The Finale

Ok, just a warning, this is an extremely long post full of pictures. I just want to finish up my trip so that I can show all the exciting stuff that's been going on since I've been back!

Sorry to leave you in a cliffhanger there. I made it sounds much more dramatic than it actually was. Oh but first, if you don't believe me about the Craft Fair of Quality... take a look at this...

Notice how tea comes before coffee? It's a strange, strange place...

Anyway, on to Paris... To be honest, it wasn't actually Paris that made for a not so nice experience there. It was the fish'n chips meal that I had the night before that was responsible for that. Apparently my stomach is not fond of fish'n chips mixed with English ale because it let me know at about 1am the night before we left for Paris. Did I mention that we had to be up by 4am in order to have the time to make the train we were taking? Probably not. So I was up all night paying homage to the porcelain god. I may have gotten three hours sleep at most, and then I had to get on a rocking train all the way to Paris. To say the least, I wasn't feeling well and I certainly wasn't up for being enthusiastic about sightseeing. I would have loved nothing more than to stay at the flat to sleep and recover from whatever stomach issue it was that I had, but I didn't, I went and now, Paris is forever tainted for me... Though judging by the pictures, it looks the same.

They had these Paris 2012 things up everywhere because Paris is a bid city for the Olympics.

Arc de Triumph... and the traffic leading up to it...


There's the Louvre, and if you've ever read the DaVinci Code, that's the pyramid he's talking about.

We didn't spend much time in the Louvre, but I did see the Winged Victory, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and probably many, many, many more famous artworks, but I was in a bit of a haze at that point.

And he were are at Notre Dame (I have to admit putting all these pictures up makes me feel like I'm showing a slide show of a trip that no one's really interested in. Like those annoying neighbors who just got back from the Caribbean and insist on showing you all the pictures they took of how blue the water is....)

Anyway, interesting story goes along with Paris. We were on our way back to London and we were about to get onto the train when this guy gets off the train. I only saw the back of him but he sort of looked familiar to me. We walked past him and I just thought I'd turn around and see if I was seeing things or not. Well, I wasn't seeing things. Would you like to know who I saw?!?!?
VIN DIESEL!!! And you know what? He's just as hot in person as he is in real life. My mom actually went up to him to get an autograph because she crazy about him. I just sat back and watched. It was surreal. But, definitley one of those interesting stories that I'll tell my kids one day and they'll ask "who the heck is Vin Diesel?" and it'll make me realize how old I've gotten, you know, one of those kind of stories.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the rest of the trip.
This one is just funny and it really shows you how Europeans like small cars. And you thought a Mini was small...

Notice the motorcycle right behind it is not much smaller than it. It's called a Smart Car and they are really some of the funniest things you've ever seen if you like me and come from the land of oversized SUVs.

Ok, on to some real sightseeing...

This is Windsor Castle. The flag that's flying means that the Queen is in residence. That means that she was there while we were touring around her home. Weird to have tourists all over your place like that. Of course, there was plenty of room so I'm sure she didn't even notice us.




These are pictures of Caerphilly Castle in Wales. It was the most authentic castle that I went to because it really gave you the feeling that it was used hundreds of years ago. In fact, parts of it were falling apart (most of it actually) but that's what really added to the feel of it.

Then we went to Cardiff Castle in Wales.

That is actually the Norman keep in the center of the Castle grounds. I actually went up to the top where that flag is flying and took this picture...

That's what you see when you're looking down there, and if you look closely you can see a person on the fair bench by the tree with her legs crossed... that's my mom.
They also had peacocks.

Why I found this fascinating, I'll never know, but they held my attention longer than the castle did.

So those are just highlights of my trip. I know I'm leaving out so much but it's best not to bore my readers with things like "we were on the train for two hours, then we got off the train, then we walked to the castle, then we..." Instead, the highlights will do just fine. And I'm dying to show you my progress on the sweater I worked on and all the other exciting things that have been happening since I've been back.