You know you are in Egypt

If this is the sight out your window. And this is the Diet Coke you got at lunch.

We had a long and tiring day, but yes, we made it to the Pyramids and Sphinx. Very glad to have done so.

Onboard

We are onboard for a little over a day now, lovely ship, great food and entertainment, nice table mates and a lovely sea day today. We had little that we HAD to do yet managed to fill the day with lectures and food and meetings and food and formal night and yes, more food.

Mid morning found us passing through the Straight of Messina separating Sicily from the Italian mainland.

For Giuliana (that's Italian for Julianna)

Here is the postcard you asked for last May:

Goodbye France hello Rome

We had a sunset from the Eiffel Tower and made our way the next morning to catch a flight to Rome. Arrived with a few clouds and showers but nothing a rain coat could not handle. Weather cleared and we ventured a short walk to the Spanish steps, then to a little
Restaurant nearby. Off to catch our boat.

Off to Rome

Just a quick update before we head off to Rome; more pictures to come later. May not have access until we are on the ship so stay tuned.....

Moonlight in Paris

After sleeping in a little bit this morning, we took off on our grand tour of the great Paris museums. We managed to break our rules of only doing two museums per day, and ended up doing four museums in one day. The Louvre, Marmottan, Orangerie and D Orsay. I have to admit the knees and feet are both pretty tired after all that walking, but when we returned to the hotel for a rest before dinner we were greeted with this lovely sight out our hotel room window. After a day full of fog and overcast skies, it was a welcome sign that the skies have cleared.

Yes we finally made it

We arrived in Paris this morning after the usual long and semi-sleepless night flight. Went and checked into our darling little hotel, and then we scooted ourselves over to Sacré Coeur and Montmartre. We missed this on our last trip, so wanted to make sure we had enough time for it on this go round. We think we are getting pretty good at those self-portrait photos, too .

We also managed to meet up with our fellow New Mexicans for dinner on l'isle Saint Louis. It was just a funny coincidence that we all were in Paris at the same time, so we had to have dinner together.

And now, after a much too large meal and about 30 hours without any sort of real sleep, it is 10:45 pm local time, and we are off to bed.

Are we there yet?

So far so good, we're at the airport . Only two more flights and 13 hours before we are in Paris. Bye for now.

Ready set go

We're getting ready and most of our things are covering the entire bedroom as shown in the bottom two pictures. The question is, will everything fit into the suitcase. And the  picture on the left shows what they look like actually in the suitcases. And we managed to be under the weight limits, only 30 pounds for each of the suitcases and about 15-20 for each of the carry-ons. We are ready to go.


Here's what they look like before they go in the suitcase.



New Mexican Gothic

Tom has been 'collecting' a bit of yard trimmings, sagebrush, broken branches for about a year, maybe two. Ever since the last bonfire at 5 a.m. at least. Soon the pile became too large to even consider burning, and then Tom decided to tidy up the sagebrush a little. And the pile grew big. Very BIG. A few phone calls later Tom finds that a dumpster is $$$, and using a second trash can every week would take too long (His words not mine) so he comes up with his own solution. A UHaul and a couple of pitchforks. This was taken early in the morning before they got tired.

No Experiment is a Complete Failure...

...it can always be used as a Bad Example. Or so said Myron Kagen in my freshman chemistry lab decades ago. The best laid plans, but somehow our practice blogging on our week long Texas trip did not work out. In review, we occasionally did not have Internet access (and failed to remember we could have used tethering) and sometimes the photo we wanted was on the phone and we did not want to finger peck the blog entry, but mostly we were just having so much darn fun with our friends and family that we did not have the energy to blog at midnight.

So, here is the week in a nutshell:
-Saw our friends Mike and Anne in Eastland, that is Mike's fast pointy business vehicle below. Thanks for lunch and the always available room at your hotel.
-Stayed with Aunt Linda three nights and loved the meals, conversation, family updates and dogs.
-Had terrific Texas Barbecue with cousin Trace and with Aunt Suzie and Gruncle Dick.
-Chris showed off the souvenir his dad, Bubba sent back from Afghanistan.  We later found out from Richard and Richard, Jr. it is called a Pepperpot.
-Linda got us tremendous, fabulous, could-not-find-better seats at the Rangers game and Chris even snagged a game ball.
-Spent a night in Colleyville with Tom's early years Marine flight buddy, Brett and Janey.
-Went wine tasting and to a John Prine concert in Austin with our long-time friends and newly transplanted Texans, Alan and Louise.
-Stayed with our friends Barbara and Richard in Amarillo who always welcome us and joined the Pancake Station regulars.

The pictures are below, but I they did not appear in the order I loaded them so you have to play a game to try and match the picture to the event.

See, the blog thingy turned into a game because we did not do it day by day; I guess Myron was right, after all.

P.S. Today's trivia: Alan was also a grad student with Myron lo, those many years ago. I was a mere babe of 19.