Bonjour Paris!

Greetings from Paris! To get here, we left England on a ferry from Dover to Calais, and drove for 3 hours into Paris. We managed to arrive in rush hour, and it was pretty crazy driving the roads. Sort of an "every man for themself" feel to driving. If there wasn't room for a turn or a merge, you just do it anyway and expect the others to make room. At least this seems to be what the Parisians do. We hit road construction and missed our parking garage time by 15 minutes, so then I had to drive around and around for over an hour before I found a spot on the streets. That wasn't much fun, particularly when I'd hit one of the huge, lane-less roundabouts. Thank goodness I knew about "priorite a droit" (yield to the right), where cars entering a roundabout have the right of way as drivers in the roundabout have to screech to a stop for the cars on their right.

Anyways, we had a great 5 days and nights in Paris, and enjoyed 4 of them with the Watsons. Here are some photos of our first 2 days. This is our French son Isaiah; he is very cute in his beret, but doesn't look very happy. (Kinda like many of the French people we saw...)

We spent our first full day at Disneyland Paris. We've never been to the "real" Disneyland, so the kids were very excited. It was alot of fun - great rides, lots to do and see, and this is the only park in the world where Mickey says "Bonjour!"

One of the parades down the street with the classic characters.

The family in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

This was Isaiah's favourite ride. You can tell that he's a Star Wars fan, as he was almost ready to burst with excitement.

Sophie loved the gentler carousel - that is until she rode the Big Thunder mountain roller coaster.

The view by the Treasure Island area.

First day was great, but it was on our second day that we started to visit some of the more famous Paris sights. We enjoyed visiting the beautiful Arc de Triomphe, getting one of our few

photos with the whole family together!

I enjoyed watching the traffic on the famous roundabout encircling the Arc. Here one crazy Frenchman actually got out of his car to "talk" to another driver. I couldn't help but to also admire the bravery of the cyclist riding through.

That evening we visited the amazing Eiffel Tower. It was cool seeing both of these huge, world famous structures on the same day.

This is our new Texan friend. He is the one with the beard behind Audine and Kim.

Emma and Breanna on the Eiffel Tower (while it was still day) in their matching hoodies. Beautiful girls!

By the time we finally made it to the top, it was getting dark outside. Sophie seemed to be having a blast, but Rachel just looked cold.

We saw lots of people kissing on the top of the Eiffel Tower. Sophie thought this looked like a fun idea, but Isaiah WASN'T impressed.

Well, that was day one and two in Paris. Tomorrow I'll post the next couple of days. Au revoir!

Jimy MacJohnson

We're in Oxford - but where's the University?

Off to Oxford, like thousands of seekers of educational enlightenment before us. Very picturesque city, with clean streets, amazing buildings, and tons of 20-somethings walking the streets. In a guide, I was interested to see that one of the most common questions that is asked in Oxford - by Americans I'm sure - is "Where is the Univerity?" Well, the answer is "Nowhere" and "Everywhere!" Oxford is basically a university city, made up of a couple of dozen expensive colleges that make up the "raison d'etre" - the reason for being. The rest of the city basically services the colleges and the thousands of students who come every year.

We enjoyed our time wandering around Oxford for the afternoon. Here are some photos of this beautiful city.

We climbed a couple of towers to see the skyline, and weren't disappointed.

We went into the world's oldest museum, the Ashmolean, and saw this painting from 1645, by a Dutch guy named Aert van der Neer. It's called "Winter Landscape with Figures on a Frozen River". Here's my point. Are those figures in the foreground playing ice hockey??? It looks awfully similar... could this have been the start to our game?

A cool half-timber and plaster house on a main street. This was the only one of this style that I saw, surrounded by stone buildings.

One of the colleges in Oxford.

The Radcliffe Camera - not an actual camera, or even observatory as it looks like, but an extension of the science libraries, holding a series of reading rooms.

Beside the Radcliffe Camera is St. Mary's cathedral.

Another beautiful view.

We actually weren't allowed into any of the colleges that we saw closeup, so I had to be content with sneaking into an open doorway and taking a photo of the "inside" of one of these priviledged places of higher education. Looks pretty nice in there!

That was our visit to southern England. The next day we left for Paris. See you there!

Jimy MacJohnson

Visiting the Coopers, Ewelme, and Bath

Hi! Well, the next stage of our spring holiday took us to beautiful southern England. Helen's parents had been nice enough to invite us to visit with them in the little village of Ewelme, in Oxfordshire. We took them up on this offer and stayed 3 very enjoyable nights with them. Here is a picture of Kim and I, and David and Sue. I actually think that they are the nicest people in all of England. And I'm serious! They went out of their way to make us comfortable, keep us well fed, and offered suggestions to our daily excursions. I was most impressed with their fun and caring nature as they played croquet, table tennis, and numerous board and card games with us and the kids. David also had a nice selection of fine English ales that he broke out to aid the storytelling in the evenings. What a great time!

Here is one view of their 18th century home. Very nice!

Another home a little way down the street. I like how the stream runs across their driveway.

Another home in the cool little village. Nice thatched roofs!

This is the King's Pond, where Henry VIII was pushed in by one of his wives when she found out about his latest "interest". Apparently Ewelme was one of Henry VIII's favourite little villages, and he spent time here from his earliest years.

This has to be the coolest front door to a primary school that I've ever seen. Reason for this medieval looking door is that it is the oldest school in England that is still functioning as a school! This school was founded in 1437!

Here is a photo of the outside of this school.

Here is the local parish church that is right behind the school.

The interior of this beautiful little church. Small church with beautiful wood and stone and glass work.

This church has the tomb of Sir Thomas Chaucer and his wife (Lady Something-or-other). His more-famous father Geoffrey wrote The Canterbury Tales. Looking at the cover of the tomb, I think that this silly fellow obviously couldn't find a dragon, so he killed a unicorn! He must have been really bitter when his father still got the attention!

Next on our agenda, was a visit to the beautiful city of Bath, about an hour and a half away. Bath was a Roman town that became famous, even in Roman times, for its hot, bubbling mineral springs - which still bubble away! The Romans view this as a holy place, building a large temple at the site in conjunction with the baths. After the Romans deserted this town, it became the favourite baths of a series of English monarchs, becoming the site of the below Royal Mineral Water Hospital in 1737. It became a must-go location for many of Britain's wealthy upper crust for a couple of hundred years after this.

Here are Kim and the kids on a beautiful Bath street. Believe it or not, this was a very crowded day on the streets, particularly in this area. A nice quiet moment.

The relaxing grassy area in front of the sweeping Royal Crescent.

The Bath cathedral. Everything in this town was beautiful!

A back view of the cathedral.

My favourite street in Bath...

... okay, THIS one was my favourite. After looking around I wasn't sure how it got it's name though...

A view looking down at the Roman baths. The water and the foundations are the original Roman ones, while the rest of the building was built by the English monarchs in a classical style.

The beautiful Kim, poolside.

The rest of us!

A Roman gravestone in the museum. Looks like the poor guy got trampled.

Bath's most important archaeological find in the 1800s. The golden head of the statue from the main temple in the Roman era.

Well, this was a LONG entry. We really enjoyed southern England. Our next day was in Oxford, which I'll write a much smaller entry for tomorrow. See you then!

Jimy MacJohnson

The Watsons arrive in Scotland

Hello again! As our Spring Break arrived, so did the Watsons, coming all the way from Langley. Jamie and Audine organized a great farewell for us before we left, and their kids Rachel and Breanna just happen to be two of Sophie and Emma's best friends. Here are a few shots of things we did in our own home town of Edinburgh.

Here are Sophie and Rachel standing in front of the Lord of the Rings like Scott Monument.

Emma and Breanna with Deacon Brodie, the real-life inspiration for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

While the girls all went shopping, Isaiah, Jamie and I went to Glasgow to visit the Kelvingrove Natural History Museum.

Isaiah's favourite exhibition was the Egyptian rooms, where he led the tour for Jamie and I. Here he poses with some hieroglyphics.

Jamie in a stare-down with a statue. Intense.

Overlooking a large hall of the museum

You can never get too much medieval arms and armour!

Probably the strangest exhibit. Seemed out of place considering that the rest of the room was filled with skulls of various exotic animals. I thought it made the room way better.

Elvis and I do a little dancing. Isaiah was a little embarassed.

We also visited the Museum of Transport where there were all kinds of weird and wonderful vehicles, including this cool Messerschmidt 3 wheel car.

Kim and Audine visiting an old ruin overlooking the city.

Emma, Breanna, and Emma's friend Anna who was visiting from Ireland, walking through Holyrood park.

Here is a spooky vault under the city that we went in on our "ghost tour". Interesting places, but not a lot of ghosts. I like this photo because I took it at the same time as someone else, which silouetted the people for an interesting effect.

The girls after the tour. Looking a little unsure of themselves...

Next stop - Southern England! See you there!

Jimy MacJohnson