For anyone who is still reading, we have arrived safely in LA. Brendan's UCLA commitments have already started. He is excited to be going back to school and will be TEACHING an undergrad acting class in Fall Quarter.

Ashley is busy getting new piano and voice students. Check out her website, ashleymcginnis.com. She's teaching in-home lessons in West LA. She's also meeting with a few after school programs about possible enrichment classes.

Hit us up if you're in LA. Will write again next time we go on a lavish, irresponsible vacation.

Paris and Wrapping Up

Old with the new (or newer, with graffiti on it)

Saving the best for last may not have been our best idea. After a month of traveling the last thing you want to do is drag yourself out of bed early and go to another monument or museum. Compacting that was the fact we were in Paris on and around Bastille Day, in arguably the height of tourist season. I definitely felt we'd accomplished more in other places on the trip (cough cough Rome), but maybe sitting around in parks in Paris is what you're supposed to do there anyway.

We first lounged around in one of the larger and more famous cemeteries in Paris, which happened to be a stone's throw from where we were staying (with yet another in a series of fantastic hosts).

The entire place looked like this, and it was huge

 

Occasionally you'd run across famous people, but only if you looked them up on a map and actively sought them out, because the graveyard seemed deliberately designed to confuse

We spent an entire day at the Louvre, which was easy considering its size. Admission to the Louvre is dirt cheap if you take in to account how much stuff they have there.

Loo-vruh

Lookin good

Can't tell us apart

Some girl left her bag on a bench in the museum and they shut down the whole wing. Culture AND entertainment

We went to as many places as we could muster the willpower in Paris, but the crowds bested us at a couple locations, most notably Musee d'Orsay and the catacombs.

Crowds bested us here too

People shoving each other for space in a church

We also didn't go to the top of this, or the Eiffel Tower 

because we were so done with crowds

Not that the sheer volume of people we had to deal with was anyone's fault other than our own. The dates we ended up choosing to be in Paris were on Bastille Day, on a weekend, in the height of tourist season. Oops.

Not going to the catacombs had an upside though, it means we'll be allowed to return to the Carlsbad Caverns before ten years have past (refer back a few blog posts if you need a refresher, it has to do with bats)

We ended up spending Bastille Day at the Versailles Chateau.

I loved the idea of stumbling around Versailles sweaty and confused on Bastille Day

Wanted to wash off my peasant dirt in the lake

The crowds weren't unbelievable at Versailles

Also of note in Paris, in all of the tourist destinations, were the straight soldiers on patrol with automatic rifles. Nothing makes you feel safe like a group of dudes glaring at you as they walk slowly by carrying guns you've only seen in video games and action movies.

Despite being in Paris with less than favorable conditions, it didn't stop us from enjoying moments like these:

Doesn't get much more French than this without delving into the realm of political incorrectness

Ashley and I parted ways with Conor and took the Chunnel back to London to catch our flight out of Heathrow yesterday. Today we're back in New Jersey and using jet lag as an excuse to do absolutely nothing (and loving it).

Only a few short weeks until we're back in Los Angeles, where the work begins. Taking that into account, I'm going to unceremoniously end this portion of the blog, and promise more in a few weeks once we're back on the road driving across the country AGAIN.

Brendan

Italy

Rome

We flew into Rome and got on the train. Our host was waiting for us immediately when we stepped off in the south of Rome. We found him on the internet, against our better judgment about people you meet off the internet who invite you into their homes, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. Couldn’t have asked for a better couple of hosts than Marcello and his girlfriend Marni. We didn’t get to meet his roommate Fabio, but if he was anything like how we imagined him, he and our host would have been cut from the same block of marble, so to speak.

Ciaoo

Our first stop in Rome was the forum, which I harkened to an ancient Roman Disneyland.

Complete with rainbow, except unlike the one at Disneyland this one’s real

I guess the ruins are real too

Of note in the forum was Julius Caesar’s funeral pyre. People left flowers.

You wouldn’t think people would still feel the need to leave those

Also of note in the forum was all of the modern art installations they filled it with.

This is a fake statue of Venus in the real Temple of Venus. Also pictured here is a massive pile of old clothes because art.

The forum gave us a great view of our next destination.

Are you not entertained?! We heard a kid shouting this in there. Multiple times. Cringey.

Our multitude of stops were all museums and churches.

The first Jesuit church

Rafael’s Tomb

St Bartholomew the Apostle’s tomb

Swiss guards in the Vatican

Crowds in the Vatican. Behind the camera I’m scowling

St. Peter’s. The wonder of the basilica makes you want to say things they wouldn’t 

appreciate you saying there.

We also saw the Sistine Chapel. Rather, we were slowly pushed through the Sistine Chapel by the mob while guards stood at the periphery and shushed everyone gleefully.

The Capitoline Museums were cool too. Up on a hill, I think I can definitively say this museum ended the profound sense of wonder I felt each time I saw Roman ruins. Too much birthday, as they say.

Constantine’s massive hand is #1!

Brendan and Constantine. Dead ringer.

And this was here!

And these were in the next room! It’s a collection of porcelain monkeys playing in an orchestra!

After becoming thoroughly museumed-out, we spent our last day in Rome here.

Or I should say, we spent our last day outside of Rome

Florence 

We caught our train to Florence, where we found there was no INTERNET.

Not that there was no internet in Florence. Really, Ashley booked us an apartment without wifi.

Not hard to make the best of it though

Florence was fun, though I took surprisingly few pictures. They didn’t let me take photos in most places we went. We saw this at the Uffuzi Gallery (no pictures)

Not my photo. They wouldn't let me take one

We went to a few churches, including the Medici’s massive church (no pictures), saw the Medici’s catacombs (no pictures), and saw a lot of architecture by Michelangelo (no pictures!)

We unfortunately passed on the Statue of David due to a three hour long line to enter, we had a train to catch:

Verona

To Verona!

Verona is beautiful and wonderful and great. It’s possible we just got a fantastic first impression though. Our first night there we caught Aida at the Arena Theater.

The Arena is an ancient Roman archaeological site that they turned into an 

opera house where they do really fantastic productions

No flash photography, but that didn't deter like 60% of 

the audience during the entirety of the evening.

For our full day in Verona we hit everything walkable. I wasn’t aware Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona, and loosely (loosely) based on real families.

Which is probably how they justified having a museum called “Juliet’s House”. 

With a balcony constantly filled with people.

I guess the statue of Juliet in the courtyard is semi famous for whatever reason. The thing about it that puzzled me most was why everyone was rubbing the statue’s chest. Apparently its good luck.

Seriously. Here’s a couple young teens rubbing the chest of a statue of another young teen. Which makes my smile less than appropriate in retrospect.

Verona actually has two Roman amphitheaters turned modern venues.

This one is smaller and they’re doing Much Ado About Nothing.

I think the budget for the arts went entirely to the other venue. This is how my sets will 

probably look in the future. (Or my apartment)

We also saw the old Veronese fortifications along the city wall and went into a hedge maze in the cities gardens. I wish we’d scheduled more time there.

Ciaooo

Now we’re off on the road to Paris. Our final destination.

Brendan really misses hamburgers and his dog.

Istanbul

Istanbul was crazy. Both a too-much-to-do-too-little-time crazy, and a super-dense-very-foreign-feeling-city crazy. Fortunately, it wasn't crazy in a get-tear-gassed-and-get-beaten-by-the-police way, which was what we were expecting. It helps also that geographically, Istanbul is cut into three parts by a couple of massive waterways, so even if there had been protests, they were practically on another continent.

Like this waterway separating Asia (right) from Europe (opposite of right)

We met up with Conor at our hotel and then set out touristing. We went straight for the Hagia Sophia. I thought it was special that when the Turks invaded Istanbul (Constantinople) in the 1400's they turned the massive church into a mosque. That is I thought it was special until I learned they did that to every single church in the city. The Hagia Sophia is probably the oldest place we'd been so far. 

Looking up

Looking down

And to the side. I think I saw this in my history textbook.

Here's one of the Sultan's tombs. They're above ground and very pretty. You can see all the small coffins from many many dead heirs.

How did one Sultan come to have as many children as in the above photo you wonder? 

Next stop was the Harem! Turns out it's a museum. :(

Harem balcony

The Harem was attached to Topkapi Palace, home of Istanbuls sultans starting in the 15th century (until their dissolution in the early 20th century). There were no pictures allowed in the Palace's treasuries there but: wow. If I've learned anything on this trip, it's that any time you're somewhere there is a Treasury Tour, take it. You see countless priceless things, and generally a great many things that are just below priceless (ie very very expensive) You also tend to see fake things on treasury tours, like King David's Sword or Moses' staff. I hope those were fake at least, because if they were real I definitely didn't spend enough time standing impressed by them. 

We went right across the way from the Hagia Sophia and the Palace to the Blue Mosque, the city's largest active mosque.

They're really all directly across from each other

They give you stuff to cover up with once you're inside if you're dressed too ____

After, we went to the Grand Bazaar (which totally lived up to its name) and a few museums. Lots of crazy stuff in the museums. More parts of the Gates at Ishtar than I care to count and lots and lots of Mesopotamian and Roman stuff.

Grand Bazaar. It's huge maze just like this

I wish they'd translated it. Maybe it's bad.

 

Gotta get to the Louvre

Also the Cistern is really really cool. 

There are many many fish in that water

Roman aqueduct dumps out down there, into this massive repository of water that you definitely don't want to drink from nowadays. Absolutely gorgeous.

We also went to the Mosaic Museum, which wasn't what I expected. I anticipated mosaics in frames or something. Turned out to be the floor and foundation of the Byzantine Emperor's palace from the 6th century in it's original spot (found under a market). The floor was one massive mosaic.

It goes on for awhile in both directions

We found lots of stray animals in the city. Sometimes I felt like we were in a big petting zoo where you don't want to pet the animals cause you might catch something (but lots of people are doing it anyway).

Everyone was taking pictures of this cat for some reason

So Istanbul was great. We've been in Rome for a couple days now and between the two cities, I can't even process wonder anymore. We've seen too many mind boggling things and I'm having a complete culture overload. I finding trouble having sympathy for myself.

Poor Brendan