Bon Voyage

Vacations never last long enough - we can't skip around Paris at midnight while munching on pastries, or scuba dive in the Indian Ocean in perfect turquoise waters, or watch lions nap lazily under a tree while their latest kill sits 10 feet away, endlessly everyday. Who knows, those things might become mundane if they happened all the time?

Not a chance!

We just returned from a most stellar holiday abroad. Because we took hundreds of photos we'll post them chronologically in multiple blogs - so as not to overwhelm. In order to fly to Africa, you fly through Europe, so we broke up the trip by staying in Paris for two days and London for one. We hadn't been back to Paris since our honeymoon (8 + years ago) and found we loved it even more than we remembered. Despite the reputation the French were nothing but warm to us, not even just polite but outright friendly. A ton was crammed into those two days - we walked a lot, went to the Louvre, the Decorative Arts Museum, waited in line at the catacombs - but left in order to make our lunch reservation at Guy Savoy's L'Atelier, and much more. A fabulous time was had by all!

We arrived in the evening the first day and took to the streets, hence the mood lighting. Matt clearly has a real love for Petit Dejeuner, it's quite dear to his heart.
While this moment was happening the music from Amelie was playing in the background, literally.


Our sweet, contemporary hotel located in Bastille
Pledging his love to the boar. He managed to find every boar in the Louvre - a divine mission really.
delicious + hip + traditional meets modern = L'Atelier

embracing the column, he's not partial - be it corinthian, doric, or ionic he's in love
I was a little chilly and grabbed Matt's coat on my way out the door - hence the over sized get-up and obvious bravado.

Then we took the train to London - where we stayed at St. Martin's Lane, a sister hotel of Philippe Starck's Clift hotel in San Fran (with the giant chairs that we posted a picture of a couple of blogs ago). Killer location and such a beautiful hotel. We maximized our one day in London by cruising to the Tower of London for several hours, having dinner at this adorable Chinese restaurant located in the bowels of the earth - really (we only saw the store front, and we kept going down and down and down to where there was this extensive beautiful restaurant behind a small facade). We then topped the night off by getting lost on our way to see Peter Pan in the park (it was a HUGE park!!).

All three of the above were taken in the lobby of our hipster hotel. The first being my fav, very Alice in Wonderland.
Ahhh, room service at midnight - a fabulous idea consisting of mexican donuts, pineapple cake, and ice cold milk
Matt and the beef eater comparing guns at the Tower of London. We had just finished attending a Henry VIII exhibit titled dressed to kill, highlighting his armor. It was super well done, and really engaging. We're in line here to see the crown jewels.
I'm a little tall for the space. Fat guy in a little coat.
We took the beef eater tour that was really interesting! In this very square many people had been beheaded. They kept political and religious prisoners here.

Grillin'

The birds are singin', the bees are buzzin' and it's time for some carcinogenic protein. That's right baby, it's grill time! Of all the grills in the land these are pretty much my favs.The Electrolux Jeppe Utzon This sleek grill was created by the grandson of the legendary designer of the Sydney Opera House, Jorn Utzon . It's beautiful and unadorned, in a good way.

Viteo, maker of some rad outdoor furniture and this beautiful BBQ.

Eva Solo in da' House-comes in gas as well.

Fuego grills- designed by the former director of design for Apple, this one takes the cake. You can cook using charcoal, infrared and gas.

Grill on my friends, grill on...

Rice A Roni - The San Francisco Treat

We do our best to take advantage of any time off of work, so a four day weekend presented a lot of options.  Matt found a killer last minute deal to San Francisco and the Memorial Day weekend was decided.  Great food, interesting neighborhoods, the ocean, shopping, and museums were some of the few things we took part in.  We had an absolute ball and are crossing our fingers for some added federal holidays.  

The crab chowder, in a bread bowl no less, at Fisherman's Wharf was incredible!
Matt "the birdman" showing off his wing span on the banks of Alcatraz
Alcatraz as approaching
God Bless America
A tall statement - we had to see if it was true
There's a submarine and battleship docked just off of Fisherman's Wharf.  On Memorial Day a ceremony was performed for soldiers who had been aboard those two ships (and others) during WWII. 

Also near the Wharf was a mechanical museum where they had a ton of turn of the century mechanical entertainment.  It was basically an old sort of nickelodeon where you could pay a quarter and have the magician predict your future, see a wooden barbershop quartet move their legs to the music, see what the belly dancer does on her day off, watch the piano play by itself... and more.  We LOVED it!  
We did our fair amount of shopping and here's Matt trying on his new shirt for size - lookin' good!

The cartoon museum was awesome!  Their exhibits totally varied from The art of Stan Sakai and his samarai bunny (which Matt collected as a kid), to the featured objects from the recent film, to newspaper cartoons over the course of the last century.  It was really great and a nice change of pace. 
So, San Francisco is cold - wished we could've seen the opera or the ballet (pictured behind me), but we were between seasons.
He's so sensitive and artistic
We walked ALL OVER the city exploring the different neighborhoods and really got a taste for the city.  Pictured are some colorful houses in the neighborhood made popular in the 60's -  Haight Ashbury.  
Matt showing off his cleansed palette. 
The palette cleansing culprit - a blackberry sorbet served at Cuba d'Asia
We ordered the tasting menu at fabulous Cuba d'Asia, so we tried a lot of different flavors and were very pleased (and full!)
Clearly food is a big part of travel for us.  We ate breakfast at Mel's one day - it was so so, but a good picture.  
A French cafe where we dined for brunch.  We were spoken to in French, and the menu was in French - it was legit. 
China town
Me making a Hindu pose in front of the China Town gates - appropriate... er.
Crossing the bridge on the 5th floor of SMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).  We're both big fans of Modern and Contemporary art and loved exploring this museum. 
We all need one of these.  This is within the Clift hotel that Philippe Starck designed - it was really simple, all about textures and beautiful chairs, we loved it!!!

UFO's and Ticklish Babies

So we've slacked with the blogs. Like everyone, we're busy. Whatcha gonna do? We cruised down to Texas last week to visit Candice's brother and his wife, Jonny and Kaylene.

Clearly, this beautiful little family are the stars of Lubbock Texas. They were the perfect hosts. Each morning we were awakened by the succulent smells of healthy, homemade breakfasts that tasted amazing. We then worked our buns off doing a new workout program called P90x. It was a great workout you can do at home and judging by their svelte/muscular physiques, I'd say it works.

We got some Japanese take-out, consisting of some teppanyaki steak and lobster and a bunch of sushi. Good stuff.

Laila, was in full effect. Cutest thing ever. I liked it because I think she liked me better than Candice. This never happens, bless her little heart.

We even got to bathe her. One of the highlights for sure.

Like many things in life you think you're prepared for a certain moment until you get there and find you're totally blown away. The Enchanted Forest is just such an experience.

It's a game filled with wonder and gnomes. Not so much a game as much as it is a lifestyle. Like a near death experience I have a hard time explaining it's complexities and nuances. If you feel like something is lacking in your life, I'd like to personally invite you to step into the Forest.

Jonny, Kaylene and Laila it sucks we live so far apart. I'd like to cast my vote in for Colorado as possible move locations after you've exhausted the fine town of Lubbock. Much love.

We kinda went out of our way to experience Roswell, NM on the way home.

Bigger than I thought, this little town consists of a military base and alien themed everything. Don't believe me?
The alien tax preparation and loan place.





Alien themed Mickey D's





Alien light posts

We also visited the UFO museum and research center. It was here that the story of the Roswell incident was laid out for us in mind numbing detail. They had affidavits, time lines, original radio broadcasts and dioramas, yes, dioramas!

After having scoured and sorted the mountain of information presented I personally feel like there was indeed a government cover-up at Roswell. Without going into all the details, I think that the wreckage recovered was probably from a government top-secret balloon project intended to detect weapons fired at the U.S. from the USSR. With that said, there may have been an alien crash there. Many original witnesses went to their graves insisting they saw alien wreckage and bodies.

Interesting/dorky stuff I know, did I mention we have a DVR full of X-files? The museum was predictably filled with long hairs. In this picture, two long hairs appear to be posing as some sort of devil and angel on my shoulders. Coincidence? you decide.The scariest things we saw in Roswell were these denim shirts embroidered with alien images.

After seeing and reading all this interesting and insightful information, I know what you're thinking, "why are you wearing the same outfit the whole weekend?" I'll let you ponder that until next time.