Ah Paris! Josh and I ended our trip with a two day stop in Paris. We left the cruise as soon as it docked in Istanbul, and flew straight to Paris. It was a whirlwind trip, but I got a taste of that great city.

Our first stop was The Louvre. I was so excited to see it, and it is a very imposing structure. It is U-shaped, with incredibly long wings, and four stories high. There were four levels, three above ground and one underground level. I cannot even begin to describe what is in there, or how large it was. You must visit yourself.

We picked certain areas that we wanted to visit, and tried to head through or past the other sections as quickly as possible. There was no way we would be able to take our time and still see all that we’d like to. I would adore working in a place like that, or living nearby. It’s the kind of place that you could go a million times, and still learn something new.

Venus de Milo

Venus de Milo

The Code of Hammurabi

Mona Lisa by Leonardo

Magdalena Bay by Auguste François Biard

I saw more masterpieces than I could’ve imagined in one day. It was like seeing my art history book, the entire thing, in person. There are many more pictures in my gallery.

The next day we tried to fit as many of the other sights in as we could find time and energy for. First stop: Notre Dame Cathedral.

This is a church to be proud of. Sometimes I wish that churches would be so dedicated to glorifying God in their buildings that they would build something as majestic as this today, utilizing the best in architecture and sculpture to connect with people now. Notre Dame is a glorious church. Every part of it is amazing, from the large to the small scale. For example, above the doorways are three arches. Inside these arches are hundreds of relief sculptures. I can’t imagine how long they took to make.

Notre Dame

One of the three relief archways, each of those people are unique.

One of the many stained glass windows

Inside the cathedral.

Josh and I spent some time inside Notre Dame. We even paid to see the treasury. If people accuse televangelist of making too much money, they should visit the Papal treasury. There were crowns that were covered in jewels and diamonds. Communion cups of solid gold, with jewels adorning them. There are some pictures in my gallery, but they can’t do it justice.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

After Notre Dame, our next stop was Sir Eiffel’s Tower. It’s quite the process to get up inside it. There are two separate elevators: one to the first level, the second to go from the first to the second level. You pay admission, and then you wait in line forever to get onto both of the elevators. It’s quite the structure though. You get a great view of Paris from the top.

Eiffel Tower

I might fall!

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower at night

Another thing Josh and I did was go on a night dinner cruise, to see the sights of Paris at night, all lit up. It was too reflective to take good photos from inside the boat, but it was a nice time. It was really hard to tell what some of them were, we got a little lost trying to keep track of where we were, but we floated on the Seine, like millions of people before us, to see Paris from the water.

When Josh and I decided on our Honeymoon trip, going on a cruise was recommended, and it was an excellent idea. It was wonderful to be able to unpack our bags and move into a hotel room, and yet see many different places. It was like staying in a resort, but having the experiences of a multi-country trip. All in all, cruises are a great vacation idea.

We were on Norwegian Cruiseline, on the Norwegian Jewel. Our captain was Norwegian, and loved to come on the loud speaker in the morning, before we woke up, and say, “A verry verry good morning to you all, Ladies and Gentlemen… this is your captain speaking…” Then he would give a few announcements. Next would come our cruise director, Paul. He would repeat whatever the captain just said (in case we couldn’t understand his accent?). Occasionally our cruise’s activities director would come on and say, “Does everyone know what time it is? IIITTTT”S  BINGO TIME!!” Another reason these announcements became so funny is because we had some members from Second City onboard to entertain us, and they made up a great skit about a man trying to propose, and every time the mood was just right, one of these announcements would come on. Hilarious.

On board we had lots of things to do. Our favorite: eating!

The main dining room: Tzar’s Palace

The main dining room: Tzar’s Palace

We also enjoyed watching the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.

Or swimming in the pool and sitting in the hot tub.

Pool

Waterfall at the pool

Josh and I spent some time playing cards in the game room during our sea days.

Library

Game Room

One thing that was awkward when we first arrived was how narrow the hallways are. They are very repetitive, and confusing at first. After a couple of days though, you might not get lost anymore.

Hallways to cabin

Our cabin

Our cabin

Our bathroom

Shower

Everyone has to do a safety drill when they board! It helps us know what to do in case of emergency. In a real emergency, everyone would panic and chaos would ensue, but we can pretend that people would act with good judgement and all meet in the places they were supposed to.

The Casino

A bar

One of the many lounge areas

A restaurant

The cabana band playing some tunes

The Japanese specialty restaurant

Sushi bar and lounge are below

The Karaoke Bar. Josh didn’t let me sing, but we did play Who Wants to be a Millionaire there.

The Auditorium, during a musical show

One of our favorite onboard activities was the game-show nights. Josh and I went to all of them, and we almost always got to play. It was fun, and we were pretty good. They also video-taped some of them, and Josh’s lack of trivial knowledge amused the whole ship for several days. Luckily, when it was my trivial knowledge, they didn’t record it! For the record, international traffic signs are cicles. America is once again, NOT international in its customs.

I have pictures of Istanbul, but unfortunately, I don’t know what most of the things are. Josh and I had a nice drive though Istanbul from the port to the airport, so my tour guide was my taxi driver, who couldn’t always understand what I was asking, although he was very nice. On a side note, I always feel a little awkward in Muslim countries talking to men because I don’t know if I am supposed to, and I don’t know how to act so that I don’t offend them more than I already do by being a woman and a westerner and a Christian. Turkey was a lot nicer than Egypt though, and I would love to visit there again. It looked like a beautiful and interesting country, with forests and impressive cities and good roads where people follow traffic laws. It’s on my list of places to go again.

Minarets from the many mosques, as seen from our balcony. Our taxi driver explained that there were several famous mosques, I believe that one of the left is - since it has six minarets.

Either this is part of the wall that used to be the edge of the city of Istanbul, or this is an aquaduct. Either way, it’s impressive.

This is part of the wall of the old Istanbul.

see more photos

Josh and I woke up to drumming outside of our window, I staggered over to pull back the blind to find this group of musicians making some noise to welcome us to their country. Welcome to Turkey.

Josh and I got going and headed out to find a taxi to take us to Ephesus. All the cab drivers had a set rate to go see the church built where Mary the mother of Jesus lived at the end of her life and died, and to Ephesus. So we got acab to take us out there. The countryside of Turkey was very beautiful, the mountains were amazing, but I don’t have a lot of good pictures because our driver decided that he could drive 120 mph up a very twisty mountain road. It was crazy. The other cars all followed the speed limit… not him.

This is the church built where Mary lived. It’s a really beautiful place, in the woods, very peaceful and soothing. One of my favorite places we visited on our trip.

We arrived in Ephesus. If you want to see good ancient ruins, I would highly recommend this site. It is basically a city, the streets, the shops, the amphitheatre, all still there for the most part. There are arches and the plumbing and sculptures.

This is the little amphitheatre. Basically, town hall. It’s interesting because they followed the same principles that we still follow, to have nice seats in the front, and as you go up, you get the crappy seats.

Behold - the arch!

The city street.

This was a fountain, I believe.

This is the huge amphitheater that the Ephesians dragged the Apostle Paul, shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” It’s HUGE. It’s so incredible to walk on the same roads that Paul did, stand in the same buildings. It seems so remote, yet they are still there.

A larger view of the size of that amphitheater.

The best sign… found just outside the Ephesus ruins.

At the end of the day, a peacock awaits us in our room.

see more photos

Josh and I decided to strike out on our own and rent motorcycles to drive around the small island of Myconos, Greece. We got as far as the motorcycle rental shop before the man behind the counter struck a blow to this idea.

“You both have ridden one of these before, have you? Because if not, this is not a good place to learn. There are many steep hills and sudden turns, and that makes it very difficult to learn here.”

We decided instead to get one four-wheeler and ride it around the island. It was a good idea, since the man was telling us the truth. The hills would have been terrible to learn on. We drove around the island, stopping at various beaches. Unfortunately, it was very cold and windy, so swimming was not an option, but the beaches were still beautiful.

After a lot of sightseeing, Josh and I drove up to a peak on the western side of the island to watch the sun set. We were trying to get to the top of a certain hill, but it turned out to be some millionaire’s compound, probably some Hollywood star. We ended up on the side of a mountain that we had to scramble up. It turned out to be a nice view.

Aww… newly-weds!

Waiting for the sunset, you can see part of the millionaire’s compound, or one of the millionaires’ compound.

Ahh Greece. It’s been a lovely visit!

see more photos