW what happened! Overall I thought the show was really well done, but they seemed to be running out of good storylines so it was a perfect time to end it. Unlike True Blood. Looking forward to getting back into "Newsroom," but I think I'll wait until there are a few episodes out there and catch up. Same with "Homeland."
I'm very excited about the upcoming basketball season - U of L's season starts tomorrow night, but since it's a 1:30 am start time here I think I will be watching it Saturday morning over coffee. Saturday night I'll be watching U of L play their first game at Notre Dame (9:30 pm kickoff here) - looking for an upset here. Notre Dame is ALWAYS over-rated. Kind of hard to believe that they are not in one of the playoff spots from that perspective.
Until next time- tot ziens!
