Carpenter File 16: Time of My Life!!!!

Well I've just returned from the most amazing life changing trip of my entire existence!!!!! I feel like I traveled for a month! The two weeks went on forever! It was fantastically wonderful!!! I don't even know where to begin. I really can't possible relay all of what I saw and experienced but I will give it my greatest effort. I've decided that I am going to relay it one day at a time because trying to do an entire overview in one blog of all I saw would be utterly impossible! So over the next few weeks you will l get my pictures and experiences from each day/city on my trip. That will break it down a bit since I took literally 1400 pictures...yea I know that’s crazy but that's why I bought the 2GB Memory Card! :-) The above pictures are some highlights: From Bottom to top:
Giant Mesopotamian Monument in the Louve
Notre Dam at Sunset
Swans at the Queen's Hamlet at Versailles
Sunset at Versailles The Queen's Hamlet again
Mykonos just before the storm
The cute shrubbery @Versailles (if you can't tell it was my favorite place)
In front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome
Underneath a Massive Arch in Rome's Ancient city
The Parthenon!!!!

Anyway for now I'll just copy off a page of my journal written on the train coming home from the last day of my trip. I think it is the best overview of everything.

Well this really has been beyond anything I ever expected. Everything was incredible and I can't think of anything I would change. I feel so free now. Kind of like I could handle anything! I feel like I've been given the moon and I don't quite know what to do with it...isn't that a movie line...probably. In a since I really have. With all I've seen, felt, heard, smelled - experienced to the depths - I understand so much more of the world. I want to tackle it head on and see everything!!! I feel like I got so much more than the tourist overview trip because I went to so many places off the beaten tourist track. For example we took a tiny funicular railway through a gorgeous canyon in Northern Greece on our way to Corinth. Of course I went to all the major monuments in the places I went but these unique side trips made the trip even more invaluable. I think I have seen every major piece of artwork that I studied in my Arts and Western Civ. class!!!! I have seen almost every genre of art from just about every time period from Neolithic to Modern, from Egyptian to Impressionist. I have been on art overload! But it was so worth it! There are things about seeing art up close that envelope you in wonder as to how it was created. I had always loved Monet but I never realized that nearly all of his lily paintings are half the size of a wall!!! And around the corners you see blank canvas! It’s like they are so rough that he didn't feel the need to complete them all the way to the edge. There are so many paintings and sculptures like that, where you just don't see the details in a photo from a book. I can't wait to be able to share what I have learned here with my students one day. Being here just makes me want to teach more and more. To be able give my students a real perspective that goes so far beyond their text book! To present them with an enthusiasm for the world's history instead of just regurgitating facts that put them to sleep. Life is beautiful in a way I never understood and I have never been so enthralled with it!!!