Little Black Guidebook

The outside of Rouen’s Notre-Dame Cathedral is being renovated, like seemingly all historic sights in Europe at least part of them are under tarps or scaffolding. WWII took its toll on this cathedral and its still recovering.

St. Simon looks like he’s being kept company by a pigeon while he’s waiting for his fellow saint to be restored.

The cathedral isn’t the only building in Rouen to have been damaged by WWII. The the Palais de Justice, which was once the seat of the Parliament of Normandy has been restored to an amazing degree.

Tim Ferriss recently highlighted Chris Guillibeau’s article on How to Buy Round the World Tickets that Kick Ass. I like forward to hopefully buying our first RTW tickets soon for next October. This is all tentative at this point, but I actually look forward to spending hours finessing an itinerary. Especially after trolling through some of Emily’s RTW roundup posts. I actually had the chance to meet Emily on our trip to Germany (yeah, yeah, I know, posts forthcoming) and talk to her about her RTW adventure. She recommends it highly and it sounds like the perfect thing to do before life gets in the way. I hope that doesn’t happen, but why risk it?

Thank goodness we were in Business Class or we would have been wiped when we got to Paris. It was over 30 hrs of travel to get there from Fairbanks. Of course the extra hour at the Hertz counter didn’t help, but when we got up to the counter they upgraded us to an automatic for free. I guess they saw our American driver’s licenses and were worried about their clutch. So much for getting to practice my new driving skills.

So with just a little bit of energy left we detoured on our way to Bayeux from Paris and stopped in Rouen. Joan of Arc was burned here in 1431. We grabbed some fresh baguette sandwiches and went in search for the very place. We ended up sitting on this nice stone wall for lunch. It was only after lunch that we realized that it was the ruins of an ancient Church and actually was the spot where Joan of Arc was burned. We saw the sign after finishing lunch.

After lunch it was time to find the Cathedral. I love looking at Churches everywhere I go, they are one of the most cared for and preserved buildings in most places. In this case we were looking for the Cathédrale Notre-Dame a landmark of art history. Hubby was into art history in high school and was quick to point out that I was looking essentially at exactly what Claude Monet saw as he painted the Church in his time. Inside we found a number of modern reinterpretations of Monet’s originals, impressions of an impressionist.

Gizmodo’s take on the Geek’s Vacation Checklist has a few of our standby tips on it. Tripit for US based or business travel with lots of reservations, dropbox for managing files on the go, and packing light of course.

We just got a letter in the mail and $20 charge on our credit card from Avis. Apparently we made a traffic violation while in Germany and they are charging us to let us know that. They didn’t even provide the contact number for the German authorities to call to resolve the issue! Not impressed with the Avis customer service here. All I have is a letter with a postal address of the German Bayern authorities and no way to contact them except by sending them a letter. Avis you get an “F” for customer service and assistance.

I do find it interesting that we got a ticket at 8:39 pm on August 11th, at which time we were eating pizza in an Italian Restaurant in Austria and not even in Germany at all! Oh well, we’ll see how it pans out.

This makes me want to keep loose leaf tea at my desk. $20.00 from Spartan in Austin.

How I wish it was still warm enough for tea on the porch.

Print from Etsy teconlene

Théière Japonaise en fonte Chushin Kobo * Le Palais des Thés via http://www.helloneest.com/

I’m off for a weekend Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love and home of my Grandparents. The 23 hrs of flying that it will take me to get there is the result of Alaska Airlines route map and partner airlines selections, but should be a great opportunity for me to finish my book.

No, I’m not a budding author. You can tell travel is more of a passion that writing by how often I update this blog. Instead of leaving our photos from Europe languishing inside the computer or buying a digital picture frame that I’ll never use I’m using iPhoto to make a photo book. I know its more stuff in the house, but it is really our only souvenir of the entire trip, and that’s not that bad. Plus when people ask to see photos of our trip we can take down a nice hardcover book for them to leaf through instead of whipping out a computer screen.