More pictures from Taormina

Detail in a corner











Hand-washing station/drinking fountain in one of the squares of Taormina. There are lots of these around. We couldn't figure out for a while if they were actually meant to be drinking fountains, but other people were drinking from them, so we did too. (We're not sick yet)


A pretty white tower

Looking out the window of the city library, Taormina

Hotel Condor, Taormina, where we stayed




Arched window



View of the Mediterranean from Taormina


Wagon in the town square (click on this to see the ornate detail)


Cool-looking tree (what is it?) overlooking the town


Beautiful purple flowers on the road going up to the theater


At the concert - it was wonderful!

Greco-Roman theater - Taormina

Saw Loreena Mckennitt play here last night! It was amazing. This picture shows it during the day when it was threatening to rain and they were setting up all their equipment.

Rainy day in Taormina

Click on any of these pictures to make them bigger - there are cool details in some of them you wouldn't want to miss!

from top of Eiffel Tower

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD!!!!
Love, Jo

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, GRANDPA!!!!!!!
Love Kaely and Eyrie

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, PAPA!!!!! Love, Kaely and Eyrie
Hope everything's well with you both!

Belated -- excusable, perhaps, since we waited in line for 2 1/2 hours to ride the elevator up the Eiffel Tower on that day!





Sainte-Chapelle Medieval Cathedral we visited on Sun. morn. Every window pane tells a story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. I guess that was good when so few people could read.

The view from our hotel window in Taormina

We are now in Taormina, Sicily, which is a lovely resort town by the Mediterranean Sea. The town is built on a hill, which means a lot of winding roads and motorcyclists zipping around corners (you wouldn't believe the number of moterbikes they have around here). There are also a lot of flowers, church spires, stone arches, palm trees and terraces. It almost reminds me of southern California.

Sharing the road with goats

After watching the French zip around their tiny streets, we were a little concerned about driving. It has been surprisingly smooth, however. We get lost a lot because Sicilian signs are (by our standards) weird or sometimes nonexistent. And Sicilians HONK. You think Utahns use their horns a lot? Forget it. If you are stopped here for more than five seconds, it is guaranteed that everyone within a mile radius is going to honk at you. When we were driving to Taormina from Catania, we came to a multilane ticket tollbooth. We somehow ended up in the telepass-ticket lane, where we belatedly realized we did not have a telepass or ticket and did not know how to pass through the barrier. During the time it took us to come to this conclusion, everyone behind us started honking like a bunch of angry geese. The guy behind us shouted something at us in Italian. "Englais?" Dad said hopefully. By the time we figured out how to buy the toll with coins, it sounded like the entire trumpet section of a very large orchestra was warming up behind us. We were very relieved to get through the tollbooth and on our way.

We should have learned our lesson then about the horn, but we did not. Yesterday when we were driving along one of the winding countryside roads, we were interrupted by a flock of goats crossing in front of us, flanked by some dogs and a goatherd with a stick. When he came to our window, we asked if he spoke English (he didn't). The goats didn't seem particularly interested in leaving and continued along the road; we crept along behind them for a while until the goatherd waved at us.

"English!" he shouted, waving at the goats. "Go - beep beep!" He mimed honking a horn. (This is a good example of how, even when people don't speak your language, they're usually pretty good at finding ways to communicate.)

Dad moved forward and honked politely - timidly, by Italian standards. A few goats scattered. We were all shouting at him - "Come on, Dad, honk like a Sicilian!" After a while of this the car behind us got impatient and zoomed around us, at which time its occupant proceeded to give us a lesson in proper Sicilian honking: HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! All of the goats took off as if they'd been hit by an electric shock. By this time everyone in our car had collapsed in laughter.

Ancient Roman mosaics at the excavation site of Villa de la Casale

Who knew that Romans were the ones who invented bikinis?

Agrigento (Greek ruins)

A few more

What an amazing few days this has been! Jet lag has hit us all hard - we are still feeling it a little even now. We flew out of Salt Lake at 4 pm Wednesday and, after a ten-hour flight, landed in Paris at 11:00. A.M. We were supposed to sleep on the plane, but . . . well, they were showing movies, and the seats were supremely uncomfortable. Eyrie and I tried for about two hours before giving up and peering down at the ocean we couldn't see. We learned our mistake when we found ourselves navigating the Paris metro system on 45 minutes of sleep (got the map all turned around and almost took the wrong train). It was our initiation into an environment in which, at least at first, we spent more time lost than not lost. Paris is huge and bustling and beautiful - their big business buildings are more beautiful than our city halls. The long stretch along the Seine River is marked by gilded facades, ornate bridges and monuments, and cobblestoned walkways. Oh, and traffic. Parisians drive like maniacs. If you're walking along the street they will come within two inches of mowing you down - there's a lot of stopping and starting and honking and speeding through residential neighborhoods. They are, however, extremely friendly and helpful if you happen to meet them outside of a car. It's lucky we have Dad to translate and order meals at restaurants. It seems very surreal to think that we have been inside Notre Dame - the one thing that really woke me up during the jet lag day! - and toured maybe a sixth of the Louvre (in three hours). The Louvre is the museum to end all museums. Even if you aren't that crazy about art (as I'm not), it is not to be missed.

I have to go now because Eyrie wants to write and she says nobody's going to have time to read a book every time they get on our blog, so au revoir.

The Eiffel Tower at night

Jet Lag Finally Takes Over (On the Ferry)

In the Louvre

Dad in front of Notre Dame

Look how light we packed!

A picture's worth a thousand words . . .

. . . and we don't have time to write much because we've got a busy schedule today - touring the Notre Dame, riding up the elevator in the Eiffel Tower at sunset, and visiting several churches and the Museum d'Orsay - so here is a quick visual update of what we've been doing. Hope everyone is doing well.

But not just any pictures . . .

My dad mentioned that it's a little wierd to have pictures on our blog of water lilies, skiing, and Rio de Janeiro, none of which have anything remotely to do with the subject of our blog. "Why don't you put in some pictures of Paris?" he asked. To which I replied, "Because we haven't got any yet!" Now, anyone who knows our family knows this is not a circumstance that will last long once we get there. We are all chronic picture takers. All the same, I could see his point. So here is a picture of the Eiffel Tower, just for him!

Ciao . . .

Guess what? I can add pictures!

Yeah. It's cool.

I guess we're really going . . .

Hi family and friends,

Wow! We've got just a little over 24 hours before we take off on a plane to Paris - it's hard to believe we're really going! We thought we'd keep in touch while we're gone with a blog. We're new to the blog thing, so it's a lot of trial and error, but we'll try to post pictures and stuff about our trip. Our blog theme is "Carpe diem", or Seize the Day, which I guess is what we're doing. Everything is very surreal right now and I am thus far only vaguely excited, though I think that will change once we're actually on the plane. We've got unlimited email through Dad's Blackberry - everyone please email us! We want to hear from you and are going to miss you all tons.
-Kaely

So just because that entry was pretty depressing, I'm gonna tell you more fun stuff.
It's been a complete nightmare packing light. I really didn't think that my parents could pull it off but they did ok. The other thing that's been annoying is that all of our clothes have to be able to dry out overnight because we won't be able to use a washing machine apparently.
So I guess we're going tomorrow and thats gonna be really interesting.
-Eyrie

Eyrie's very own Blogg

http://ithinkwemightbecrazy.blogspot.com/