In love with Scotland!

We're extremely excited to have Jacob's brother Joel and his wife Emily here for a visit. Last Friday morning we drove to Scotland and had a wonderful weekend there. We can't wait to get back to that beautiful country, and we're already talking about what we want to do next time we're there! (We're pictured above with a beautiful Scottish Highland vista in the background.)

We started in Glasgow Friday night where we visited the Kelvingrove Museum (in the photo above). I had always wanted to see the Salvador Dali painting "Christ of St. John of the Cross," and it didn't disappoint. We were also amazed to see a Monet, several Renoirs, a Degas, and many other works by renowned artists. We then ate an incredible meal at a local pub.

Saturday we spent the day in Edinburgh, and I can definitely speak for all 4 of us that we absolutely loved Edinburgh! We visited The Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is the Queen's official residence in Scotland. We were impressed by its beauty and magnificence, and we also enjoyed the historical stories of past royal figures.

Another highlight of Edinburgh was a place called Chocolate Soup (recommended by Emily when she visited Edinburgh in high school). We ordered some shortbread and scones, which we dipped in our "chocolate shots." If only I could convey how delicious that chocolate was! I think this photo of Jacob licking every last drop from the cup reflects the sentiment. The scones and shortbread were tasty too, but we could have dipped anything in that chocolate and it would have been amazing.

Sunday we drove to Loch Ness. The drive was breathtaking! We enjoyed our visit to Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. We've reviewed all the photos we took there, and we never spotted Nessie in the water. It's quite a large lake, so she was probably in other regions...

On our way home Monday we stopped in York. We visited the York Minster, which is both a minster and a cathedral. We also enjoyed walking along the city walls. York has more miles of intact city walls than anywhere else in England. Some sections of the wall are as old as Roman times. We also enjoyed a great pub meal in York, complete with Yorkshire pudding! We hope you enjoy the photos!

(in Edinburgh)

(The ruins of Holyrood Chapel, adjacent to the Palace of Holyrood House. The plan was to pose as if we were entombed there--with our eyes closed. That's why my eyes are closed. Ask Jacob why his are open!)

(Jacob drinking from Loch Ness. We had plenty of water; he just wanted to drink from Loch Ness.)

(Part of the massive York Minster)

(An adorable street in York.)

(A half-devoured giant Yorkshire Pudding. Yum!)

(Joel & Emily at Urquhart Castle)

We do everyday stuff too

This past weekend we took a break from the nonstop travel to catch up on a few things closer to home. We cleaned the house, partially in preparation for our guests next week and partially because we've been traveling too much to pay adequate attention to the house. Jacob's brother Joel and his wife Emily arrive Thursday, and we're really excited about their visit!

We also baked pies to take to our neighbors. We've intended to introduce ourselves since we moved in, and we're glad we finally got around to it. Our neighbors seem really nice, and we think it will be helpful to be on friendly terms with them. One set of neighbors very thoughtfully visited the local cheese shop and brought us some cheese the very next day because they remembered I said I liked cheese.

One more note about pies: We made the below pie for a get-together with friends, and it reminded me of something my Dad says. A pie that doesn't spill into the oven just won't taste right. This one was (obviously) delicious!

Paris

Our weekend was an absolutely unbelievable adventure! We started at 5 a.m. Friday, driving to the port in Dover where we put our car on a ferry to Calais, France! We were incredibly excited as we drove the car off the boat and into France!! We saw and did SO MUCH over the weekend, it will be impossible to cover it all in the blog. We'll cover what we can, in no particular order.

(Also, we've recently received requests for more photos with ourselves in them; so instead of the postcard-perfect photo of the Arc de Triomphe, for example, you get ME in front of it. Disappointing, I know.)

There's probably no better place to start than with food. You can see where Jacob's priorities are; it's all about the baguettes! The above photo is our first picnic at the Parc du Champ de Mars at the Eiffel Tower . Notice the cheese in addition to the baguettes. (For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge cheese fan.) The video below is our Saturday dinner picnic; we purchased the food at a street market we stumbled upon between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides. We took the video just to show how idyllic the setting was: absolutely perfect!

We were both excited to visit the Louvre, and it didn't disappoint! The architecture of the museum is amazing, not to mention the art and artifacts. One of my favorite items was the Venus de Milo (photo below).

Some of you may wonder whether we saw the Mona Lisa. We did, but we were disappointed we couldn't take a closer look. The museum keeps guests at a distance, which seemed unnecessary because she's behind a thick glass panel.

We walked up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. And due to an unfortunate footwear choice on my part, we even made a purchase on the Champs Elysees. The Arc de Triomphe is spectacular!
This is the Sacre Coeur Basilica at the top of Montmartre Hill. (We could actually see the Basilica from our hotel room.) I love the clouds in this photo, and the Basilica is beautiful. It was almost worth the hike to the top of the hill.

Here's the Notre Dame Cathedral. We were amazed at how white and clean the facade is after 800+ years!

We also visited the Pantheon where such people as Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola, and Marie & Pierre Curie are entombed; and we saw the sister statue of Liberty Enlightening the World; and many other gardens and statues and monuments and buildings and bridges and fountains, etc. We wish we could share all the stories and photos of our amazing trip!

Overall we had an excellent time in Paris this weekend! I knew enough French to survive and was proud of my efforts in that area, and Jacob's flawless sense of direction and working knowledge of subway systems were valuable beyond estimation. Paris is an exciting, wonderful city to visit!

I can't resist just a few more photos...

(From the street market where we purchased that picnic--it ALL looks amazing, doesn't it?)

(Another shot from inside the Louvre.)
(The Champs Elysees from the Place de la Concorde)

Springtime, Part II

Last week we blogged about spring in Ipswich, so this week we'll focus on springtime closer to home. We've had beautiful weather this week, which is wonderful. But one effect of nice weather is an increase in spiders. A massive spider made its way into our house--the living room, to be exact--last week, and it was frightening. I didn't find any suitable anti-spider spray on base, so I asked Nigel, our gardener (responsible for the beautiful tulips in our garden, pictured above), to recommend a spider solution, and his answer shocked me. He said they don't actually spray for spiders in England. If a spider enters the house, they simply pick it up and throw it outside. Oh, the culture shock! We didn't realize we'd have to exercise English Patience by welcoming spiders into our home!
Many fields in our part of the country have recently turned into "rolling fields of mustard," as Jacob so poetically phrased it, and we were interested to find out the purpose of the flowers: they're rapeseed (brassica napus). In addition to being absolutely breathtaking in its flower form, rapeseed is a very useful substance. It has 2 interesting uses (in addition to the less interesting uses): First, it's used as a biofuel. Rapeseed is used more than any other plant as the oil base of biodiesel in Europe. The second interesting use is as a cooking oil. Rapeseed oil is actually more healthy than the ever-popular olive oil, with less saturated fat and far more Omega 3 and Omega 6 than olive oil, and rapeseed oil also contains Vitamin E. The flowers are also interesting in that they don't exhaust the resources of the fields they're planted in; later this year the same fields will yield something else, like sugarbeets. The countryside is literally flooded with these flowers, and we were interested to find out why!

In closing, here is a photo of springtime in Cambridge this past Friday. We love living so close to Cambridge that we can drive there after Jacob gets home from work and get home before it's dark!

Here's a teaser: next weekend we're going to Paris! Maybe the next post will be "Springtime in Paris," je ne sais pas. (: