I just flew to Paris and boy are my feet tired!



Terry at Versailles


Lauren and Versailles




This image was photographed in Versailles in the section that was decorated by Napoleon. The square and compass are obvious and this symbol was repeated up and down the wall floor to ceiling not only showing these drafting tools but also the square and compass with a painters palette. Things that make you go hmm...






















































Well, I've been in Paris for a few days now and having a lovely time. I don't have the time to go into details but I do want to post a few photographs. Paris has been cold and rainy every day until today. Yesterday we walked in torential rain for over an hour. Paris is also extremely packed with tourists. The metro is literally unusable unless you are willing to dive into a subway packed so tightly you can barely breath and, that is, if you can get on at all. Yesterday we saw such a mass of humanity exiting a metro station it looked literally dangerous
Tomorrow is our last day in Paris before we take an overnight train to Rome. I am quite looking forward to visiting a part of Europe I have never been before. I am working to ignore the absurd amount of money I am spending at meals and for excursions. I always told myself, I wasnt' going to worry about money once I got here so, I suppose I will not.

The highlight of the trip for me so far was the ballet at Opera Garnier which was an absolute delight. This evening we are going to attend a caberat at Paradis Latin. I don't know if I will have Internet access once I am in Rome but, if I do, I may find the time to post some more photographs.

The trip seems to be going extremely quickly. I am getting an a great deal of exercise walking, especially since I refuse to use the metro due to my quite serious claustrophobic fear of crowds. Being packed into a mass of bodies clearly fits that bill. I am quite dissapointed with our tour company and I suppose I will have more to say about that upon my return. Fortunately, I wasn't counting on my tour company for much, so it really doesn't matter.

My GPS has been as useful as I hoped for and I have wasted no appreciable amount of time being lost. I have been able to see everything in particular I wanted to see on my list and still have had time to relax in the evenings.

I am reading a book or two that I hope to comment about upon my return as well.

Comments

Tom Accuosti said…
Great pics! Background photos for both "The DaVinci Code" and "Foucault's Pendulum."

Arrividerci, amico!
1:01 PM
Anonymous said…
Awesome pics! You are so lucky! Looks like you are having a great time besides the rain! GL for better weather in Rome!
4:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Great pics John! Good to see you all are having a good time in spite of the weather. I can't find the itinerary for your pick up time/airline next week. Will keep looking and will leave you a v-mail for when you reach the states next week to get details if I still need them. Thanks for making sure Lauren could call me.
1:47 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Planetside Screenshots

Image
I realize that this post is going to cause some Web-Wiplash, but I think that is ok. For years I have held onto some old Planetside screenshots that I wanted to post online some day. After scouring an old hard drive yesterday these are the ones I came up with. Still, I know I am missing many of the screenshots I really wanted to keep. Especially ones from when the game was very early in development. I designed the entire client side game engine myself and I had a lot of fun during the development process. One of my regrets is that, in many respects, the final game did not look nearly as visually impressive as it did at certain points during development. There were a number of reasons for this. One was from a technology stand point. Most developers of an MMO game engine might assume it would be reasonable to stream data in as a player moved around the environment. That was certainly my original design. However, once the game got into heavy beta testing there was a strong push to get eve
Read more

Just now who's crazy?

Image
Just a follow-up to yesterday's post about Dr. Steven Greer and his paranoid fantasies. One of Greer's most popular paranoid fantasies is that there is a secret cabal, comprising members of government, industry, and religious leaders, who suffer from eschatological delusions and are co-ordinating a massive world-wide effort to bring about the 'end-times'. Sound's pretty nuts doesn't it? I think so to. I don't buy into paranoid conspiracy theories because they are based, not on evidence but, rather, the *lack* of evidence. Dr. Greer's theories include the idea that 9-11 was actually executed by this secret cabal and that a missile, not an airplane, struck the Pentagon (I guess I should go tell the families of those poor folks who were on the plane that hit the Pentagon about that..) In fact, I find these kinds of bizarre paranoid conspiracy theories dangerous, destructive, and borderline treasonous. The Internet may be a powerful tool to spread truth
Read more