BEST Vacation EVER Recap (part 3)

Are you ready for some more of a grand adventure??
So, our next stop was to go BACK to London. Man. We got to take a train into the city, and it was beautiful. I love taking trains because you get to see parts of the country that you would not normally get to see when you travel on the road.
So, we went to London and went to Westminster Abbey. Something that made me laugh was one tourist asking where exactly the wedding took place, and the information man so patiently pointed out exactly where everything went down. I wonder how many times he has been asked that question. The different tombstones and markers are so intricate and beautiful. There are so many people there! We saw Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Chaucer, William Wilberforce (he's the man!) Winston Churchill, and of course many royals that are there. There is amazing architecture throughout, even on the outside. There are some more recent people that are honored on the outside, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's me! SURREAL!


Dr. King is 5th from the left.


It's SOOO big!

We then headed over to a little theater, to see a little play you may have heard of. It is called:

That's right! I have finally seen Wicked! I love it when you know music from a musical pretty well, and then you finally get to see the show and see how the storyline comes together and weaves through the music.

While we waited, I took in the granduer of the theatre.

What am I looking at?? The COOL ceiling.

Now, it isn't really this color, but this picture turned out so cool and shows the detail well.

We can't wait!!!! YAY!!!!

The show was absolutely amazing! The music, costumes, actors, chemistry! Our Elphaba had some soul to her, and had the most amazing voice! I really liked the chemistry she had with Galinda (the "Ga" is silent) as well as with Fiero.

We also wandered around Piccadilly Circus for a bit and bought a 'pocket watch' because we needed one for the next day, and neither of us had one!

Pretty sweet, right? Made us laugh.

Our next stop was a whirlwind, one day tour of Paris. Yeah. Crazy, I know! When Spencer first suggested it, it was a cool thought, but I never thought it would actually happen, but he made it happen! We got to take the train through the Chunnel over to Paris and hit all the big spots we wanted to see.

We started the day in the Louvre. I kept thinking about the book/movie The DaVinci Code while we were there.

The Louvre is HUGE. We could have been there for days and not seen everything, so we had to see a few things that we really wanted to see.


It was so cool to be there!


Apparently, I am a funny photographer. Actually, I think a random person was unaware of anything around them (including us) and had been in the way, or something like that.


SO intricate and detailed and ornate!


So many people!


Yes, that is Spencer. Yes, that is the Mona Lisa. Yes, I was there too. It was quite the battle to actually get our pictures with her!


Venus de Milo is beautiful.


I loved the paintings!


Beautiful art.

We headed out and towards our next stop, and while on our way, we passed the pont neuf and also the bridge with all the lovers' locks. There is a LOT of love!

Our next stop was historic...well, pretty much everything we saw is, but this one was so epic and historic that Disney has even invested in the story. Yep, we went to Notre Dame!

I half expected Quasimodo to come out at some point, alas, he did not. BUT I did get to see the French police with their BIG guns patrolling the area. I thought something was going down, but I was informed that they normally do that.

The next 2 places we went were absolutely beautiful. We went to the Musee D'Orsay as well as Musee L'Orangerie. Musee D'Orsay had amazing art of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, and many others. It used to be a train station and is the perfect size and not too overwhelming.

It is just a beautiful building.

Spencer is trying to become one with the art!

It was pretty funny because we got there at a good time, the line was going pretty quickly and then, just as we were going to go in, the guard stopped us, and we had to wait about 20 minutes to get into the museum because there were too many people in there!

I could have stayed in the Musee L'Orangerie forever. You want to know why? They have huge murals of Monet's Water Lilies. Take a look!

This will give you a little perspective as to the size of these murals. (plus, I love the fact that I match the paintings!)


They have benches in the middle of the room, and you can just sit there, taking them all in.

I love this one, with the sunset colors and the extra depth to it.

They all took my breath away.

Makes my heart happy!

Of course, we couldn't go to France without partaking of the deliciousness known as a crepe.


Let me tell you...these things can be so messy...but SOOO good!

Our next stop of the day was to this little known place called the Eiffel Tower. I have one word for this place. GINORMOUS!!!!! Seriously, the closer you get, the bigger it gets, but you think it can't get any bigger, but it does!

Just taking it all in. The day was beautiful and breezy. I ended up taking a little nap right here :)

I couldn't believe that I was actually there!

Spencer liked it too!

It was so neat because there were people just there on their lunch break, having a picnic by the Eiffel Tower!

We had fun with a little photo shoot. However, we were by no means the only ones. Some people were ALL sorts of into posing in all sorts of ways!

Seriously. GINORMOUS!

I could have strained my neck!

Beautiful!

Looking up...pretty cool, huh?

There was a nice lady who came up and offered to take our picture. NICE! We were able to be in a picture together that gets more than an arm's length of scenery :)

We headed to Arc de Triomphe and walked along the Champs-Élysées. While there, we saw the Abercrombie and Fitch models just hanging out...




Our last stop of the day was the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, or in English Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. There are a bazilliondy steps to get to it, but it is SO worth it. The view of the city is breathtaking and the Basilica itself is gorgeous.




It was the perfect end to our one day in Paris.

Now, there are a few things that I found in the train station in London that you might enjoy. I love the statue of the military man and the details on the base:



We also found a very magical part of the train station:



Thus ends this part of the recapping joy. I do believe I can get the rest into one recap, so I am almost done. I know, I know, you will miss these grand adventures, BUT don't fret, there is still one more recap!!! See you soon!

BEST Vacation EVER Recap (part 2)

So, to pick up the story....
We headed off to Sherwood Forest. Yes, indeed. Robin Hood, Little John, and the rest of the Merry Men. We even found the Major Oak that is rumored to be the tree that they would all meet up in before heading off on their adventures.


The Forest Preservation people have actually taken a lot of care to protect this tree. There were SO many posts and poles holding the tree up! We were able to stroll around for a bit, and saw some beautiful trees and nature in general. It was SO green!



Our next stop made my heart SO happy. I got another chance to geek out over Pride and Prejudice! We made our way to the Chatsworth House, which to all you newer P&P fans is known as PEMBERLEY!!!! Yep. I got to go to Mr. Darcy's house!!!


It was pretty cool, because we were allowed to take pictures INSIDE the house!

This sign made me giggle. I wonder how many people thought it was a drinking fountain??


This is the veil lady.I don't know what the actual name is, that is just what I call her. You see her in the movie, but generally, she is in a beautiful oak room, and she stands out even more vibrantly against the dark wood.


This is me, having an Elizabeth Bennett moment in the statue room. I was able to walk around, taking it all in, and it was SO surreal!


This is the formal dining room. GORGEOUS. One thing I noticed was the intricacies in so many of the ceilings in all the places we went. For some it was mural paintings, others it was ornate woodwork and carvings.


This is an amazing mirror. The angled mirrors just were so fun to look at, and find yourself all around the framing of the mirror!

As amazing as the house was, the grounds were absolutely phenomenal. It was breathtaking. I loved being able to just walk around, and there was a variety of types of gardens within the grounds!

There was this amazing little garden of a wide variety of tulips! There were so many different colors, some solid, some mixed in the same flower.


The pink flowers were SO bright! The flowers themselves were pretty big.


We were able to stand on this rock area and look over a portion of the gardens. I could have stayed there all day, but alas, we had to go exploring.


"What are men to rocks and trees?" GOOD QUESTION!!! :)


This was right as you walk out of the house, and gives you a nice introduction to the rest of the grounds.


While we were there, it decided to rain. This wasn't a lovely little drizzle, but there was actual HAIL. Luckily, we found a tree to stand under to have some protection from the pelting hail and rain.


There were lovely statues throughout the grounds.


I LOVE the green/grey (gray) combination in nature; the green just looks so much more vibrant!


There was one portion that had SO much yellow!!!I was in flower heaven!


It is just SO green!


This fountain was so pretty, and we got to see them turn it off...they still use the old school pole and literally turning the fountain off.

The next part of our trip had 2 surprises...one was planned, and the other was a complete surprise to the both of us. Spencer told me he had a surprise for me awhile before I went over, but would not budge at telling me what it was. Well, the day FINALLY came. We drove for about 4 hours to get to the surprise. However, we were both in for a surprise on the way there. We kept seeing signs for this place, and I thought to myself that maybe that was the surprise. As we were driving, this place was RIGHT off the road, so we decided to get on out at see it. We were both equally surprised to see this:

THAT'S RIGHT!!!! STONEHENGE!!!
We didn't feel like paying to just walk around it, especially since we had our planned surprise SO we just did a quick photo op:

I can't ever imagine going on vacation alone....


Who would take pictures of you??

We quickly got back on the road and headed to our planned destination of surprise! We pulled into this place called Stourhead and Spencer asked if I wanted to tour the house and the gardens, or just the gardens. My response was "I have NO idea where we are, so you might want to decide." It was funny, because we made a bathroom stop before we went in to buy tickets, and I was hoping to get some sort of clue as to where we were, but they just had information about pottery that they make on the grounds. Spencer tells me that it is more about the grounds, so I say to only do the grounds tour. We walk into the building to buy tickets and I see this HUGE poster:

photo credit: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-stourhead/w-stourhead-garden.htm

I almost started hyperventilating!!! Spencer got a good laugh out of it, but I think he appreciated how excited I was to be there. For those of you unsure of why I was freaking out so much, this is once again, from Pride and Prejudice. This is the location where Mr. Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth (it is raining in the film). I had actually asked Spencer about the possibility of going here when we were planning our grand adventure, and he had said it was way up north and too far for us. While he lied to me, I appreciate it IN THIS CASE because the surprise rocked! The gardens were breathtaking. We talked about how it makes perfect sense that Eden was a garden. It was picturesque the whole time. I could have stayed there forever. In fact, I wanted to become a modest wood nymph and run around the garden all the time forever and ever and enhance the garden experience for all the visitors. Yes, I am an odd duck. don't judge, just love. ANYWAY, here are some pictures of one of my favorite places.











I honestly just felt at peace the whole time I was there. I knew we had to leave, but I didn't want to!

We were also able to stop by Oxford. I know...stopping by Oxford! It was neat because we got to do a park & ride, so we went up to the top of the double decker bus...let me tell you, that messes with your depth perception and perspective!

It's funny taking pictures of each other, because then you end up getting almost panoramic pictures of things.





Oxford itself is GORGEOUS. Once again, I had those thoughts of "this building is older than my country!" The architecture is amazing!





I was in awe the whole time. I felt like a baby bird sometimes, looking up with my mouth wide open (although I tried not to look TOO touristy). It amazes me the patience and devotion it took to complete these buildings.

Thus ends part 2 of the adventure...but don't you fret...part 3 will be full of adventures and travel!

Recap Break...for a vain moment

I realize that I am sometimes a little vain, especially when I have a new something. Usually this something has to do with my hair, because, let's face it, it's fun to change it up and do something new with it. I got my hair cut a few weeks ago, and it has grown out a little bit, and I can now flip it out. This whole post sounds trivial and vain. And it is the truth. BUT I have to share my cute flipped out 'do before I go to bed and it never looks quite like this again.



I appreciate you not judging me too much for this blog entry, and will return you to recapping my trip shortly.