Europe - - Notre Dame

One of my favorite places in Paris is the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Its so big and beautiful and when I walk inside I'm just in awe. 

The construction of this cathedral was started in 1163 and finished in 1345.

I think what I love most about the inside is the stained glass windows. Last quarter I took a class in Stain Glass Design and we created our own mini stained glass windows. Just doing the miniature window was hard, I can't even imagine creating or installing the stained glass windows in this cathedral. They are massive and very detailed. 

 I really like this picture because the sun shining through the window is casting the colors on the wall :)

 

 

 

Inside you can pay to light a candle. I think they add to the peacefulness. 

This is the second time I've been to the Notre Dame Cathedral, but this time I learned something new! 

There is a little stone in front of the cathedral called point zero. In Paris when you ask someone how far away something is they use this point as the starting place So instead of measuring from where you are, they measure the distance from this point. Legend has it, if you jump on the stone it will bring you good luck and you will return to Paris one day.

So we all took our turn jumping :)

Europe - - British Museum

During our free time we decided to explore the British Museum and I'm so glad we did because it was so cool and free! 

The first thing we saw was the Rosetta Stone. Which provided the key to understanding Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

The Egyptian department was really awesome. 

Meet Cleopatra. 

It's not the greatest picture because she is hidden behind glass, but its still pretty cool to think that Cleopatra is in that mummy.

 Really old Mosaics

 Really old Bones

Hannah and I tired from walking around

This is probably one of my most favorite museums. I hope one day I have a chance to go back there and see everything else. People could spend days in this museum and not see everything. We were only there for a couple hours!

Europe - - The London Eye

We rode the London Eye Monday Night. The London Eye is the largest Ferris Wheel in the world. 

It is so pretty at night. The pictures don't do it justice. 

 Here is a picture of the group of us that rode the London Eye. (The lighting/reflection is kinda bad)

• The London Eye welcomes an average of 3.5 million customers every year. You would need 6,680 fully booked British Airways Boeing 747-400 jumbo jets to move that number of fliers! 
• The London Eye can carry 800 passengers per revolution - equivalent to 11 London red doubled-decker buses  
• Each rotation takes about 30 minutes, meaning a capsule travels at a stately 26cm per second, or 0.9km (0.6 miles) per hour - twice as fast as a tortoise sprinting; allowing passengers to step on and off without the wheel having to stop 
• The height of the London Eye is 135m (equivalent to 64 red telephone boxes piled on top of each other) making it the fourth tallest structure in London
• The spindle holds the wheel structure and the hub rotates it around the spindle. At 23 metres tall, the spindle is around the size of a church spire and, together with the hub, weighs in at 330 tonnes: over 20 times heavier than Big Ben 

I got all these facts from http://www.londoneye.com/, in case you want to learn more information about it.

Left -- "Black & White Wednesday"

In London they drive on the opposite side.

They say its the "right" side... meaning the correct side to drive on.

The Left Side.

Make sure when you cross the street...

Instead of right.

To see more Black & White Photos visit...

Europe - - London Day 1

I love London. The city is so old and full of history. The buildings are beautiful. 

We began our trip in London. When we arrived we were too tired to do much of anything except sleep. Monday morning we started our adventure on the bus with a tour guide that gave us a brief history as we drove around seeing the sights. 

Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. The flag wasn't flying which means that the Queen was not home. Also the guards were not out because I guess they don't work during March.... 

Hannah, me and Amanda in front of the Buckingham Palace Gates

Next we headed to Saint Paul's Cathedral where Princess Diana was married. We didn't get to go inside but the outside was pretty cool. We all loved the big doors :)

 Partial Group Picture

Next we went to the Tower Bridge & Tower Hill. We didn't have time to go in and explore but our tour guide gave us a brief history.  The Tower of London was built in 1078

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For a quick history lesson, Wikipedia says "The Tower of London has played a  prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury (UK spelling), a treasury, a menagerie (aka zoo), the home of the Royal Mint, a public records office, and home of the Crown Jewels of the UK."

After our little site seeing tour we hopped on the underground and went to a little area called Greenwich. It was a cute little area where we walked around and did a little bit of shopping. Then we got on a boat and headed back towards London.

We ended the evening with dinner at the hard rock cafe and the London Eye.
Pictures of the London Eye and More London coming soon!

Europe- - Eiffel Tower

Back from Europe. 

Had a blast! 

Today is the first day of my last quarter ever! 

I have a feeling its going to go by way too fast

So I took about 1000 pictures while I was in Europe... It's going to take me a while to go through them all

But for now, here are a few of my favorites of the Eiffel Tower

We climbed the Eiffel Tower at night, it was a four hour ordeal. 

We had to wait in line forever because the stairs were closed. 

The view from the top was quite pretty though :) 

I'll post more pictures later!