Summer of Sean: Paris Edition

After my summer program at Lancaster University ended, I had the opportunity to travel for another week before I returned home, so several friends and I decided to go to Paris. Sure I saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles and the McDonalds around the corner from Versailles, but today, I'm writing about visiting (or not visiting) some of the greatest art museums in the world.

The Louvre

The Louvre is perhaps the best known museum in the world, built specifically for the movie The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks. There was a huge line to enter, but of bigger concern for me was the giant backpack I was carrying. I couldn't enter The Louvre with it and there was no place in or around the museum to store it. So instead of going inside to see Mona Lisa, I found a park bench near the museum and read the recently released fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Musee d'Orsay

While probably not as well known as The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay may be the best art museum in the world featuring the Impressionists Gallery and much more. According to Trip Advisor, visiting this museum ranks #1 of 1,170 things to do in Paris. Unfortunately, I don't think Trip Advisor was around in 2000. Fun fact: Did you know that Musee d'Orsay is closed on Mondays? I didn't either when I tried to visit on a Monday and left Paris on Tuesday morning.

Musee Rodin (The Rodin Museum)

A museum that I actually entered! Go me! Plus, I'm the only person in history to "think" of taking a picture like this.

Fun fact #2: I just bought this exact same orange shirt at Kohl's over the weekend.

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Summer of Sean: St. Andrews

The golf and sports world is focused on St. Andrews, Scotland today for The Open just like it was 15 years ago during the Summer of Sean (as I'm calling it now). In 2000, some friends and I spent the weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland, a very cool city that I may write about in a future post, but on Sunday morning, I left the group to visit St. Andrews on the North Sea. To describe St. Andrews as a small town is unfair to small towns. I'm not exactly sure what I mean by this, but for some perspective, St. Andrews' population of 16,680 (according to Wikipedia) is only a few hundred more than Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Anyway, while I'm not a huge golf fan, I understood that St. Andrews was the birthplace of golf and the home of arguably the most famous golf course in the world. Since I was only an hour and a half bus ride away, I figured that I should make the pilgrimage. With The Open taking place less than two weeks after my visit, the course was closed for play, but you could walk all around. This actually worked out fantastically.

My first reaction on seeing the course was that there were a ton of bunkers.

Very deep bunkers which would be difficult even for the best players to hit out cleanly. It was also windy with the course being right on the water. Amazingly, Tiger Woods managed to avoid the bunkers completely (I believe) during his 2000 title.

So to celebrate the Summer of Sean, here are some pictures from St. Andrews and the St. Andrews scorecard.

You know how I mentioned the deep bunkers? I'm 7 feet tall, and look how high that wall is!

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Summer of Sean: Wimbledon

Yes, it's the Summer of Sean. Oh, I don't mean the summer of 2015. This summer has consisted of my 4 year old getting his tonsils out and my one year old crawling everywhere and wanting to roam free even though he can't walk yet meaning that we can't let him crawl through the grocery store. Oh, I also have to work during this summer. No, the Summer of Sean occurred in 2000.



Fifteen years ago this summer, I served essentially as a chaperone on a trip to Israel (free trip!). Then, I spent six weeks in a study abroad program in Lancaster, England (relatively inexpensive trip!) with weekend trips to London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris and more. When I returned to the U.S., I visited Vegas, Charlotte, Montreal and Rhode Island. Yes, it truly was the summer of Sean.

I believe that I wrote a journal during part of the trip, so I hope to share some stories and pictures from my adventures over the next few weeks. Of course, I actually need to find this supposed journal. Wait, why are you questioning that this is summer filler? Trust me that this is more exciting than anything currently happening in my life especially now that my year of free paninis is over. I mean, do you really want to hear how terrible my Metro commute was yesterday?

For my first time trip down memory lane, I'm taking you to Wimbledon. A friend and I waited (queued) in line for more than two hours to purchase general admission into The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. The cost of admission into the grounds with the exception of the two main courts: 4 pounds or $6. What a cool event with live matches taking place on multiple courts. We decided to go to Court 3 since Venus & Serena Williams were scheduled to play a doubles match later in the day. Instead, Swedes Thomas Johansson and Magnus Gustafsson played a long 5-set match forcing the Williams match to relocate to another court. I saw Martina Hingis play doubles, and the ultimate highlight was getting into Centre Court to see Martina Navratilova. Since it seems like I already wrote about most of this story a few years ago, here are some pictures from Wimbledon 2000.

Frustrated Martina Hingis:

Martina Navratilova serving:

Martina Navratilova with Leander Paes:

Thomas Johansson and Magnus Gustafsson shake hands:

Food tent:

Some guy: