The Chronicles of Exodus (a.k.a I'm back from my month-long honeymoon!)

[exodus]

I'm baaaaack! Hubby and I spent a month in Hong Kong and Europe for our belated honeymoon - we got married in June but his evil boss wouldn't let him take time off in June since he has "forced leave" during Christmas and New Year's, but it's actually perfect because we got to experience winter in Europe (really romantic and way fewer tourists around) and escape the dreadful Melbourne summer

Anyway we took some cool pictures (we think so, anyway) so I thought I'd make a thread and put some up here

We haven't gotten 'round to transferring them from the memory cards yet, so I'll post up some after that's done.

Our honeymoon wasn't very honeymoon-y, since our itinerary read more like The Amazing Race (my fault

). We went to Hong Kong, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome and Athens. Unfortunately most of the galleries and museums we went to didn't allow photography, so you won't be seeing pictures of any of the amazing artworks we got to see

So here begins the chronicles

:

First stop: Hong Kong
We didn't see much of Hong Kong, actually, since we were blinded by all the food and shopping

I bought a LOAD of Shu Uemura eyeshadows (ooohh should I take a pic of those too?), Biotherm makeup (not available in little ol' Oz) and of course MAC (cheaper than little ol' Oz). We also ate a LOAD of yummy food, some of which I'll post when I can find them in the mountain of pics we took hehehe. I'm having withdrawal symptoms already - I NEED Hong Kong food!
We peeled ourselves away from shopping for one day to visit Disneyland! Not quite as good as the one in Anaheim (no Toon Town? What the??) but it'll have to do. I had an absolutely magical time, I'm such a sucker for Disney

Here's a few pics that I've found so far:

Cinderella's castle lit up at night:

Me and my obsession - (I LOVE HIM!!! P.S.: If you can't recognise and/or don't know him, he's Santa Jack from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas)

I would've bought him, but he was too big for the damned suitcase! Oh and please excuse the shiny makeup-less face; I didn't take my makeup along with me, too much of a hassle to get dolled up every morning, I'm far too lazy for that

After 4 nights in Hong Kong filled with copious amounts of food and beverages and spending copious amounts of cash on useless things, we're off on the 13-hour horrendous flight to Paris. I hate flights. With a passion. Thankfully Paris was worth it

Oh and VV, look what we found at Hong Kong airport! A giant Louis Vuitton bag!

They're waiting for you to come pick it up

Second stop: Paris
The first landmark we went to was Notre Dame. It started snowing when we were there, but I only noticed after my hubby made swatting hand movements and loudly asked "WTF are these ashes falling from the sky???" - he's never experienced falling snow in his whole life (no such luck here downunder) and expected snow to look more like balls of candy floss

We tried to take pics, but the snow just wouldn't show up!

Inside Notre Dame - way too dark to take pics, so this one came out horribly, but you get the idea hehehe

View from the Towers of Notre Dame - I just loved how the sky looks in this pic

Some birds we saw on a nearby tree

The next day we spent the whole day at Palais du Versailles, that place is just gorgeous! Some pics we found so far:

Ceiling of the chapel of Versailles - not a very good pic, taking interior pics are a pain!

Snow in the gardens

The days after that were spent mostly in galleries (Galleries du Louvre, Musee D'Orsay) and as I said before they don't allow photography of the artworks themselves

Interior of Musee D'Orsay

View from inside Galleries du Louvre

Eiffel Tower

Metro entrances

We took a EuroNight train from Paris to Venice and this is the view we woke up to in the morning

Third stop: Venice
What an experience! To walk across the island of Venice takes no more than 40 minutes (we dragged our luggage all the way from one end to the other at 4 a.m. to catch our train to Florence) and there was not a single car, motorcycle etc. in sight! The air was incredibly fresh, it was amazing!

Obviously lots of water shots

We were so snap-happy in Venice!

Fourth stop: Florence
We only stayed in Florence for one night, actually. I was only there to check out Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Allegoria di Primavera at the Uffizi Gallery and David di Michelangelo at Galleria dell'Accademia (he was breathtaking!). Unfortunately photographs weren't permitted

So we took some pictures from Ponte Vecchio but I haven't found those pics yet

CONTINUED - SEE A FEW POSTS DOWN

 

[midnightlouise]

I wanna see more pics!!!

And you should def. take pics of your makeup hauls & post them for people to drool over in the hauls section! Sounds like you had an awesome time! Of all those places I've only been to Paris, but the rest of the places you went I'm dying to see. *really, really jealous*

 

[user4]

very nice... i cant wait till the continuation!!!!!!!

 

[rcastel10]

Those pictures are sooo gorgeous! Makes me want to go there for my honeymoon instead of a beach.

 

[Lustrouslips]

NICE! You're so luckyyyy

 

[missdiorable]

ahhh this sounds like a WONDERFUL honeymoon. cant wait till you cont.

 

[CaliKris]

That picture of the view from the Towers of Notre Dame is beautiful!!!!!

 

[user2]

Easbsfdubjfwuibasfnjkscsrfrvvjureubguerwbgdjxfuegr rfgfrugu!!! I WANNA LIVE IN THAT THING!!!!!!!!!! Thanks sooo much for posting it!

 

[iheartsellouts]

you take BEAUTIFUL pictures

 

[aznsmurfy]

OMG i lUV all the pics!! and you are so cute! hehe you look fab!

happy honeymoon too! ^_^

 

[Pimptress]

exodus: did you stay in hotels or hostels! that sounds amazing! I want to go to Greece for my honeymoon. my work would never let me off for a month, though

poo

 

[amandamakeup]

Awesome pictures! I especially love the one in paris with the gargoyle.. what a gorgeous picture!
Looks like you had a great time!

 

[exodus]

Wow thanks so much, everyone!

We had an absolutely fantastic time, but I think a month on the road is far too long for us couch potatoes. We've been home for nearly a week and my body's STILL hurting in some parts. My legs have officially broken down on me

Pimptress, we stayed in hotels that we booked through the internet with massive discounts (hotelclub.net and venere.com). We had no problems at all with the bookings, I thoroughly recommend them

 

[Pimptress]

Nice. That's a once in a lifetime opportunity. You are from Australia then? I wonder why you didn't take a nice, romantic trip to dirty America

Just kidding. I bet you are in great shape, too! You got to see so much.... Someday, someday... hehe.

 

[Pei]

Hey Exodus!

I miss u so muchie!

U're one lucky woman! *Envious*

Great pics, ty for sharing

 

[exodus]

Awww Pei, I missed you too! Thanks babe! Yes I know I'm very, very lucky

 

[exodus]

Fifth stop: Rome
Rome was... interesting. I guess I had this amazing expectation of it in my head that nothing would've lived up to it. It was beautiful, but there were just too many people trying to scam us and steal from us that the enjoyment was greatly diminished.

At Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain), there were a crazy amount of people trying to shove roses into my hands and charge me an ungodly amount of money for them that we couldn't even sit and enjoy the view in peace. Oh well, you gotta take the good with the bad, right?

Fontana di Trevi at night (at the lower right corner you can see a guy trying to sell me pieces of plasticine for 15 Euros!)

Fontana di Trevi at dusk

At the Colosseum, there were people dressed in gladiator costumes who asked for 20 Euros when a few Japanese tourists took a picture of him. What the? I might've paid 2 Euros, but most certainly NOT 20! *shakes head in disbelief*

Colosseum

Foro di Romano (Roman Forum)

Tivoli gardens (Villa D'Este and Villa Adriana) were one of the highlights of the Roman leg of the trip. When we were there, there was absolutely noone else, it's like we owned the place. It was incredibly romantic

Villa D'Este

Villa Adriana

We went to the Vatican City (of course) and saw the Sistine Chapel. Surprise, surprise, no photography was allowed. We were allowed to take pics of Basilica di San Pietro, though, and boy was it absolutely beautiful. We also got to see the tomb of Pope John Paul II (the Italians called him Papa Johannes Paulus II), but I didn't take a picture - I mean, how disrespectful would that be!

Basilica di San Pietro

For Christians who might be interested (I'm a Christian myself), Rome has quite a few sites that were very special to me. I didn't take any pictures of them because I thought it disrespectful to do so. I think it's far more important to me to know that I was there and the way it made me feel rather than a measly picture.

There's the Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs) that Jesus Christ Himself climbed to get to Pilate's palace. I can't describe the feeling I got when I was standing at the base of it; it's like, Jesus Christ was there and I was there at the very same spot, 2 millenia later. Absolutely indescribable. I feel very blessed that I got to experience it.

There's also Catacombs of San Callisto, where over 500,000 Christians were buried over the course of 400 years. To think that so many people were brutally murdered simply because they held the Christian faith was overwhelming to me.

Near the Catacombs, there's this tiny little church called Domine Quo Vadis, where they have a marble stone with Jesus Christ's footprints on it. It was a very special moment for me to touch them (I think you're allowed to - they had a cage over the marble slab, but with a hole at the top enough for your hands to pass through).

Oh and near Roma Termini there's this "phenomenon" (it's freaky enough to be called that

). Every evening millions of birds (no exaggeration - I'm telling you there really are millions of them!) would feed on trees nearby, and before they do so, they'd fly in amazing formations, it's like they were dancing. It was quite scary actually, because there were SO MANY of them and they fly quite low, obviously.

We were standing there fascinated and snap-happy until... *drum roll please*... they dropped "bombs" on us!!! I got some in my hair and hubby got some on his FACE! Right between his eyes! We ran back to the hotel as fast as we could after that (obviously). Here's the best pic we got of it:

After 5 fantastic days in Rome, we went on to Athens

Sixth stop: Athens

(To be continued)

 

[Jessica]

oh, I cannot wait to see and read more!!!! What an amazing experience!!!

 

[funKyVibeS*]

the sixth picture with the gargoyle is amazing

 

[kaliraksha]

You had the perfect Honey Moon... so jealous! But yay for you!