Last weekend's mini vacation

Isaac and I went on a tour of a Oahu last weekend as a little vacation to get away from Base. On Friday, we stayed at the Hale Koa, a military-only hotel. The hotel overlooks Waikiki Beach... more or less... depending on how much you pay for the room. More pics on that later. :)
On Sat., we drove around the south and east side of the island, stopping at the Bellows Air Force Station Beach for a short while to build a sand castle. Later, we continued driving up the east coast and around to the north. That night, we stayed at a nice little B&B (with no actual second B... but, you had the kitchen free to cook dinner in at night) located across from Sunset Beach. There were definitely some large waves there! We spent Sat. evening and Sunday morning watching the surfing pros and before heading back to Honolulu. It was a fun weekend over all and I think it was hard for Isaac to go back to work the following Monday. Who wouldn't rather be on the beach?
Here's a map of Oahu: (you have to zoom out a few click to see the whole island)

View Larger MapDriving DirectionsView Bird's Eye

And here is a short slideshow of the trip:

First photo of Hawaii...

Now, I realize I haven't even finished our summer trip yet. I will get to that too, but for starters, here's my first pic of Hawaii. We're on Oahu, just on the outskirts of Honolulu.


A view from our room

We're here until Dec. 11, so I should have some more pics for you later :) I'm off to explore...

Alright, the good news is that I'm still healthy and well... and ready to move on to Marsaille. The bad news is that Isaac took our new laptop with him to Texas so I am unable to finish our trip at this time. I do, however, intend to work on it when I'm in PEI on Thurs., so you if can wait til then, I'd be grateful.
I still love you all, and hope you still love me too :P
I'll bee seeing some of you soon!

Sorry...

I'm sorry to have put the vacation posts on hold without telling you. I've been soo busy with moving. Ahh! Anyway, my intention is to work on posting again tomorrow (Sat.). Looking forward to seeing some of you in a couple of weeks. Much love!!
~ M

Off to Paris we go

As promised, we're continuing our trip to Paris. There was some really beautiful scenery to be seen from the train, as always, and here is one of my favourite of those. It reminds me of a Cezanne or Monet. Love it!

Self portrait. Like my new camera?

Long train rides sure are tiring.

Isaac didn't get any of me sleeping because I had the camera on me most of the time on the train and he didn't want to wake me... which would have ruined the effect. hahaha.

But, sometimes we had good times on the trains too. :D

Finally! PARIS!!
A view from our hotel, through the wrought iron shutters.

And one more before it got too dark :D.

The plan once we got into Paris was to make reservations for a night train to San Sebastian. Try as we might though, there was still nothing available. So, on to plan B. We got Tickets to Marsailles, FR. Due to the lateness of the hour by that point, we didn't get to see much of the city. We stayed at a really nice hotel right across from the train station. That was definitely helpful since we had that 6am train to catch the next morning.
Next Stop: Marsailles.

The long awaited trip to Paris...well, Antwerp

I'm terribly sorry about the long layover. There was a holiday and craziness bringing work stuff home for a week, and on top of that, getting a start on packing up our apartment. Holy cow! Not that I'm trying to make excuses... au contrare, I'm just letting you know what else is going on in our lives since travelling. :)
Now, on to travels: I hope you're not too disappointed in this entry I had more pics of the way to Paris than I thought, so the trip to Paris over 2 posts. Paris itself may be slightly anticlimactic since we were only there for 1 night - long enough to catch a late dinner and some sleep before our train left at 6am the next morning. Before we got to Paris though, we went had lunch in Antwerp, BE.

Antwerp Central Station is such a gorgeous piece of architecture!
Obviously, my picture doesn't do it justice.

Exterior of Antwerp Central Station

A small portion of the city

Writing postcards on the train

We had a long wait in a small town in France on the way to Paris, so we stopped at a cafe for lunch, but they didn't have food, so we had an espresso instead.

At this point, we had been trying to arrange reservations on an overnight train to San Sebastian in Spain, but all the trains to Spain were solidly booked. We decided to wait and try again once we got into Paris.

After that ordeal, the espressos definitely helped to raise our spirits and revive us.
Tomorrow, I promise, we'll be in Paris! :)

Amsterdam, NL

Day 2: Since our previous night's accomodations were pretty lacking in comfort, we went to a travel info centre first thing in the morning to find something new. The lady that helped us was great and ended up getting us a really good deal on a hotel for that night. We went to that hotel to drop off our bags and enjoyed a relaxed lunch before heading out on a canal tour of Amsterdam.Here are some pics of what we saw from that as well as our stop at the Rijksmuseum.

This is what I always pictured when I thought of Amsterdam.

I love these houses. :)

Here is the Koninglijk Theatre where they host famous ballets, operas, plays, etc.

Here's my proof we were there. :) In the background you can see all of the scaffolding around the Rijksmuseum. Unfortunately most of the museum was not open to the public due to the renovations, but they had their "Masterpieces" on exhibit. It was great to be able to see them at least. Vermeer was my favourite.

And us, enjoying Amsterdam.

Tomorrow, we're on our way to Paris!