it's called jetlag

whitney tagged me 'cause i "need stuff to blog about"... which is true. so thanks whit. so the idea here is that you pick the 4th picture, in the 4th folder of your photo library. and this is it. nothing embarrasing or scandalous. but this does have a bit of an unexciting story to go along with it. and since i have nothing else to blog about, you get to read it.

but first, i have to make a comment. do you ever wonder whose pictures you end up in? i mean, take this guy talking on his cell phone. i'm sure he's looking at himself in the glass while he talks ('cause you know that's what you'd be doing...) and he's so wrapped up in his phone call and his reflection that he's not paying attention to what's going on on the other side of the glass. or is he? ...is he looking at me? is he thinking mid-sentence "why is this silly american (he would assume i'm american... but little does he know...) taking a picture of me? great! now i'm going to end up on some silly mormon girls blog a year and a half from now, and there's nothing i can do about it." ('cause of course he'd know i'm mormon...)

anyway... so this picture is taken from inside the eurostar travel information area which is inside london's waterloo station. burton and i had just arrived in london, and were hung-over with jetlag. holy cow, that first couple hours sucked. i was in a daze and even though we were in england, where people speak english... i couldn't understand anyone. partly because i was drunk on jetlag and partly because they talk a thousand miles a minute and say words like ... hmm ... i don't know, words i didn't understand. anyway, after an hour or so of trying to feel normal, eating lunch at a pub, surrounded by cigarette smoking brits (they must have seen those commercials in the 1950s... and never got the memo that smoking will kill you), and listening to burton ramble on about the book he was reading to try and keep me from falling off my chair, we decided to go somewhere a little less stressful. and so we found this visitors area. the area wasn't intended for people to fall over and die, but that's what we did. well, burton did. i slipped in and out, because i was too paranoid to die and miss the train.

anyway... that's the story. see, i told you it wasn't exciting.

oh ya, now i have to tag people. i hate this part. hmm... i'm going to cheat. if you read this, TAG! you're it.

mmmm... florence.

i know these stories are a little late... but now that i have watched our videos (finally!), i'm feeling compelled to share.

so... one of the last places burton and i went to on our europe trip was florence, italy. we were only there for a couple of days, but it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the trip. primarily because of stuff like you'll see in the pictures and video below.

the first night we were there, we decided to wander the streets. our first moment of overwhelming awe came as we turned a corner (i love how everything is like that in florence... you turn a corner and VOILA!) and saw the duomo for the first time. the colors of this cathedral were seriously some of the most amazing things i've ever seen in my life. pictures just don't do it justice.

then we bought gelato... real italian gelato. which was pretty much a life changing moment for me. i don't have pictures of this earth shattering occasion in my life, but it was an epiphany moment. and trust me... there's nothing like it here. anywhere. we've looked. not even in little italy. the good stuff that will change you forever requires a plane ticket.

and you can't go to florence and not fall in love with this bridge. this bridge!! amazing. just LOOK at it!! oh man, now i'm homesick for my holiday...

and then there was the moment we've captured on video (below). we came around this corner (see... another corner) and heard her... natalia lopushanskaya. what we heard before we turned the corner sounded like a concert. we thought for sure we were going to see something "grand" as we neared the courtyard. but then we saw her... in her jeans and a t-shirt. standing in a dark archway to take advantage of the acoustics. and i've never heard anything like it in my life. even now, watching the video, it gives me chills. i was stopped dead in my tracks. so... here's a little piece of italy to share with you.

oh to be in greece again...

so... it's been about 8 months since burton and i went to europe. and it's been about 2 years since we got our video camera. and it's been about 4 days since i received a firewire cable for my birthday so i could finally download video from our camera. and so this is it... my first real video post.

i chose this segment of video from our trip (sorry there's no ACTUAL pictures of greece) because i have to comment on how weird it is to see yourself and hear yourself in videos. we've all done it. we remember hearing ourselves on the answering machine for the first time and thinking "is that really me? is that really what i sound like?!" and this (above) is one of the first videos i've seen of myself as an adult just telling a story. so... that's me, huh? that's really the facial expressions and hand gesters i make? who knew my eyebrows were so animated? and note to self: don't pull out the video camera with no make-up on.

but seriously... aren't burton and i funny? haha. and it's said "Ah-Gee-Nah"... don't ask me what i was smoking...

p.s. i need a mac. "windows movie maker" is stupid.

(UPDATE: i decided to add pictures of the things mentioned in the video, since "windows movie maker" sucks and i can't figure out how to add them to the movie... if that's even an option with this stupid program)

ferry to aegina island.

place where we ate lunch at the bottom of the island.

out of gas. and lost.

burton in the mediterranean sea. (clothes on)

la police de paris

ok... so the first of the europe stories... at the request of Mrs. Dub who hasn't heard any. i guess i'll start with the paris police.

so, we flew in to london and then pretty much immediately took the chunnel to paris. we arrived in paris only to discover that all signs were in french... duh... but still sort of unnerving. i don't know what we were expecting really, but it was a little odd to suddenly realize we didn't know where we were going and couldn't read any of the signs to figure it out. lucky for me, i took 8 years of french in school (which was TOTALLY useless, since i remember nothing) and could decipher from what little i learned on milk cartons and cereal boxes in canada, that "billets de train" meant "train tickets". we spent a couple minutes in a long line to talk to someone who luckily spoke a tiny morsel of english and understood "idiot" sign language (WE were the idiots to clarify)... and we got our tickets for the paris metro. we took the metro to our stop, only to discover that we stopped a little early... but a good brisk walk in paris with all your luggage is good for you, right? so... we arrived at our hotel, really tired and really sweaty and praying that the person at the front desk would speak english. he did. we'll call him fred... so i don't have to refer to him as "the guy" throughout the story.

we handed fred our reservation. he took it, looked in a book... looked on a computer... made a couple phone calls (in french)... looked in another book... tried the computer again... and then said the word i had been dreading since we left utah: "problem". he said that they didn't have our reservation. we assured him that we had not only made a reservation (proven by the paper we handed him) but we had also paid for the reservation in full. he was very nice actually. said he would see what he could do. in the meantime, i used the hotels bathroom... as there are conveniently NO public bathrooms anywhere in paris. :) when i got back, burton told me that fred said he had a "no show" and had decided to give us a room with two twin beds for the night and would switch us in the morning. we agreed. we took our things to the room, and went out for the evening. on the way out, fred informed us that he had found our reservations and that they had mistakenly been sent by lastminute.com for the 26th rather than the 28th, but no worries... we were paid in full. no problem.

the next morning, we packed up our things and took them downstairs so they could be moved to our new room while we were out for the day. that day in paris is a whole nother story... i'll just sum it up by saying, we took the metro as far as we could, got off to get an extension, nothing was in english, no one there to help us, started raining, thunder and lightning... then a wall opened and a little man behind a window took our money and sent us on our way (it was such a weird 15 minutes)... got to chateau versailles, stood in the longest line i've seen in my life, got about 30 feet from the door and it started to sprinkle again, got 20 feet from the door and it started to rain, and 10 feet from the door the line completely stopped moving and we stood in the POURING rain and got drenched. POURING. DRENCHED. after what felt like a really long day, we arrived back at our hotel and we were met by the manager (we'll call him jerk-face, just for fun... cause he was).

so we approach jerk-face at the desk and ask him if we can get our new key. he tells us that there has been a mistake, that our reservations had actually been cancelled by lastminute.com. after a long day of standing in lines and avoiding the rain, this SUCKED! we were pleasant, but frustrated. until he said that the "no show" from the night before had arrived at the hotel 10 minutes after we took his room, and they spent the next few hours trying to locate him a hotel -- they found one, for 200 euro and sent him there in a taxi. which, if you were in the US, would not be your problem... but since we were in europe, where everything is your fault if you're american (or canadian, in my case), jerk-face expected us to pay for the "damages" we had caused. JERK FACE. so after a good 15 to 20 minutes of arguing that we would never have stayed in their hotel the night before if we had any idea that we would be paying 170 euro a night (i won't even bother explaining where that number came from) and that we were specifically assured that we had in fact paid for our room in full, we told him that we would be happy to pay the 66 euro we had anticipated paying for the room, but no more. jerk-face wouldn't budge, but he did so kindly offer us our room for the next two nights at 140 euro a night. so kind. so thoughtful. :P we decided to wait for fred to arrive (he was going to be there in 10 minutes) and then we would straighten it out with him, since he had informed us he found our reservation. fred was no help -- clearly he was in BIG trouble and protecting his own skin. anyway... long story already way too long... we decided to leave our things there and go find a new hotel. we walked up the street 3 blocks, found a best western for 85 euro a night, and said "we'll take it"... we walked back to our other hotel to get our luggage.

we walked in, and fred was sitting there. jerk-face was gone. we told him we had found a new hotel and we grabbed our luggage to leave. as we were leaving he said, "wait... you have to pay!" and we said, "you have our credit card. aren't you just going to charge it." and he said, "i can't... that's just for miscellaneous things like the phone." well, this created a whole new situation... burton said, "well, if you don't have our credit card, this is a completely different situation. there is no way i'm paying you 170 euro... i'm happy to pay you 66 euro though... but i won't pay the 170 euro." well... this caused fred to come completely unhinged. i don't loosely use the term "crazy frenchman"... but that he was. he started ranting and raving... swearing like crazy... "well, 'F' me then! 'F' me!!" (i didn't have the heart to tell him that not only was that completely uncalled for... but "oh i'm sorry... it's actually 'F' you"). and finally he says, "fine! fine! don't pay! see if i care! i'll just call the police and have them come find you! i have your ID, you can leave and they'll come find you. see if i care." so... not too excited about the idea of encountering the paris police on our second day in europe... we handed him our good ol' american express card. after which, he apologized for getting so upset, and we left.

(as a little plug for lastminute.com... although they completely screwed up by cancelling our hotel reservation in paris, they completely took care of all the extra expense. both the extra we paid at the first hotel and the extra it cost us to stay somewhere else. along with an apology for their mistake.)

so... that was our first two days in europe. needless to say, i was second guessing our decision to come at this point. but things got better... and yet... we were still in europe... so we dealt with many more scenarios almost just like that.

god bless (north) america

i seriously have no clue where to begin. do i first talk about how wonderful my trip to europe was? or do i start with the part where we almost had the paris police called on us? do i talk about how amazingly beautiful florence was? or do i first focus on the fact that double bed in europe means two twin beds in virtually every place we stayed? or do i post pictures of the amazing ancient ruins we saw? or do i mention the horrendous graffiti EVERYWHERE in europe? or do i talk about the weird toilets and the lack of shower curtains or how about "i'm sorry we don't have tap water" or what about "that will be 6 extra euro just to sit there"?

truly, it was great. odd and sort of ridiculously expensive. but so great. i kept a journal on the trip, which i won't bore you with, but i'll tell some pretty funny stories over the next couple of weeks from the trip. please don't think we didn't absolutely love the experience because i choose to focus on the ridiculous events on our trip... they just make for more entertaining stories. i will also probably post the running list of questions burton and i kept throughout our trip called "why are europeans so crazy?" :) no offense to my european friends (who aren't nearly crazy enough to have given me any kind of warning as to how totally wacko europeans were actually going to be).

for now, i'll just post links to my pics:

paris
athens
rome (part 1)
rome (part 2)
florence
pisa
london