July 21, 2008 by Tiffany.

Aside from traveling in Europe and Japan, I have not been on a train, specifically, an Amtrak train, in well over ten years.  Actually, I think it’s been about twelve years.  Last week, wanting to visit several people in a short span of time, I decided to take the train rather than drive.  Not only did it prove more cost effective with the current price of gas, but I was also saved loads of frustration driving nearly 900 miles, (that’s distance the trip would have been on the roads).  I was also fortunate since I realized after the fact that one of my tires has a fat screw jammed flush into the tread.  I’m sure that would have gone over well if I were to drive it all that distance in the blistering heat of the central valley.

I first arrived in Fresno for a couple of days to visit my family.  Among other things, I was able to visit the site of my brother Nick’s new house, which as you can see, is coming up roses.  It seems it will be completed sometime in October.

A couple of days later I headed, again, on the train, to San Francisco for a couple of nights to visit my friend Amanda.  It was nice not only to visit with her, but also to visit the city, which I haven’t spent any real time in for some years.  She has a killer place in the Marina district, complete with jaw-dropping views of the bay.  I’m can’t say for sure, but my instincts tell me that her rent is equal to, or possibly more than my entire month’s paycheck.  We ate in a delicious Indian food restaurant on Chestnut Street, (sorry, I don’t recall the name), and an Italian place on the same street called A16.  I highly recommend this restaurant.  Although it was packed with  young, business professional types, (and I probably stood out sorely in my jeans and sneakers), the gnocchi and pizza were to die for.

After a couple of days in San Francisco, I re-boarded the train and headed to Stockton, California,  or more specifically, Linden, where my grandparents live.  It just so happened to be Moppy’s 76th birthday, and we were able to pick out new fabrics for my quilt,  which Mop will start working on.  For those who don’t know, Moppy makes exquisite quilts, and this one should be stunning.  We chose fabrics with mostly mauve and sage green tones, and some Asian-inspired floral prints.  I can’t wait for it to be finished.  After a night in Linden I spent one more night in Fresno with my parents, and then yesterday, boarded the train for the last time to head up toward Glendale.  In case you’re wondering, I highly recommend train travel.  Unfortunately it’s kind of a pain from SoCal to the central valley, since traveling over the Grape Vine requires a two-hour bus ride, (and let’s face it, the train is way cooler), but one can easily travel up the coastal route or down to San Diego on the Pacific Surfliner or the Coast Starlight, both of which I hear are beautiful.  I once heard that Amtrak has never once made a profit, but the train seemed pretty packed to me.  I suppose the way things are going on the road and in the air, more and more people will become accustomed to, and perhaps rely on, different forms of public transportation to meet their travel needs.

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September 16, 2007 by Tiffany.

Jason and I blasted out of town on Friday to head to Las Vegas for the weekend, thanks to the Beyonce concert that Jason programmed over Labor Day weekend.  We stayed at TheHotel at Mandalay Bay, which, true to the hype, was really a great hotel.  Our room was a comfortable suite with a living room, a bedroom and a couple of bathrooms.  We are now officially spoiled with Las Vegas hotel rooms.

On Friday night we first hit Nine Fine Irishmen at the New York, New York Casino for some beers and whiskey, and then found our way to House of Blues  for a cool 80s tribute band.

On Saturday night we ate at Mix, on the 64th floor of TheHotel.  The food was quite good but the views were spectacular.  Afterward we were able to have a drink at the Mix club, which has a patio overlooking the Strip, (that’s where the first picture in the blog was taken).  It was a really cool club but I would forewarn anyone to either show up really early or eat dinner there and make your way over.  The line to enter on both nights was pretty bad.  One of the coolest things: in the bathroom certain toilets have floor to ceiling window views of the Strip, with the toilet facing so that you’re looking straight out of the window.  It’s like sitting on the john with Vegas at your feet.  It’s really quite memorable.

The trip was great, and now I’ve had my Vegas fill for the time being.

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August 18, 2007 by Tiffany.

I’ve always heard that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and I truly believe that’s true after yesterday. Imagine, to my surprise, that I had been upgraded to business class on my Air Canada flight from Paris to Montreal! I couldn’t believe it! I have never been in anything other than economy and really felt like a poser sitting in the wide, reclining seats.

I was offered champagne, newspapers, food on real dishes. Better than anything was the reclining action on the chair. I kicked up my feet, leaned back and relaxed. I was so amazed that even when the lady in front of me was fully reclined, I STILL had plenty of space to walk around. It was quite nice indeed.

Like I said, however, nothing in life is ever free, and I should have known that in the scheme of things, there would be something attached to the business class upgrade. Indeed, there was. We arrived in Montreal about 45 minutes late, due to a late take off from Paris, and strong winds. To go through customs I had to claim by suitcase, and I swear my bag was pretty much the very last one off the plane. It was ridiculous. Then, to my surprise, I had to clear customs twice! Once for Canada, and then again for the United States. Strange I thought, since I was still in Canada. Anyway, it became very clear that I was not going to make the flight, and nobody seemed inclined to help me out. By this time I’m exhausted and a tad upset. After standing in a corner of customs for nearly an hour, (having been informed by an Air Canada representative that I had missed my flight), I found that thankfully I could take another flight at 5:30, that was leaving in about three hours. I was just thankful that I didn’t have to spend the night in Montreal, but it wasn’t long before utter derangement set in, waiting for the next flight. I was tired and upset, and was starting to freak out that it was still light outside, since according to my time clock, the sun clearly should have set long ago. The next leg of the flight pretty much sucked, since I had a seat that wouldn’t recline an inch, but I was still glad to make it home. By the time I caught a shuttle to Glendale, it was 11pm in Los Angeles, exactly 24 hours since I’d left the door of MySuite Village. Long day you could say.

Today was crazy with tons of mail, running by work to check on my job status, and taking care of a rent check that went awry while I was away to no fault of my own. It’s amazing the work it takes to clean up one’s life after five weeks away. That said, I loved every minute of it and wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. Tomorrow I’ll head to Fresno to see the family and hopefully catch up on some more sleep.

For the record, I intend on continuing this blog, just not on a daily basis as before. But as things arise, I will post. Check back once and a while.

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August 14, 2007 by Tiffany.

Andrea, Nancy and I made the trip to Versailles, this time in a car as opposed to a train, which saved us about an hour and twenty minutes.  We visited the Grand Canal today so that Nancy could get a feel for the grounds, which are very nice.  Afterwards we had a nice lunch in Versailles at a cute American diner, and then continued the day in Fontainbleau.

This was extremely fortunate since I was finally able to see the palace that several monarchs, including Napoleon Bonaparte, lived in.  Even better, we each had another delicious chocolate pyramid, an exquisite pastry discovered by Andrea and Nancy when they visited the Fontainbleau palace last week.

I was very fortunate that they brought me back a sample last week, but today I was able to experience the pyramids from the source.  Back to the palace, the property really is beautiful and enormous.

I wasn’t able to see the inside but the exterior was very well manicured and peaceful.  The horseshoe staircase where Andrea and I took a picture together is the same stairwell where Napoleon exited and said good-bye to his subjects as he was exiled from France.

Before this trip I really only thought of Napoleon as a short, pompous ass, but now I am much more curious about his life and legacy.  Clearly he did a lot for France, especially Paris, and I hope to read more about him at some point soon.

Alas, tomorrow is my last day here.  I suspect I’ll go into Paris at some point, although I haven’t fully decided in what capacity.  Obviously I have to pack as well.  It’s supposed to be raining tomorrow, so I suppose my activities will be limited.  Check back tomorrow for what will indeed be the very last blog entry from France!

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August 12, 2007 by Tiffany.

Back from Geneva!  Sadly, our weekend in Geneva did not get off on a good start but it turned out to be fun all the same.  After driving six hours from Paris on Friday night, we went to check in at the Ibis Hotel where I had made reservations almost three weeks ago.  Upon entering I knew something was up.  The eyes of the guy at the front desk bulged and then he just started shaking his head, like he knew this would happen all along.  Of course, I immediately had a sinking feeling in my gut, and for good reason.  Apparently earlier in the evening some guy tried to check in but realized his card had been denied and they gave away his room.  The hotel was completely booked for Friday night, he put up a huge stink, and guess what, the idiot working at the front desk gave him our room.  So then WE were up a creek.  Totally infuriating and unprofessional.  Just so you know, that’s IBIS HOTEL.  They suck!  They are owned by the same people as Motel 6 though (Accor Hotels), so maybe that says something.  Anyway, my rage at the situation wasn’t going to change the fact that we literally had no room and we were in a brand new city and country.  Luckily, since they are a huge chain hotel, they had extra room at their inferior chain hotel about ten minutes away that could take us for the evening.  I’m used to poor standards of lodging in Europe, but this was low even by European standards.  Think of the cheap room of a three day Carnival cruise to Ensenada.  Kind of like that.  Bunk beds included.  Really special.  Needless to say, I was not impressed with night one in Geneva.  Fortunately the next day we were able to get into the room we had reserved nice and early, walked around, had a nice lunch, and went to check out the on-going festival on the shore of Lake Geneva put on by the Geneva Tourism Bureau.

Fortunately, the festival was really cool, with tons of food, drinks, rides, live music, vendors and later, dancing.  They also put on a really nice fireworks show that was choreographed to music and lasted a full half an hour.

We mostly spent the day drinking our way through the festival and then enjoyed some dancing at night.

Today, with the six hour drive back to Paris looming ahead of us, we didn’t want to waste too much time, but did manage to see the United Nations headquarters, as well as the headquarters for the Red Cross, (at about 30 miles an hour from the car window, that is, since Jason wasn’t terribly interested in stopping).

In all we had a nice time, and the natural resources in Geneva, meaning the lake and surrounding mountains, are gorgeous.  The city of Geneva is only okay, and if it wasn’t for the festival, I think we may have been a tad bored.  Anyway, nice to be back in Paris, if only for a few more days.

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August 6, 2007 by Tiffany.

Jason and I drove to Normandy this weekend to visit the D-Day beaches and sites.  It was an incredibly powerful experience, kind of like visiting Pearl Harbor but on a larger scale.  We stayed the night in Bayeaux, which proved to be a nice place to stay to visit the beaches and was so old and quaint it seemed unreal.

We first visited Omaha Beach, where the American troops encountered the most resistance on D-Day.  To look at the beach now, you would never guess that at some point so many lives were lost on those same shores.  It is a recreational beach now.  Hundreds of families and children were beached out with towels and umbrellas, playing games, running in and out of the surf.

The beach itself is beautiful.  It’s also long: 4 miles.  Neither of us had any idea how long the beach was, especially considering that Omaha was simply one of five beaches attacked on the same day.  As if it didn’t seem so before, the task seems even more daunting and impossible.  Making it onto the beach itself would have been an amazing feat considering the heavy firing, but the troops also had to climb up cliffs and steep embankments.

It’s no wonder why Omaha suffered the greatest casualties and took the longest to claim.  We visited the Point du Hoc memorial and site, where members of the U.S. Army Rangers had to scale up cliffs under heavy fire to seize German guns, only to find when they arrived at the destination that the Germans had already moved the guns.  They later found the guns about a kilometer away but had lost well over half of their men, (only 90 remained of over 225).  The area above the cliffs still has the remains of the German artillery bunkers and fortifications.

Also present are tons of enormous craters in the earth left over by the bombings.

We spent most of Saturday on or around Omaha Beach, walking around and driving by as much of it as we could.

Sunday we first visited the Normandy American Cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach.  The grounds have an impressive museum site that talks about preparations and strategies in preparation for D-Day, as well as specific stories of soldiers who fought that day, both from the survivors and from those who did not.

We also went to see Pegasus Bridge, which was captured by the British to take control of the Caen Canal and and thereby seize control of a major port of entry.

Looking around it’s hard to believe what happened there just over 60 years ago, but reminders exist everywhere.  All over the names of streets, memorials and plaques thank the liberators for their deeds and sacrifices.  It’s a good thing, because the outcome was priceless but the cost was incredibly steep.

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July 30, 2007 by Tiffany.

Andrea and I had a great time in Brussels today seeing the sights, eating, seeing more sights, eating some more, walking around, then eating again.  We took the TGV train, which is one of the high speed trains in France that truly hauls.  It cuts the travel time to Brussels in half when compared to a car, and that’s including a stop at the airport.

When we first arrived at the train station we had a bit of trouble getting our bearings and figuring out which metro train we had to take in order to get to the locations Andrea had found on the internet.  When we finally figured it all out we first saw this cathedral, (yes, it has a striking resemblance to the two Notre-Dame cathedrals I’ve already posted.  The design is apparently a common one among the monster cathedrals in these parts).

Eventually we made it to the main plaza, which we would end up walking through 50 more times before we left.  If the city was initially designed to have this plaza as a main hub, they succeeded immensely.

We would end up running back into the plaza time and time again without even trying.  We took a huge walk around the perimeter of Brussels to visit the Royal Palace, but it turns out that it is closed on Mondays.

Apparently, several things are closed on Mondays.  Bummer for us, but we still had more to see.  Namely: chocolate shops!

I bought some delicious chocolates, and we also visited the Cocoa and Chocolate Museum, which boasted facts and artifacts related to the cultivation and harvesting of cocoa beans in Africa and South America.  It also had an artisan present who did demonstrations on how he makes truffles, and examples of clothes made of chocolate.

Show-offs. 

Part way through the day, Andrea and I couldn’t help but notice pictures and references to a fountain of a little boy peeing.  Souvenirs shops are filled with this stuff: magnets, keychains, pictures, post cards, t-shirts, bottle openers, etc.  We could not for the life of us find this little dude, but after a while it became apparent that if we didn’t find him before the end of the day, we clearly would have sorely missed out on a ridiculous tourist monument and neither one of us would have been able to live with ourselves had that happened.  Anyway, after some trial and error we found the little fountain, and I mean little.  His name is Mannekin Pis, and I’ve already read a couple of different legends on why he’s famous, although I suspect he’s mostly famous because, you know, he’s peeing.

If you’re interested in one of the legends, check out this link.  Of course, we enjoyed Belgian Waffles, or gaufres, as they are called, and I couldn’t resist a genuine Belgian beer whilst in Belgium.

All were delicious.  Had a great time, walked a lot, ate even more, and will be sleeping well tonight.

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July 28, 2007 by Tiffany.

Today Jason and I took a day trip to go champagne tasting in Reims.

First, we took a bit of time to check out the Notre Dame Cathedral in Reims, which has an incredible history and was where the kings of France were crowned.

Afterwards, we walked through the town and saw the monument to the French resistance during World War II.

Also in the near vicinity were these Roman arches from waaaaay back in the second century when Reims was still a Roman town. Look close and you’ll see me in the center.

We experimented with some Latin cuisine again for lunch with some better results.  Afterwards, we visited the Piper-Heidsieck Winery and the limestone cave tour where they store the champagne until it is ready.

Apparently the champagne from this particular winery was presented to, and chosen by Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, and was later the official champagne of 14 French monarchies.

The best part was afterwards when we were able to taste three different types of champagne, all of which were quite good.

Jason bought a bottle for a later date.  Tonight we’re planning to have dinner in Paris.  Tomorrow we’ll have a movie-thon with Blake and Andrea to catch up on movies that Jason and Blake have been wanting to see, including Transformers and Die Hard 4.  Note that I said JASON and BLAKE.  Wish me luck.

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July 23, 2007 by Tiffany.

The rain didn’t stop me today from traveling into Paris to see the Hotel des Invalides, which is a hospital/home for disabled French war veterans, houses the Musee de l’Armee (Army Museum), and the Dome Church.

To be honest, I chose this place today because it was raining and I figured I could be inside most of the time, but I actually found the Army Museum fascinating and spent much more time there than I thought I would.  The first part of the museum shows weapons and armor from the Stone Age through the end of World War II.  My travel guide mentioned that this is one of the most comprehensive military museums in the world, and I dare not doubt that claim.  They have armor from around the world, infant armor, (I kid you not), horse armor, canons, swords, daggers, bayonets, guns,  you name it.

Here is one of my personal favorites.  Nothing speaks the love of Jesus Christ like a dagger housed inside a crucifix.

Even better however, was the section dedicated to the two World Wars.  Anyone who has even the slightest interest in either war should visit this exhibit given the chance.

It is informative and thorough with films, photographs, weapons, uniforms and maps.  I was there for probably two hours but easily could have spent another.

Finally, I visited the Dome Church, also at the Hotel des Invalides.  The church houses the tomb of Napolean Bonaparte, as well as other French military leaders of note.

It’s definitely the most elaborate tomb I’ve ever seen, but really lives up to the extravagance and pomp the man was known to represent.  You know what they say… huge tomb, small ???  Ha ha.  Only kidding.

Surprisingly, even though the hospital was opened in 1675, it holds the same purpose today, and elderly disabled French veterans still live there and wander about the property.  Talk about some history.

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July 21, 2007 by Tiffany.

Today Jason, Blake, Andrea and I drove about an hour out of town to Provins, a former medieval town that still retains much of its character with a fortress and cathedral that date back to the 12th and 13th centuries.  The town is charming, the views beautiful and the fortress, Cesar’s Tower, is fascinating.

Not for the weak of heart, the fortress has steep, narrow stairways and minuscule doorways, all which lead to the bell tower atop the edifice.  The bell still works, mind you.

It definitely was a nice day trip from Paris.  Tonight we’re going to eat at a Mexican food restaurant in the St. Michel area of Paris.  Mexican in Paris?  I guess it’s the California coming out in us.  Today we had some delicious crepes: a ham and cheese crepe for lunch and a nutella crepe for dessert.  Mmm!  Good stuff.  Hopefully the Mexican food will be as satisfying.

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