Paris

I’m in Paris for a few days to teach an MBA class.  I have spent a lot of time walking around and exploring and came across a cool place called La Promenade plantée.  It is a sort of park built on top of the old viaduct system and is almost 3 miles long.  All along the walk, there are gardens, flowers, benches, etc., but it’s only about 50 feet wide the whole way.  The cool thing is that you are just 15 feet or so above all the busy streets below.  There are lots of little nooks where you can look out over the streets and buildings below.  There are some cool views and it gives you some interesting perspectives on the city.  Below are a few pictures and a few more here.

Roland Garros

Spent the day in Paris at the French Open. We saw Nadal and Sharapova in the big stadium and Venus/Serena and some lesser known players on the small courts. Click here for photos.

Easter Break in France

First we spent a couple of days in Burgundy (Beaune, Dijon). Beautiful vineyards and cool little towns. Then on to Antibes (on the coast). We had a nice little apartment next to the market and not far from the beach. We went over to Cannes for lunch (Lottie had to buy his own train ticket). Very relaxing. Then stops in Beaux-en-Provence and Lyon on the way home. All in all a really nice trip. Click here to see more photos.

Oxford, England

I spent a day in Oxford on my way to speak at a conference in Brighton. Just me and my camera (and a few pints along the way). It’s a really cool city. Click here for more photos.

Berlin

Maddie climbing the Berlin Wall

We went to Berlin for a few days to visit the Christmas markets and to check out what was left of the Berlin Wall. What a great time!

The markets were great and we ate lots of sausages, potatoes, and various other fried things (and bought a quite a few trinkets). There was also a sledding hill which was a blast.

We checked out the East Side Galleries where there is about a one mile section of the wall still standing. Sections of the wall were assigned to various artists to paint and it was turned into a memorial (but not after a lot of graffiti covered up the original paintings). It makes for a pretty cool scene and the picture here shows Maddie climbing the wall there. Click here to see more pictures of the city.

Thanksgiving in the Carribean

We spent Thanksgiving on a Carribean cruise on a quasi family reunion. There were 14 of us in all and we had a great time. There were lots of things to do on the boat and of course food everywhere we looked. We stopped at Aruba, Curacao, St. Maartens, and St. Thomas. On one of our beach days an iguana (shown here) visited/terrorized us for about an hour. Another day, Maddie went swimming with dolphins (click here for photos).

Every day around 6pm we met up at a pub called the Duck and Dog for a drink or two before dinner. We corrupted many of the family members by teaching them to play roulette and had a wonderful and relaxing time. Click here to see more photos.

Stonehenge

We made a side trip from Bath to see Stonehenge. It was a suitably rainy, windy, grey day, but I did not feel any sense of magic or mystery like I thought I might. Once I started thinking about how the hell they got the stones here, the engineering involved with erecting them and the cool stuff about how they were positioned to line up with solstice sunrises and sunsets, it was pretty cool. Click here for some more photos. It probably would have been more fun if there were people dressed up in fairy costumes and stuff, but it was still a nice little side trip.

Bath, England

We spent a few days in Bath and had a great time. It is a beautiful little city on the river Avon (shown in the photo here). We visited the Roman baths and saw original pipes and stonework from over 2000 years ago. We also had tea at the Pump Room, wandered around to see the sites and enjoyed speaking and shopping in English. We also made a side trip to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and London to see Wicked.  Click here for photos

We stayed at a bed and breakfast called Badminton Villa. Steve and Heather were awesome hosts and every morning they fed us a fantastic breakfast and then gave us great tips for planning the day ahead. Their dog Tilly was fun too (she likes to climb trees).

Last Minute Trip to Paris

At the last minute, I decided to go to Paris for the day to see Chad, ID and my aunt Geri. They were celebrating my aunt’s birthday and staying in a nice apartment in the Marais neighborhood. We sent to the Eiffel tower, had lunch in a street cafe, sat by the fountains at the Centre Pompidou, came back to the apartment for some wine and cheese and then had a great dinner at a restaurant called Chez Janou. The night ended with a wine-fueled call to Geri’s son Scott (Chad’s brother and my cousin). Click here to see pictures of the trip and a video of the phone call.

Mackinaw Island

The Windblown Look

Maddie and I met up with my high school friend Matt and his daughter Maggie and spent the day on Mackinaw Island. We took the ferry to the island in very thick fog that made the trip a little eerie. The fog didn’t stop the wind though (see photo insert).

There are no motor vehicles allowed on the island, so we took a horse drawn carriage for a tour. We had front row seats which seemed like a great idea until we realized that the horses are powered by “gas engines”.  Sarge, our trusty steed, had an explosion about every ten minutes and left some bigger souvenirs on the road too.

Gasping for air, we switched to tandem bikes and rode around the coast of the island.  We stopped to explore a cave, hike next to a stream, wade along the beach and make a stone sculpture.  And of course we had to get some fudge.

The island is famous for fudge and has 17 fudge shops to prove it.  We stopped once for ourselves and the fudge-makers gave us a free sample of the hot, gooey loaf that they were working on.  They dumped it right into our hands, but we didn’t mind.  Later, we were getting some more fudge to bring back as gifts and started chatting with the fudge-makers.  They told us that they can make about 1000 pounds of fudge on a busy day while flipping the hot fudge up off the marble to make cool designs in the air.  Before we left, they gave us a box of all the “crusts” that they can’t sell (about 3 pounds of fudge).  We munched on fudge the whole ferry ride back and then went to the swimming pool to work some of it off.

The girls (and boys) had a great time and we hope to make it an annual tradition.  Click here for more photos from the island.