Geneva photos

Time to continue with the trip. Today's photos come from our Geneva stop.




This fountain is huge. It shoots 400 feet into the air. For a sense of scale, look at the buildings behind it!






Yes, I shot a photo of a fire hydrant. I thought it looked interesting--the shape is unusual.




Chocolate, anyone? Yes, we went in. In fact, we brought back five pounds of chocolate with us! All different kinds! We even shared some, but we ate way too much of it ourselves (and enjoyed every fattening bite)! :)


I don't know what these soldierboys were guarding, but that didn't matter. The guy on the left had beautiful eyes. The guy on the right--well, check out the next photo.


Oh, baby! Come here and let me play with your gun! (And don't you love soldiers who can wear earrings on duty?)


Marc and his mom after some shopping.


This was interesting. It's a sort of car repair shop on wheels. To some degree, it's like AAA, but it appeared that this service went well beyond anything the local AAA tow truck can offer when you break down.


Here we see the mobile mechanic working on the customer's car.

I actually have a few more Geneva photos, but they can wait for another day. In the meantime, I hope you liked these.

Happy for friends but sad, too

A break from trip photos to note a sad evening. Actually, I should feel happy, because two dear friends of ours are heading off on a new, exciting part of their lives. I should feel happy, but I guess I'm too selfish. These are dear friends we love, and they're moving far away. Not to the other side of the planet, just to our neighbor to the north, Canada.

It's far enough that we can't just grab dinner with them. These are people we cherish in our lives.

Speaking of just grabbing dinner with them, we had a lovely dinner in Manhattan to say farewell. Certainly, we'll see a lot of them in the future, just not as much as we'd see with them nearby.

Life must go on, and I must snap out of this. I know great new opportunities await them in their new home, but I'm going to miss them. So, Matt and John, I'll be happy for you (and, of course, always want the best for you), but just give me a little time to mope first. You're too dear to us for this to be easy!

Swiss tease

I'll save the Geneva photos for the next post. In the meantime, we're on the train and on our way to Switzerland...


Even the paper napkins are fancy! (Okay, I liked to look of the sunlight and the bubbles in the cup, too.)


Mother and son enjoying the ride.


Air conditioning notice on the door to our compartment (notice that it's in four languages--so exotic!) :)


A shot from the window of the train






The European trains tend to be much nicer than ours, but they're not all lovely and new (some are, some aren't).


This was the only sign I saw that we'd reached the border--the "Frontier Police."

Back to the trip photos

Okay, so when we last left our heroes, we were on Lake Como. So let's pick up where we left off and make landfall at Bellagio (not the one in Vegas!)...


Looking up a main shopping street. I'm not sure if "street" is even the right word. Path, perhaps? Whatever you call it, it's steep and has many stone steps that take you past lovely little shops.


Looking along the waterfront.


Marc shops for ties in Bellagio. Lots of nice silk there!

After Bellagio, we got back onto the ferry and went to Tremezzo, so we could visit Villa Carlotta. Villa Carlotta is a palatial property built into a hillside (everything's hilly there!) with stunning gardens. Not everything was in bloom, or at its peak, when we visited, but I guess you'd have to stay there all season to see everything bloom. These photos will give you some idea of what we saw there...










See the bee? If I had an audio recording, you'd hear that he actually buzzes in Italian!






I would have loved seeing these azaleas in full bloom. These bushes are HUGE, and they must have been quite a sight at their peak!






I think this must have been a guard dog. As you can see, he's very fierce looking!




Marc shows some shots to his mom (he got some good ones!).

Rugby!

I'll get back to trip photos shortly. Before I do that, however, I think we need some rugby photos. I took these a week and a half ago at the Bingham Cup Rugby Tournament. Enjoy!










Notice that these boys were running so hard that you can see pieces of dirt thrown up next to their heads?! Such studs!


Rugby dogs at play


Did I mention that we brought Mandy for part of one day?


Did I mention that Mandy was an instant hit? She got plenty of attention. Here, someone she already loves (Byrne) gives her some attention.




Mandy was being stubborn about drinking her water. She was none the worse for wear but through no fault of her own! We had to make sure to get her a lot of shade after a while. Dopey dog.











If you want to look at the full set of photos, go here.

Should you want full-size, high-resolution files of any of the photos, just let me know. The ones online are size-limited.

Lotsa stuff

I still have plenty more trip photos.

Also, last weekend was the Bingham Cup rugby tournament, and I have photos to share from that.

This weekend, we hosted a bunch of folks for a wonderful afternoon party. No photos from that, but we had fun!

So there's plenty to blog about, but I just haven't found the time for it. Bear with me, and I can at least offer more photos soon. :)