Nearing the end!!!

I can't believe it's only a few weeks until we fly back to La Crosse! The crazy European adventure must end sometime, I just didn't think it would be when I still have so much work to do! Here, at any rate, are some pictures from our trip to Paris. We spent a long weekend for our anniversary (number 2!!!) sipping wine, eating crepes, and being snubbed--and it was fantastic!

NOTE: Again, some of the pictures are cut off, just click to view the whole image!

Here's my wonderful lady on our first stroll around Paris. And what should we find but a super-awesome arch hanging out in the middle of everything!


I hope this is pretentious enough; here I am enjoying my 9 euro coffee on Ile de la Cite. It was good coffee...

Notre Dame is rather impressive, no? And this is just the famous front, it's really long too, and has a great statue of Charlemagne in front.

The inside of the cathedral is very...Victor Hugo.

Our obligatory tourist shots in front of the Eiffel Tower. We had a perfect day for this visit!

I convinced Anna that we needed to go to the very top. I think I made a good call.


A million stairs leading up the hill to Sacre Coeur, which has a great view of Paris looking south.

Our final day was much more rainy, but the Arc de Triomphe is still pretty cool, and much much bigger than I imagined!

As you can probably tell, we had a great time, and between great wine, great food (mostly baguettes), and great sights, Paris is definitely on the list of places to go back to!

Good Stuff Abounds

Aloha to all! We're into countdown-mode these day, with a paltry 6 weeks remaining of our time here in London. We've had a few notable adventures since the last update, starting with a quick weekend jaunt to Canterbury.

While we did have a great time--and Canterbury is beautiful--I would have perhaps enjoyed the time more if I didn't have to take the GRE English Lit subject test while we were there. Good fun, you can imagine.


Canterbury is this awesome, mostly-medieval feeling village, complete with old gate towers, cobblestone corridors, and of course the cathedral dominating the skyline.

We were fortunate enough to visit the cathedral around sunset, and so reap the benefit of beautiful lighting. Notice the somewhat haggard look to my face, as though I recently took a 3-hour test that I didn't much enjoy...

This is a slanted house. If that's not curious enough for you, Charles Dickens mentioned it in one of his stories.

The cathedral is magnificent, and pops into view all over the place between the different houses and shops.

Canterbury is also a big college town, with 4 universities that were all coming into term just as we were there. Swarming with undergrads...gag...

A pretty enjoyable excursion, despite tests and all. We stayed at a little B&B in town for the weekend, and loved the quick train ride through the English countryside. Worth a visit if one is ever in the area!

Back in the game!

Hey folks, if you're seeing this post, then it means I was finally able to upload some photos again! I've been wanting to post a few from the last days of our visitors--especially since I owe Cindy a picture of Ian while he was here (completely healthy and sane, I promise).

We've got a big upcoming trip that will just about mark the end of our extra-London adventuring, but we're both really looking forward to our anniversary in Paris this year! Two years already, I can't believe it.

Anyway, here's some more photos of us with Callie, and the one picture of Ian in our flat that I was allowed to take:

NOTE: I don't know why the pictures are cut off, just click on each for the full view!

Here's the girls doing, you guessed it, the Abbey Road Strut. This isn't really the right zebra crossing, but you'd be amazed by how many crazy people are out there doing this every day...

Up in Regent's Park, Queen Mary really knew how to make a garden! We had a beautiful day for a stroll through the rose gardens, and...

...plenty of chances to fascinated by ducks. They really do all swim in a line. I wonder why that is?

Tower Bridge is still one of the coolest things in London.

Speaking of the coolest things in London: here's Ian! He came for a visit, and almost broke my thesis!

That's all for now, hopefully no more problems with pictures!

Problems with photo uploader...

Sorry for the delays in updating. I've been having trouble with Blogger's photo uploader--apparently it doesn't care for pictures over 3 MB very much. I'll keep at it, however, and soon will have even more new pictures to share!

We've had another visitor, all the way from gay Paris, over this past week. Ian has been in town visiting some of his friends, enjoying greasy breakfasts around town, and shattering Trevor's confidence in himself through his unwavering support for Trevor's dissertation topic. Sound like a contradiction? I thought so too, but I'm still quaking in fear of submitting this paper in January...

At any rate, look for pictures soon! I'm going to get in contact with Blogger/Google and try to see what's up!

Stonehenge and Bath

In the effort to stay current--and just simply because our trip yesterday was awesome--I'm posting pictures immediately of our adventure to Bath and Stonehenge with Callie B. To celebrate Callie's visit, we opted for a very special "Inner Circle" tour, where we actually got to go in among the stones at sunset. As you can imagine, it was a dramatic evening.

The Roman Baths--at Bath, go figure--are pretty spectacular as well. Bath is a beautiful little village that actually reminds me quite a bit of towns in Italy. In fact, the Pultney Bridge is a copy of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and it is the only remaining bridge in England that has buildings on it. The baths themselves are the only natural hot spring in all England, and were long believed to hold magical and healing powers. The Baths were dedicated to Sulis Minerva. Aquae Sulis was the Roman name for the town that would be rebuilt as Bath centuries later. Sul was a pre-Roman Celtic god worshiped at the spring. The current baths were built in the 18th century, and excavations of the Roman ruins didn't begin until much later in the 19th century. They didn't even know the Romans had been there for a long, long time.

Here we see a view of the Abbey from the top of the Great Bath. This Abbey, incidentally, is where Edgar, first king of all England was crowned by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury in 973 AD.

This is the view of the Pultney Bridge mentioned above.

The Romans were really smart, and made their own saunas by drawing air across a fire under a hollow floor, and up through hollow flue bricks in the walls. This is the floor structure in one such room.

Callie and Anna relaxing (since they didn't get their traditional spa experience) by the Great Bath.

Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a really stunning piece of human heritage. Built between 3,000-5,000 years ago, and in the three separate stages over several centuries by separate peoples or tribes, we still don't know exactly what it's for, but it bears a special relationship in its construction to the solar and lunar cycles. It probably allowed ancient Britons to predict eclipses as well. The larger stones can weigh around 45 tons, and some of the smaller, "blue" stones are a rare type of stone that occurs in only one mountain in south Wales--some 250 miles away from where Stonehenge sits in the county Wiltshire.

Our tour got a special view of a dramatic sunset, coupled with some rain, but as a consequence also a stunning rainbow over the English countryside. Also, we got to go inside the ring, and people don't normally get to do that! Enjoy:

This was a really, really special adventure. Not one easily forgotten.

The Return of Strong Internet Connections!

That's right folks, we've finally got our internet hookups squared away, after much consternation and many long phone calls to multiple concerned parties. The "Death Star" is fully armed and operational, as they say. "They" referring to evil galactic emperors, of course.

Let's see, the last post I was able to complete was about Sweden a few weeks ago, and even then I was catching up. This summer has been flying by, Anna and I have both been hard at work--for the most part. My time has been divided between the several libraries at which I do my research. I wish I could take pictures of the reading rooms at the British Library, because they are fantastic. Where else would I get to handle and read original copies of books printed in the 1880's? I'll see if I can come up with some contraband evidence without getting kicked out. Anna has been taking several courses in design, sewing pattern adaptation, color, and styling. She is developing her plans for an image consulting business, and working hard at it!

Here are some pictures!

Tim turned 60 this year, and the big surprise for his birthday was getting the whole family together. As you can tell, he wasn't exactly expecting us all from the four corners of the world. New York, San Francisco, London and La Crosse, all getting slightly closer together these days!


So we says to ourselves, "since we're about the business of surprisin' anyway, let's see how many we can fit into one trip." Mom's near-heart-attack-of-joy was certainly a good one!


Of course, the planets aligned and brought many friends home during the exact time period in which we were so secretly back in La Crosse...so naturally we went bowling! This is, after all, what We do.


In case you needed more proof that we are really awesome...we're totally famous...

So there's just a taste of our little jaunt back across the pond. It was far too short, and full of good times and great memories. There's just a taste for now, but, as I've been promising for some time, now that the internet Force is with us once more, there will be updates aplenty--especially considering our visits and upcoming events! More on that later, and cheers for now!

Gazing out my window

We've had an eventful month or so, managing to fit in a trip to Sweden, moving to a new apartment in Paddington, a clandestine trip back to La Crosse to surprise our families and friends, and soon I (Trev) begin the hectic process of applying to Ph.D programs back in the US. Whew, at least it's nice to have a nice view to sit back on a Sunday evening and enjoy. Catching up on pictures a bit, here's a few from our Swedish excursion to visit some of Anna's more extended family:

Above: Trevor does something unintelligent. He is jumping several long meters into jellyfish infested, nearly arctic waters. It was awesome.

This is us in Grundsund, the beautiful little fishing village where Anna's cousin's grandmother lives, and where her aunt and uncle spent a good deal of time when their kids were growing up. Actually, this picture is more like outside Grundsund, in the awesome hills along the coastline.

And this is Grundsund itself, built right up along the water, and wonderfully maintained!

This is actually where we were first, but the pictures got out of order. This is outside of Gothenburg, with Erik Durtsche, Anna's cousin, and his aunt Ilva's family. The little dude is Gustav, and the one only slightly in the picture is Johan. Taking the picture is Micael. He's cool too.

Sorry this has been so slow in coming out. Once we returned to London and moved into our new flat, we began a continuing struggle with the internet people, and still have no reliable connection. I will be updating more as soon as we are able! Stay tuned!