Roman Holiday

Last month I flew out and met Steve in Rome. He was already in Europe for work so caught him at the end of his tour. Here are a few pics from our trip.....

It was Steve's birthday while we were there so they brought him a birthday tirimisu!!

Mmmms and Ahhhs

We had a nice weekend. We headed to Charleston for a friend's birthday and while we were going, we decided to stay the night and play "tourist" a little while. We hit the beach on Sullivan's Island for a brief sunset stroll. It was simply gorgeous...except for the &h*%#$ mosquito's!!! Afterwards, we head to "The Wreck" for dinner. This is the most plain-jane, no frills place I've eaten at, and it's one of the best. Shrimp and scallops followed by heavenly Key Lime Pie! Mmmmm...

Here is Savannah out on the dock by the restaurant. Ahh! Nothing like a trip to Chuck-town to restore the soul!

Paris Wrap-up and a Give-away

OK- I know most of you don't care at this point or don't even remember that I went to Paris a few weeks ago but I hate to quit just short of the end so here is the abbreviated ending...
An American in Paris: Parts V and VI
Part V: Boobs and Balls
After two days of gorgeous weather, it was rainy and cool on Monday. That was fine b/c we had planned to spend all day at the Louvre. Once a grand palace, it now houses priceless works of art and ancient artifacts.
We started with the sculptures on the lower levels, worked our way through the Mesopotamian pieces and then the Egyptian exhibits. That was probably my favorite. It was amazing to see the mummies and coffins up close. Some of the colors were still so vibrant. There were necklaces and other finite jewelry still intact.
Paintings of all size, subject and medium lined the walls. I couldn't believe there wasn't anymore security than there was. You could just reach out and touch most things if you wanted to. The only piece that was "protected" was the Mona Lisa. There was always a large crowd in front and she was behind special glass and was roped off. All the others were seemingly just hanging on the wall.
As exquisite as some of the works were, I was also surprised at the sheer number of boobs and balls. Yeah, I said it. We all know that classic art celebrates the human form, whatever, but some were downright weird.

(even in ancient times, men were facinated by thier penis)

(yes, that's a snake she's holding to her boob)

(At the right angle, it looks like the girl is pinching the other nipple. I told ya. Weird.)

Other significant works include the Venus de Milo, the Code of Hammurabi, furnishings of Napoleon, and paintings by Manet.
"Veni, vedi, vichi"-we came, we saw, we were outta there by 3:3o. Great way to spend a rainy day in Paris.
Part VI: Sortie
On that first day in Paris by myself, I learned one word very quickly: Sortie. It means "exit." It was all over the subway, airport and various places. Tuesday had come and it was our day to "sortie". We loaded up our luggage, grabbed one last sweet roll for the train and got to the airport. Luckily, the wait for this flight did not include long lines and misinformation. It included coffee, TV, swanky bathrooms and all you can eat snacks in the frequent flyer lounge. Our flight home was uneventful,but nonetheless, it was good to be home!!
I mentioned something a while back about a giveaway. It's not very exciting- I didn't get to do as much shopping as I would have liked- but I have a Paris key chain and 2 "moving" gifts up for grabs. Since packing/unpacking, I have discovered a few items to pass along: a Lolita Music-tini martini glass and a Lolly Lu "designer" tampon case. Weird, I know. Just leave me a comment by midnight on Thursday night (7/23) and a winner will be chosen at random.

An American in Paris: Part VI

"Miser Brothers"
1975 was a good year for the Miser brothers. The Rankin-Bass hit, "A Year Without a Santa Claus" had just come out the Christmas before and they were on top of the world! Well, actually, Snow Miser split his time between the North and South poles and Heat Miser had the equator. Like most people, the fame soon got to them. Heat Miser did time in jail for beating his girlfriend Chiquita Banana. He lost his temper one night after somebody commented on her melons. Snow Miser became addicted to drugs - ice to be specific. He couldn't get enough of the stuff.
Eventually, the brothers went to rehab and worked through their demons. Today, they lead low-profile lives and work the front desk of a Paris hotel. Snow Miser works the day shift and Heat Miser works at night. Yep. Or at least that's how I explain the temperature in our room.
When I first got to Paris, Steve had a run-of-the-mill room in a Marriott by the airport. It was nice and looked like any other hotel room in the U.S. Once we were on "our" time, we had reservations at a Best Western in town. The room was quaint (realtor talk for small) but clean and it suited us fine.

We had a quiet room on the second floor off a small courtyard. We knew we would spend much time in the room so we weren't too concerned about it.

That held true except for the heat and air. Many hotels didn't even have air conditioning, so we were glad to have it, but there was no thermostat in the room. We were told the front desk controlled it. Well, during the day, apparently it was ON. It was so cold, you could have hung meat! So I went to bed with my PJs and my socks on with the blanket pulled up to my neck. I awoke a few hours later sweating like a Biggest Loser contestant hiking up a hill with Jillian on my back! Apparently, during the night, the air is OFF. I stripped off the covers and my PJs to get some relief. I enacted the fine, Southern tradition of flipping my pillow over to the cool side.

This temperature trauma was repeated for Sunday and Monday nights as well.

As for the Miser brothers...they had a deal in the works with E! to make a "True Hollywood Story," but then the shit hit the fan with Jon and Kate and, well, I don't expect their phone to be ringing anytime soon.

An American in Paris: Part V

"Royal Cheese"
Remember in the movie Pulp Fiction when John Travolta is telling Samuel L. Jackson about McDonald's in France? It's true. They do eat mayonnaise with their fries and the Quarter Pounder is the Royal Cheese. And it was damn good. Call me a redneck. Call me clueless. Call me tasteless. I don't care, but I was not crazy about the food in France. I had REAL French cheese, wine, quiche, and crepes and it was all OK. I love cheese: cheddar, feta, provelone, Swiss...but that stuff I ate over there just didn't taste right. Needed more salt or something. The wine: too sweet. The quiche: (see the note about the cheese). The crepe: it was good, but not a whole lot of taste besides the Nutella it was drowned in.
We ate dinner twice at local cafes. It was fine, but it took forever (culture thing) and dinner for 2 one night ran us about $90 U.S. We were just as happy to eat at McDonald's, KFC, Quick (fast food) and the corner bakery. We knew what we were getting, it was fast and it was cheap.
I will say the desserts and breads were very good. We had breakfast 3 mornings from the local bakery: A sweet roll and and bottle of water we could eat on the train hit the spot.
Any sandwich was served on traditional French bread and it was always good. Probably our 2 favorite things we ate were dessert from the cafe one night. Steve had dark chocolate molten cake and I had pistachio creme brule. Mmmmmm!

An American in Paris: Part IV

"The Wheels on the Bus"
I woke up Sunday morning and my legs were so sore and so tight. They were refusing to cooperate (I didn't blame them) but eventually I convinced them it would be OK. I promised that we would NOT do that much walking today. So, we decided to do the open bus tour. You know, you've see those double decker bus tours. The top level is open to the elements and you can see out really well. They had 4 different routes that covered pretty much the whole city.
Not great for pictures taking with the constant movement, but great for seeing a little bit of everything...

We did get off the bus to have lunch and walk around a little bit. I finally found Amorino's Ice Cream (gelatto, actually) and it was so good!! We also spent a good chunk of the afternoon at a large garden (I forget which one). This was the view from our chairs:
This is us in the chairs. So good to sit down!

FYI- I've got 4 more chapters planned of the Paris trip. Sorry if that's annoying, but I personally, would rather read a lot of short posts than 1 or 2 really long ones. And I just might finish it off with a giveaway! Stay tuned!

An American in Paris: Part III

"Effin' Stairs"
Saturday morning we had to switch hotels, so we loaded up our stuff and headed out on the train into town. (more on the room later).
We were true tourists, shorts and tennis shoes included(no one there is too into shorts or tennis shoes), and hauled our butts all over town. Seriously, if I had been wearing a pedometer it probably would have said "00003" because it had rolled over already.
We walked to the Eiffel Tower, which was several blocks away. It really is quite something to see. We got there and waited in line to go up. By up, I mean 340 steps to the second level, where we went. You had to pay more to go further, I think.
Up there, you had amazing views of the city in all directions. The weather was quite warm for Paris (maybe 82 degrees) so Shannonwe needed a break before heading back down.

We left the Eiffel Tower and headed uphill to get on the train (thankfully) to go to the Arc d Triomphe. Even once we got off the train, it was a good walk to the actual Arc. And of course Steve wanted to go up. That was 284 more steps.

Again, lovely views of the city from up there. Next, we got back on the train and headed to the North end of town to Sacre Cour, a really old church on a big-ass hill. Add 225 to the step count...

I don't know what it is about this church, but there were people everywhere! Sprawled out on the lawn, having a beer, listening to street performers, you name it. Oh, and some annoying scammers trying to tie strings on us??? We didn't get it.

My legs were killing me at this point. I had climbed 849 steps in addition to all the regular walking. So we walked ourselves to a cafe behind the church and we sat and had a few beers. Ahhhh.....

We finally made it back to our room later that night, where I had to walk up 12 steps to get to our room. Effin' stairs...