There is so much to say, to write, to think about. Right now I am trying to soak it all in slowly, over time. I saw things I had only seen in books, pictures, on the computer. While I could do without all the air travel (oh to invent some kind of insta-transport!) I loved seeing it all with my own eyes. It is so much to download and comprehend into my brain at the moment. I will write more later, but here is just a smattering of images that took my breath away. I will add more soon. This is just Paris - not Berlin at all. I took hundreds of pictures hoping to capture my memories. But I tried so hard to also put down the camera and just BE in in all. I think one of the best things that happened was when my camera ran out of battery power right at the beginning of The Louvre. At first I was horrified, "How could I be so stupid, why did I not charge the camera more, how could I not document EVERY moment?!"

But then I just let it go and began to look, to SEE all the beauty around me. I looked for the brush strokes, the cracks in the canvas, the tiny little details that let me see that a human being and not some kind of God had actually created these master pieces. It was hard, so hard. Every single thing in the Louvre looks as if God himself had created it, handed it it to us and said, "Here, so you know what I mean by 'art'. "