Europe Trip Pictures: #2

Very soon after dropping our luggage of f at the hotel, we walked 5 blocks to the Eiffel Tower, the first thing on the list.
Myself, Grand Dude, and Grand Jean in front!


Grand Jean and I in front of the Eiffel Tower!

The awesome French architecture!

Zee Tower itself!

There were interesting names on the side of the tower-- I think they may have some of the same names as are on the Arc de Triomphe, which we also visited. (pictures later...) Does anyone know what they are, stand for, or mean? I have no idea, and it wasn't in any guide books...

It really is quite impressive.

Looking up.

Looking out.

After standing in line for 45 minutes to get tickets, we were on our way up the South side of the tower in an elevator!
The view!

The Seine!
Some shiny building!

A self-portrait... there are A LOT of these...


Looking up again.

Upside down....

:-)
This is me trying to look energetic after traveling for 30 hours... it was also rather bright up there. Notice the gift shop in the background. We had lunch at a McDonalds type place (Ben and Jerry's ice cream was good) inside the Eiffel Tower. yeah.




Looking down.







I told you there were a lot... :-) Let me know if you get tired of silly pictures of me!
Sacre-Coeur as seen from the Eiffel Tower. At least I think that's Montmartre Hill...


The complex on the other side of the Seine.

The skyline was, for lack of a better term, really cool.

The Arc de Triomphe.

There are a lot of bridges in Paris.

The line we were not in. Those are people, not candy wrappers.

These buildings looked like their sides fell off. *shrugs*

More Frenchy stuff.

A wee little tower hidden among the trees in the park beside the tower.

Another Bridge.


Sorry, I don't know what this is...

The Statue of Liberty's twin sister, as seen in National Treasure 2 is on the far end of this little island. Squint and you can see it.





More!

It was a fun walk from our hotel to the Tower everyday. There were a ton of interesting buildings.
Including this one...

The view out of our hotel room window. See the Eiffel Tower?

Closer.

Below us.

Me.

Again.


At night the Eiffel Tower would light up in different shades. It even would sparkle for 10 minutes on the hour after dark. Really cool.

Well, that's my second post-- More to follow soon!

Europe Trip Pictures: #1

So here they are! Finally! These are the first 19 or so pictures... of about 200 I'll probably end up sharing. These cover our first full day- leaving at 3 in the morning and getting to Paris at 8 the next morning. Fun! But without further ado...



Isn't this a great first picture? In the car on the way to the airport an hour away at 3 in the morning... and the first of about 800 self-portraits. :-)

Our luggage right before we checked it. Mine is the blue.

Sitting in the Pittsburgh National Airport.

Same spot.

My first flight since I was four! It was fun to walk out on the runway to get in this little plane.

The sun rose on the other side of the plane, so this picture was taken past three people.

Out my window.

Haha, this was sitting in the Washington airport for 8 hours. Here I was sitting in between Grand Dude and Grand Jean both snoring. It was around 10 in the morning after breakfast.

Which of these two do you like better? The words of Psalm 19 ran through my head as we went over the ocean, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands." I memorized a different version than that in my Bible...


The very unflattering plane lighting at 2 in the morning. I didn't sleep very well during the flight, so I had ample opportunity to mess around...

Sorry they are a little dark.

The French Lights! I think we landed at about 7 in the morning.

Going through passport checking. We quickly discovered that the French don't believe in lines and that cutting is acceptable.


'Twas quite crowded. In front of us...

.... and behind us... look closely out the doors-- the line went around the corner.

:-) This was the women's bathroom in the Charles deGaulle airport. I loved how they decorated!

I thought my dressmaking friends would like this.



In a van riding to our hotel.

Well, there's the first post of pictures! Hopefully many more will follow soon.... feel free to ask any questions-- there's so much to tell, but I don't know what you want to know!

Hehe...

You won't believe me unless I show you....

Yep! Poor Miss Willa Howard has the chicken pox, and a fairly bad case of them at that.

Emma, Daddy, Seth, Mommy, and a little bit of me have annoying colds. Annoying in the sense that they can't do anything.

And you would think that by the 2nd week of my 2nd year of high school I would have my work organized. But alas! it is not, and my cup overfloweth.

Seth now has a pet cricket-- he found it on the inside stairs this morning and said he wanted "to teep it fur a pet."

I hope you can excuse me for yet another week of no posting. *sighs*

I'm Baaaa--ck! A Rather Boring Apology...

This is going to be a eat-breakfest-while-I-post post, since I know I will never do it otherwise, and I only have 23 minutes until 3 of my friends (and my sister....) arrive at the door at this unearthly hour of 9 in the morning for a planning meeting.

Most of you know I have been back in the country 12 days, and haven't writen a snippet of anything about it on here yet. I hope I'll be able to post a ton about my trip in the not-so-distant future, but as always, it is only something God knows at the moment.

Why have I not posted yet? Well....

* I was only home 26 hours after my Europe trip before heading to Delaware for an awesome camping trip with 4 other homeschool families-- I've never had 26 brothers and sisters before!
* I was only home 9 hours from the Delaware trip before we headed to church, a 45 minute drive away. Having no food in the house, we stopped at CiCi's for lunch.
* I was only home 3 hours after church and lunch before heading over to a game night with friends.
* I was only home 10 hours after Game Night before starting school.
* Tuesday my cough developed into pneumonia again, so x-rays and a Dr.'s visit were in order.
* I've started a major sewing project that needs to be finished between school and house-up-keep in a little over 3 weeks. I've taken over the sewing room AND playroom in order to do this.
* Thursday our family started attending the writing co-op again.
* Friday was my first online discussion group time.
* Friday night everybody but Daddy since he had something to do for work loaded up and went over to Family Game Night, as opposed to the Teen Game Night I went to on Sunday. :-P
* In 8 minutes the Magazine Girls are arriving to plan the next few issues. And talk about my birthday party, and Emma's trying to teach Elsie how to roll a die. She doesn't really get it. :-D

So yeah. That's why I haven't posted, however lame the excuses are by your estimation. Thank you to everybody who prayed for my pneumonia again-- God really answered (y)our prayers. I was able to sing as I cleaned and dusted our room yesterday!!!!! It took 3 weeks for me to be able to sing after getting out of the hospital. Praise God.

A Word From Olivia!!!!!

Hey all!!!

I know some of you are dying to hear from me! Well, here's a bit about what we've been doing to keep you alive a bit longer.... (be prepared for a 100+ picture post when I get back 2 weeks from now...)

I'm having a marvelous time in Europe! We've toured pretty much everything in Paris except the Louvre, the Museum d'Orsay, and.... something else, I think. :-P We're headed back to France in a few days to see the rest.

Holland is a beautiful country. If I had to pick a place to live on a farm, I would pick here. Everything is so well thought-out, and you could pretty much get everywhere solely by boat!

The World Triathlon was a unique experience. I really (really! seriously! not sarcastically!) enjoyed sitting there watching the athletes for almost 9 hours. I've got the sunburn (my own fault, I was sure that it would mess up my make-up and that the 30 spf already in my make-up would do just fine....) and the bug bites (NOT my fault!) to prove it. I will never, ever, ever compete in a triathlon, with absolutely no offense but rather respect to those who do.

I really apologise for not communicating better. The entire country has free Wi-Fi (computer lovers drool), but there's no place with computers to use. Thankfully our current hotel does have this computer in its lobby that I can use. I just have to share with Grand Dude... :-D

Public transportation is a great thing-- in huge cities. We've ridden on/ in a car, plane, ferry, subway, train, bus, and funicular each many times.

I have a new appreciation for laundromats. There is only one in the city of Amsterdam. We opted for the laundry service-- they even folded them!

They played the "West Virginia, Mountain Momma" song at the Holland Triathlon yesterday. How strange. Every place we've been they only play American music. It's rather weird to be sitting in a cafe' in the middle of downtown Amsterdam hearing American rap (granted it wasn't understandable) playing.

The things I miss the most are washcloths. They must not exist in this portion of our planet. None of the places we have stayed have supplied them. I probably have week old mascara still in my lashes. *sighs* It is rather annoying, and using bath towels is next to impossible. I miss home, too, but I'll see it all too soon. :-D

GPS's are either absolute life-savers or death sentences. Gabby, our GPS over here, got us out of Paris alive and with little headache on Friday. Saturday she took us on bike paths trying to get home from the Noah's Ark that wasn't there (long story short we didn't see it because, rumor has it, it's in the middle east for a bit) and Sunday she almost got us run-over sticking us in the bus lane in downtown Almere. **sighs** She makes us laugh, though. :-) And these driving times will go down in Howard history, I predict.

Oh, and for the (at least) one person who I know wants to know, I've only taken 500 good pictures so far. And for everyone else, about 400 or so of those pictures are of me. I've perfected my self-portrait. :-D

Aaahhh! Just got another bug bite that popped up from nowhere. Off to sleep (I'm posting at about 12:30 on Tuesday morning) and hopefully a full day of touring Amsterdam (the Rembrandt museum, Anne Frank house, etc.) by canal boat tomorrow (or rather today).

~Me, Myself, and Olivia who now likes mustard on GIANT meatballs and thinks mayo on fries does not sound good....oh, and FYI, yes, we have eaten at a McDonald's or two. More on that later....