By Popular Demand

Our annual Christmas letter went out in January, as usual. I didn’t intend to post it on la Blog but I cannot refuse the demands of my readers. (Dad, check your Paypal account.)

A Year In the Life - by Uppity & Kevin

A year has gone by and our letter is late –
But as we all know, for the good, one must wait.
All winter through summer we worked (some say slaved)
As trips and house projects need money be saved.

In June came a blog known as Uppity Rib;
No topic is safe from this young woman’s lib.
Like Gollum we sits and we types in the dark
We works on our precious, our internet mark.

A Breast Cancer 5K in summer we ran
For cures and awareness and mom in Spokane.
Our garden we planted and nurtured it well
Though how it would grow, time alone would soon tell.

At last came September: three weeks of vacation!
We packed up our bags and we left our great nation.
In Holland we landed, with windmills and dikes;
We walked Amsterdam all surrounded by bikes.
Anne Frank’s house, museums: Rembrandt & Van Gogh,
The Red Light streets tempted, but no time to go.

And then on to Deutschland - dark bier and rot wine!
We walked hand in hand on the banks of the Rhein.
Christmas stores, sausage and Night Watchmen, too,
And Neuschwanstein’s Castle, to us all brand new.

The Austrian hills were alive with the sound
Of luge rides and church bells and biergarten crowds.
Believe it or not, washing clothes feels like fun
When you hang them to dry in the Austrian sun.

So onward to Italy — pasta and cheese;
The wine poured all night and we always said “Please!”
First Venice: antiquities, glass blowing bright
A gondola ride in Italian moonlight.
In Florence we viewed Michaelangelo’s Dave,
The Duomo and bridge from the war that was saved.
Then Vatican City inside ancient Rome
The vast innerspace of St. Peter’s huge dome.
We toured the ruins and went back in time
Imagining how Rome had been in its prime.
Our last day of touring in old Italy
Was one restful day by the warm, deep blue sea.

Then Switzerland beckoned, it’s beauty perfection;
Our favoritest place, upon later reflection.
We walked its green valleys and scaled its white peaks
We could have remained there for many more weeks.

But further adventures awaited in France,
That beautiful country so full of romance.
In Beaune we learned much ‘bout the French and their wine
Then sampled a glass with cuisine that was fine.
And finally – Paris: the City of Light!
The Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel at night;
Rodin, the d’Orsay, and the grand old Versailles;
We packed it all in, then at last said good-bye.

The end of the trip found us weary but glad,
So grateful were we for the fun we had had.
The days filled with walking had made us quite slim,
But our hearts and our mem’ries were filled to the brim.

We flew to our home in Pacific Northwest
Where our own comfy bed we decided was best.
Our garden had made it, still full of big plants -
Tomatoes and carrots; no slugs, just some ants.

We resumed all the work we had planned for our house
To fix up the bathroom, evict the wee mouse.
Kevin is plugging the hole in the ground
That triggers the pump (how he curses the sound!).

And that’s all the news that is fit to be writ;
We blew our big wad on our long Europe trip.
So merry late Christmas and happy New Year -
Good luck in 07 – It’s already here!

Euro-photo! Fini!

All the photos from the European vacation are edited and viewable, including our final destinations Paris and Versailles. So next time you have an hour with nothing better to do, check ‘em out here.

If you see a photo you like, feel free to download it. Note that most of the photos were taken at somewhat low-res, because otherwise, the camera on the battery would crap out too soon (when you only have a day or two to see places like Paris, you can’t take time to go back to the hotel for a charge.)

If you like something so much you want to post it somewhere, please ask me first; just drop me a line at uppityrib@yahoo.com.

Now that I’m done reliving my amazing journey to far-off lands, where I had exciting adventures with interesting people, and am back to my “real life”… I spend a fair amount of effort keeping ahead of post-vacation ennui. What to do? Why, start planning another trip! Mai oui!

Euro-Blog 2007: England, Scotland & Ireland.

Who’s with me?

Euro-photo: Paris teaser

The editing of my photos of Versailles & Paris are ALMOST done…

Meanwhile, a fellow traveller sent me this gem. Think I’ll call it “Battle of the Photographers.” If that’s the case, it appears Kevin is rooting for the other team…

(Photo of Uppity & Kevin somewhere in Paris, courtesy of James.)

Euro-photo: the journey continues…

Now available for your viewing pleasure: unique Orvieto, Italy; coastal Cique Terra (the Italian Riviera); stunning Switzerland; and cozy Beaune, France. Check ‘em out here.

Last stop: legendary Versailles & incomparable Paris.

(Photo of the Cinque Terra courtesy of Kevin.)

Word.

Must…finish…photos…Can’t…stop…to…blog…Readers…waiting…

This will have to suffice for today.

Thanks to Bayou for the fun blog doodad of the day. Get your word cloud here.

Technorati Tags: word cloud, photos of Europe, blog fun

Euro-photo! Continued…

Two more sets of my photos of Europe 2006 have been edited and are now available for viewing: Florence and Rome & The Vatican. To see all sets I’ve uploaded so far, click here.

Remember, you can read all the details I’ve added to each individual photo by clicking directly on a photo, whether or not you use the “slideshow” option. I’ve had a lot of fun editing short sound-bytes of my memories of the trip (and a little historical data) into many of the pictures!

I might be done editing and uploading the rest of the photos (remainder of Italy, Switzerland, and France) by the end of the weekend… so check back!

Euro-photo!

Photos of my trip to Europe, from the Netherlands up through Venice, Italy (about half the trip) are now on my Flickr site for your viewing pleasure. I’ve organized them by country or city in the order we visited them, and I’ve added details to many of the individual photos.

I recommend viewing the photos by set in order to keep it all straight.  After clicking on the link provided here, you’ll see all the sets I’ve made so far.  Click on a set you want to see and only the photos in that set will come up.

At this point, there will be two ways to see the details I’ve added to each of the photos:

- You can simply click on each individual photo to see its title and description.

- You can also click on the “view as slideshow” feature, which will launch a show of each photo in that set; then to read the details of any given photo, you need to click directly on the photo before it goes by. Once you’re done reading, click on “Resume Show” to resume the slides.

The sets I’ve finished are (in order of the trip):

The Netherlands: Haarlem & Amsterdaam
Bacharach: Wine on the Rhine
Rothenburg: medieval German cuteness
Dachau: Never Again
Andechs: Ach, das is gut Bier
Austria & Neuschwanstein
Venice: the elegant puddle of decay

and COMING SOON:

Florence, Rome, Cinque Terra, Switzerland, Beaune, and the finale, Paris!

If the link above does NOT work for some reason, be sure to let me know ASAP - email me at uppityrib@yahoo.com. Thanks and enjoy!

Last tango in Paris, Part 2

So let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, making our way through Paris to our hotel after the bus crash.

Once we’d settled in, we still had an hour or so to get lunch. Most of us had no gumption to attempt speaking French at that point, so about half of us went directly to a nearby cafe we’d passed with a sign saying “Bar Lunch Dinner” with a sign like that, we figured they would probably speak English. We were right - the waitress had no trouble taking our orders. Our first day France and we ordered Cokes and club sandwiches. Nice! Continue reading »

Last tango in Paris, Part 1

Sorry the last post turned out to be such a tease; it wasn’t supposed to be, but I couldn’t find a cyber cafe in Paris near our hotel, and in any event, I was too busy making the most of my last few days in Europe.

Now that I’m back in the good old US of A and semi-recovered from jet lag, I’ve settled into my easy desk chair to share with you my last tango in Paris. Because I have so much to write about, I’m splitting this post into two parts, lest I develop carpal tunnel from writing it all in one sitting.

Actually, this Euroblog post should start where I left off: our last hours in Switzerland. After I finished geeking out a blog post in the internet terminal at the Lauterbrunnen (next door to a youth hostel, incidentally), Kevin and I took the walking path through the valley, back to our hotel in Stechelberg. It was late afternoon and the sun shined down through a cloudless sky, illuminating the great mountains that towered over our heads. It was the most gorgeous five miles I’ve ever walked. Continue reading »

Aventures en France

The keyboard at the computer in Les Jardins d`Eiffel, our hotel in Paris, is beyond funky; somehow, its so Parisian to have the most unAmerican keyboard in a hotel that caters to Americans. (That is my only serious complaint about Paris as of yet, so I wont trash the place.) In any event, I wont try to blog today about our considerable aventures en France; but stay tuned, as I will be scouting out cyber cafes tomorrow.