Roseyland

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Roseyland organization has gone international. About two years ago, I decided to get a passport. I didn’t really have any reason to get a passport, but it seemed like a good idea. I mean you never know when you are going to need to flee the country on short notice. Fast forward a couple years, and my Aunt and I decided to take a trip to London and Paris. It’s a long complicated story, but my Aunt wanted to see London, I wanted to ride a train through the chunnel, so some how we setteled on a 9 day trip with 4 days in London and 4 days in Paris (the 9th day disappeared somewhere over the atlantic). Lucky you, you get to come along, and by come along, I mean read about it in my blog, which really isn’t as much fun, but it is far cheeper and less exhausting. I think I’m going to write one blog post for everyday of my trip, and maybe a few extras, but we’ll have to see how it goes. Here a picture of some Great Britain Pounds, my passport, and some Euros. Foreign money is so much fun, it’s like Monopoly money with holograms.

We departed for our trip on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009. The plan was for me to fly to Chicago and meet up with my Aunt who was flying from Nebraska. Then we would both be on the same flight from Chicago to London. My flight was delayed because of a broken compass. They tried to fix it for an hour, and then gave up. They did find us another airplane, but it turns out that plane had something wrong with it’s landing gear. Way to go American Airlines! Finally they flew us in another plane and we made it to Chicago 4 hours late, which means I missed my plane to London. Fortunately, there are three flights a night from Chicago to London, and I made the second one. The picture below is my view during the 8 hour flight to London. This was on a 777, which is an amazing airplane. The engines are big enough to stand in and each seat had a personal video screen with movies and TV shows. The longest flight I had been on before this was 4 hours, so 8 hours in airplane seat was a new experience for me. Five hours into the flight, I was convinced that sitting in a coach airline seat for more than 4 hours was a form of torture far worse than water-boarding. Then I found a way to stretch out my legs. This helped a lot, but I wish I had figured it out 5 hours earlier. I didn’t get much sleep on the flight, but I did watch 17 Again and I Love You Man. Both are decent movies, if you are stuck on an airplane.

Since I didn’t have a window seat on the plane, this was my first view of the UK. I was fascinated by the the signs that said UK Border. The made me wonder just where I was if I wasn’t in the UK yet. Was it some sort of no-man’s land? I was also scared to take this picture, because I’m pretty sure the US customs people don’t want you taking their picture. As it turns out, even using your cell phone in an International terminal in the US is a $500 fine. I figured in the UK I could just claim to be a dumb tourist though, and nobody seemed to care. Also, notice how worn down Heathrow looks. I think the UK could spend a little money on remodeling their biggest airport.

I left Chicago Thursday night and arrived in London on Friday morning, which was actually like 4:00 am to me. Everyone said you have to stay up all day the first day, so that you will fall asleep at night and hopefully wake up adjusted to the new time zone. So we checked in to our hotel and headed out to do some sightseeing. Here is a picture of a London telephone booth and a statue of some guy and a tower that is a monument to something. I was tired, give me a break.

This is a picture of Piccadilly Circus. Despite the name, there were no hula hooping bears, elephants, or trapeze artist. I think the UK needs to look up the definition of circus. Piccadilly Circus is kind of like times square and is near the west end theaters, Regent street shopping (think Michigan Avenue or 5th Avenue), and not too far from Buckingham palace.

Since we were tired, we decided to take a an open top double decker bus tour of London. This was a great way to get our bearings and relax at the same time. Here is a picture from the bus. The woman in the hat was our tour guide.

Here is another picture from the bus. If you look close, you can see Big Ben in the background. Now if you were from London, you would say, “Actually, that’s not Big Ben. Big Ben is the bell inside the tower, which you can’t see”. Whatever dude, it looks like Big Ben to me.

One thing that fascinated me about London is that there were giant jumbo jets constantly flying overhead. It’s surreal to see something as relatively new as a jumbo jet flying over architecture that is so old. It’s also weird to think that these planes are coming from and flying to destinations all over the world. It definitely reminded me that I was in a truly international city.

We were in London right after Michael Jackson’s death, and one of the shows in London’s west end is a Michael Jackson themed show. Outside of it, fans had created a memorial with flowers and signs. Kind of cool I guess.

This is Harrod’s, a giant department store in London. It’s owned by an Egyptian man who’s son was in the car with Princess Diana when she died. There is a small memorial to the two inside the store, but I didn’t see it. I did however buy wine and salted caramels. The caramels were delicious. I haven’t tried the wine yet.

Due to my love of subways, I had to take a picture of the Tube. This is actually one of my favorite pictures from the trip. That might have something to do with the attractive young ladies, but I also think the blurred motion of the train is cool, and also the way some parts of the picture are blurry and some are in focus. This of course was all by accident, I actually thought this was a wasted picture until I looked at it on my computer. If you click on the picture, you can see a larger version.

Another thing I loved about the tube is that if you are going one direction on the Piccadilly line, there is this recorded voice that says, “This is the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters”. It’s funny because it is this female british voice that speaks in a very dignified manner, but Piccadilly and Cockfosters are completely ridiculous words. You should hear it yourself, here is a Youtube video I found.

One thing that that took me by surprise about London was how few British people there were. The employees in our hotel were eastern european, we had waiters from South Africa and Italy, and of course tourist from all over are everywhere. If felt like only 10% of the people around us were actually British. I don’t know why this surprised me though, because you would see the same thing in any big american city, and I’m not complaining, I thought it was totally cool, I just didn’t expect it.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have day two posted. This will include Westminster Abbey, The London Eye, and The Tower of London. In the mean time, you can check out pictures and a few videos from my trip in my flickr set here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Welcome to the Roseyland London and Paris excursion day 2. If you haven’t read day 1, you should scroll down and read it first. There is a lot of important character development in day 1, and I’m afraid you’ll be completely lost without it. Day 2 was our first full non-jetlagged day in London. We had noon tickets for the London Eye, so my plan was to walk by Buckingham Palace on the way to Westminster Abbey, which we would visit before the London Eye. Here is a picture of Buckingham Palace. If you could see the flag, you would know that the Queen was not in residence. Apparently she didn’t care that I was visiting. Bitch. Anyways… a few people told me they were disappointed with Buckingham Palace, like they thought it would be grander or more ornate or something. To me it looked exactly like I thought it would, and I was suitably impressed. I also thought it was cool how close you could get to the palace, the gates are only about 50 feet from the building.

These gates are just to the right of Buckingham Palace, and they are the royal gates to Green park, or something like that. The gates are closed, but you can easily go around them and into the park. Apparently they are just closed because they look nicer that way.

This next picture is from St. James park which is a long park in front of Buckingham palace. This picture is looking away from the palace, and you can see the London Eye peeking over the trees on the right and some castle like looking building on the left. I don’t remember what that building was, but I think it has something to do with the government.

This is the front of Westminster Abbey. You can’t take pictures inside, which is nice, because there are so many people walking around the nooks and crannies, that if everyone was also trying to take pictures, it would just be ridiculous. Inside there are a number of tombs and memorials for british royalty and some famous british citizens. Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are buried here. I love that Darwin is buried in one of the most famous churches in the world. Take that stupid intelligent designist!

After Westminster Abbey, we headed to the London Eye. Here is the inside of our capsule. I don’t know why these other people are inside our capsule, but I thought it would be rude to ask them to leave, so I let them stay.

I wanted to take picture of our capsule, so when we got near the top, I went out the emergency door, climbed over the metal beams, and got inside the next capsule. Then I took this picture. I found out later that this is frowned upon, so don’t try it. Instead, you could just take a picture of the capsule next to yours and tell people that it’s your capsule. I think it was totally worth it though, and this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Here is a picture of St. James park and Buckingham Palace from the London Eye.

This is parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye. I only took about 50 pictures of this building. I think this is my favorite, but it’s a tough call, they all sort of look alike.

After the London Eye, we decided to spend the afternoon at the Tower of London. The Tower of London was built to be a Royal palace/fortress, but it ended up being a prison for political prisoners. Anne Boleyn was imprisoned and executed here in the 16th century. For more information on the Tower of London, see here and here. Also, read this about Anne Boleyn’s trial, final hours, and execution. I find it fascinating. This is a picture from inside the Tower of London complex, not far from where Anne Boleyn was executed.

Here is another picture from inside the tower. The circular memorial is a memorial to all those who were executed at the tower, and it is at the approximate location of many of the executions. The building in the upper left of the picture is where you can see the crown jewels. They are impressive if you are into sparkly things, you aren’t allowed to take pictures of them though.

This was one of the coolest parts of the tower to me. Behind the upper center windows is a cell where many political prisoners were held. They carved messages into the stone walls, and you can still see them today. These are from 400 or 500 years ago, I can’t get over how amazing that is.

Here is a picture of the Tower Bridge from inside the Tower of London. The picture doesn’t really do the scene justice. Trust me, it was cool.

That night we went to see a play in London’s west end. I have to thank @susanisk for recommending Avenue Q. My original plan was to see the Phantom of the Opera, but Avenue Q was way more fun and lighthearted than Phantom would have been. After a long day of sightseeing, we needed something fun and lighthearted. Also, it includes a scene of hardcore muppet sex. Who doesn’t love hardcore muppet sex? Oh, and one more thing, in London, during intermission at a play, they have ice cream. Why don’t we do this in the US? Everyone loves ice cream. Here is a scene from Avenue Q that I found on YouTube. This is a nighttime shot of Piccadilly Circus not too far from our theatre.

And with that, day 2 is over. Tomorrow we travel to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. So get a good nights rest, you are going to need it. You can see more pictures and a few videos of my trip in my flickr set here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is day 3, today we go to Windsor, Stonehenge, and Bath. If you missed days 1 and 2, you must scroll down and read them first. We have a lot to see today, and I simply don’t have time to stop and explain things that you missed. When planning this trip, I had a big internal debate over whether or not to take any day trips outside of London and/or Paris. On one hand we only had 3 full days in each city, which does not feel like nearly enough time to truly experience a city, but on the other hand, it would be nice to see more of each country than just a big city. After a lot of online research, I decided that a trip outside of London would be fun, so I signed us up for a Golden Tours bus tour of Windsor, Stonehenge, and Bath.

The bus was going to pick us up at our hotel at 7:45 in the morning. That’s early, but before the bus arrived, we walked down to a cafe to get coffee and something to eat. On the way back to wait for the bus, we walked by an Iran Air office. Not something you see in the US. In the window was a model of an Iran Air concord. WTF? Everyone knows Air France and British Airways were the only airlines to ever fly the concord, and on top of that, no airline flies the concord today. So what is Iran Air trying to prove with this model? Silly Iran.

We got on the bus with about 50 other people and headed off to Windsor while the guide told us all sorts of things about the English countryside that I don’t remember. Upon arriving in Windsor we went straight to Windsor castle. See the guys in the funny costumes? They are Military Knights of Windsor and it’s Sunday, so they are going to church in St. George’s Chapel.

Another picture inside Windsor castle. The Queen’s private apartment is in the tower in the distance and on the right. The state apartments are on the left. We were able to tour the state apartments, which are basically a bunch of very fancy rooms used for formal banquets and things. If you remember, they were damaged by fire a few years ago, but they have been rebuilt and are very impressive. Unfortunately, you can’t take pictures of them.

More Windsor castle.

See the flag in this picture? That means that the Queen is in residence. I would have stopped in and said hi, but our tour guide had us on a tight schedule.

Here is a picture just outside of Windsor castle of the village of Windsor. There are lots of small shops and restaurants that I would have loved to explore, but we had to get back to the bus.

This is the outside of Windsor castle.

On the way back to the bus, there is this cool covered area with cafes that have outdoor seating. It reminded me a little of Paris, except that I hadn’t been to Paris yet, but it does remind future me of Paris.

After Windsor, the bus took us to Stonehenge. I’m glad that I saw Stonehenge, but honestly, I wouldn’t travel halfway around the world just to see it. That’s just me though, you might be different.

The area around stonehenge is covered with these ancient burial mounds. What’s weird about this is that I also know (thanks to @Jspaghetti) that the area just across the river from St. Louis in Illinois is also covered with very similar burial mounds. Coincidence? I think not! Obviously this is proof that aliens colonized the earth thousands of years ago. I wonder when they will come back for us? Hmm… After studying the rocks at Stonehenge, I’m pretty sure it will be on a Tuesday.

This is the traditional English pub that we had lunch at. I had roast beef and yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding bears no resemblance to pudding, it is more like bread. Weird. My aunt asked for an iced tea in this pub, and the waitress said that she thought iced tea taste like cat urine. At first this seemed strange to me, because what was she doing drinking cat urine, but on the other hand, that is exactly how I would describe iced coffee, so maybe she’s right. I still love iced tea though, maybe I should try cat urine.

After Stonehenge, the bus took us to Bath, England, which is the location of England’s only natural hot springs where the ancient Romans built a bath house. Bath was a beautiful city, it took me by surprise and felt very european.

Here is a view of the Roman bath. The water doesn’t look so clean, but you can drink it if you want. I did not try this. I am not that brave.

Another view of the bath.

Here is the bath with a giant church in the background.

And finally, one more picture of the bath.

This is a park in Bath. It rained while we were there, and before the rain, the park was filled with people, after the rain, not so much. See those chairs? in a lot of the parks in England they have these chairs, and as far as I can tell they are free for anybody to use. Government furnished chairs. That’s how socialism works, they give you free chairs, and then boom, everyone has health care. Be careful, there is no such thing as a free chair.

Here is a river in Bath, it’s pretty.

Here is the river in the other direction. This boat was nice enough to pose for me.

Here is a courtyard in Bath. See the building with the ice cream cone on it? We had ice cream there. I had clotted cream and carmel ice cream. It was delicious. They also sold fudge, and they had fudge flavors I had never heard of before. Things like brown sugar and something, and clotted cream and something. The English are big on clotted cream. It sounds disgusting, but if you ask me, it’s just another form of butter.

An hour an a half bus ride later, we were back in London. We had dinner at a pub, and I was thrilled to get to try Chicken Tikka Masala. I was worried that I wouldn’t get to try this dish, because my Aunt refuses to eat in an Indian restaurant. Apparently she has something against good food. She said that my Chicken Tikka Masala looked disgusting, but she did try it and even claimed to like it. I’ve head that this is the unofficial dish of England. It’s an Indian inspired dish with chicken in a creamy flavorful sauce. I loved it, I need to find a place in St. Louis that has it.

So that was day 3. All in all I’m very glad that we took the bus tour. I felt like I got a much better feel for England by getting out of London, even if it was for just a day. The tour was very well done and definitely worth the money. That being said, if I had more time, I would just buy a train ticket to Windsor or Bath and explore on my own. You could easily spend a day in either city. Tomorrow is our last day in London, we will be visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral, the cabinet war rooms, and we will try to see the changing of the guards. You can see more pictures and a few videos of my trip in my flickr set here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Day 4 is the last day in London. You have of course read days 1 through 3 by now, if not, you should go do that (scroll down). We have a lot to do today, because who knows, I may never make it back to London. We start the day at St. Paul’s Cathedral. St. Paul’s has been the site of many Royal weddings (Prince Charles and Lady Di), memorials, and the feed the birds scene from Mary Poppins. The cathedral opens at 8:30. My hope was that we could see it and make it to Buckingham Palace by 10:30 for the changing of the guards. We made it by 8:30, but one of the main attractions of St. Paul’s is climbing 530 steps to the Golden Gallery for a bird’s eye view of London, and the steps don’t open until 9:30. I pretty much had to run up the steps, if I had been 10 years older, I think I would have died. This is St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Here are the front steps of the cathedral. I had tuppence, but unfortunately the bird lady was nowhere to be found. It must have been her day off.

You aren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but it is very pretty. If you walk up 257 steps, you can reach the Whispering Gallery, which is 30 meters above the cathedral floor on the inside of the dome. If you put your ear up against the wall here, you can hear someone whispering on the other side of the gallery. I was by myself, so I just listened to other people’s whispers. They didn’t say anything exciting. I should mention that these first set of steps are pretty easy to climb. They are big broad steps with lot’s of room to pass people, and they are only about half the height of a normal step. So if you go to St. Paul’s, you should at least be able to climb to the Whispering Gallery. If you want to keep going, you can climb another 119 steps to the Stone Gallery. These steps are smaller and steeper, but there are places to rest along the way. The Stone Gallery is a ring outside the dome where you can take pictures of the London skyline. Here is a picture of the Stone Gallery.

If you are really tough, you can climb another 154 steps to the Golden Gallery. These steps are small and steep like the previous set of steps to the Stone Gallery. The Golden Gallery is another outdoor viewing platform like the Stone Gallery, but much higher and smaller. This is a picture of the Golden Gallery.

Here is a view of London from the Golden Gallery near the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Notice the London Eye in the distance.

After rushing up and down the steps at St. Paul’s, we had to hurry and get to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. The changing of the guards starts at 11:30, but most guidebooks recommend arriving at 10:30 to get a decent viewing location. Here are the people waiting for the changing of the guard on the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.

This is the crowd in front of Buckingham Palace. This is almost an hour before the ceremony is supposed to start.

I took this guy’s picture by complete accident. I didn’t even realize it until I looked at my pictures that night. It’s an asian dude wearing a Wendy’s biggie athletic department t-shirt. I find this hillarious. I wonder what that says about me? Let’s not think about it.

Okay, here is a slightly creepy confession. I like taking pictures of people. Especially candid shots of interesting people. Unlike the last picture, I took this one on purpose. I was completely intrigued by these two girls in their head scarfs. This picture sums up a big part of the London experience for me. You are in this city filled with tourist from all over the world. On one hand, these tourist come from vastly different cultures, but on the other hand, they are doing all the same touristy stuff you are. These two girls for example were acting exactly like any two american girls would on vacation, but their head scarfs were this constant reminder that they were from a much different part of the world. Stuff like this just sucks me in for some reason. I also saw two women (I’m assuming) eating dinner at an outdoor cafe wearing full burqas. I so wanted to take their picture, but I couldn’t find a way to do it discreetly.

Okay, the moment you have been waiting for. The reason I flew 4000 miles from home. The changing of the guard!!! was canceled because of rain. That sucks. I did get this picture of the guard retreating from the rain though. Pussies.

After the failed attempt at seeing the changing of the guard, we went to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. I didn’t take any pictures of this. You were allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but I was so used to not being allowed to take pictures inside that I just didn’t. Anyways, the Cabinet War Rooms were very cool. They are the rooms from which Churchill and his war cabinet worked during World War II. They are underground and covered by a thick concrete and steel slab so that they could survive the air raids. The rooms have been refurbished to look exactly like they did during WWII. After the Churchill Museum, we stopped by 10 Downing Street to take a picture. This is where the Prime Minister of the UK lives. I have to say, it’s not quite as impressive as the White House.

Next, we took a river cruise on the Thames, pronounced “tims”. In England, Thames = tims and Berkeley = Barkley. I think the English need to learn to speak english. Here is the Millennium Bridge from the river cruise.

This is the HMS Belfast. The Belfast is a British war ship used in World War II. Now it is a museum, but we didn’t go inside. Maybe next time.

Here is the Tower Bridge with the drawbridge up. I hear the Tower Bridge is haunted, but I don’t believe in ghost.

After the river cruise, we walked around a bit to see some odds and ends. This is St. Paul’s again from the Millennium bridge.

Here is Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Actually it’s a very accurate reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. If we had been in London longer, I would loved to have seen a show here.

This is Regent Street. It’s a major shopping street in London, a lot like Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I went to the Apple Store here. It was the biggest Apple Store I have ever been in.

This is a picture of a man in a turban and sunglasses on a platform in Trafalgar (pronounced tra-fall-ger, I think) Square. I have no idea why he was there or what he was doing. There was a crowd around him, and every once in a while he would try to throw a paper airplane into the crowd, but they all got trapped in the net below him. This is one of those times in life where you look and say, “Well that makes perfect sense”, and move on. If by chance you have any idea who this guy is or what he is doing, please leave a comment, I would love to know.

Another picture of Trafalgar square. I guess I should mention that this is a square in central London. It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like.

This is St. James Palace. Nobody lives in St. James Palace today, but it is still officially considered the “senior-most” royal palace. Whatever that means. St. James is part of a complex of buildings where members of the Royal Family do live today. Prince Charles, Harry, and William live in a big mansion just on the other side of St. James’s Palace. Buckingham Palace is also nearby.

I keep telling myself that I am going to limit these post to 10 pictures, but I am failing miserably. Did I mention that I took over 1300 pictures during my 9 day trip? You can see 400 of those pictures and a few videos in my flickr set here. So this was my last day in London. Tomorrow we ride the Eurostar train through the chunnel to Paris. It was kind of sad to leave London. It’s such an amazing city, and just as I was starting to figure it all out, it was time to leave. I’m sure Paris will be fun too though, tune in tomorrow to find out

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Are you excited? Today is the day we take the train through the chunnel to Paris. I have been fascinated with the chunnel since high school when I saw a documentary about its construction. This train ride was one of the things I was looking forward to most on this trip. Turns out, it was a little anti-climatic, but still cool. Here is St. Pancras station in London, where you catch the Eurostar. A nice thing about this station is that getting through security is pretty quick. We showed up an hour before our train, but I think we would have been fine with 30 minutes. Another nice thing about this station is that you can buy Paris Museum cards and Metro tickets here. That way you are ready to go when you arrive in Paris. My aunt and I each bought a 4-day museum card and 10 individual Metro tickets. This turned out to be almost perfect. The museum card gets you free admission to most of the museums and attractions in London (except the Eiffel Tower). It’s debatable whether or not the museum card is worth it money wise. It probably won’t save you that much, unless you are a very aggressive sightseer. The museum card is very convenient though, because you don’t have to stand in line to buy tickets. You do still have to stand in the security lines unfortuanatly. All in all, I would buy the museum card again, but buy it in Paris (or London). There are services that will send you the card in the US or have it waiting for you in your hotel, but they charge surcharge that sort of negates the value of the museum card (in my opinion). Also, I wouldn’t bother with the unlimited use metro pass. It is unlikely that you will ride the metro enough for it to be worth it. Okay, enough advice, let’s get on the train.

This is a picture of the seats on the train across from us. One nice thing about train travel is that first class is just a little more money, so I went for first class tickets. It’s only a slightly large seat, but they serve you a meal which was much better than airplane food. I also liked that they had so many different seating arrangements. Four people could sit around a common table, and two people can sit side by side, or facing each other across a table.

Two and half hours later, we were in Paris. I didn’t even notice when we went through the chunnel. I thought it was just some random tunnel, and then we came out and my cell phone told me I was in France. Below is a picture of the Eurostar train in the Gare du Nord in Paris. I was kind of shocked that when we got off the train we didn’t have to go through customs or anything, we just walked right into Paris. I have to take a quick moment to say that the train travel experience was so much better than the air travel experience. You can show up 30 minutes before your train departs, your luggage stays with you, there is more room to walk around on the train, the food is better, and when you arrive you just get off the train and go (no waiting for luggage). I would love to be able to take a train like this to Chicago or Memphis. Okay, I’m done. Oh wait, one more thing. In Europe at the airports and train stations, you get all these random people coming up to you asking you if you need a taxi. Do not take a taxi from these people, only take taxis from the official taxi stand areas.

Right across the street from our hotel we had a McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I knew McDonald’s was everywhere, but I was a little surprised to see a KFC.

We had lunch at McDonald’s, because I get a strange kick out of eating at a foreign McDonald’s. The picture below is from inside the McDonald’s, you can click on it for a larger version. I love the way the menu says “Notre menu Golden Best Of”, Notre means our, so I guess they are saying “Our menu Golden Best Of”. It’s like english words with French grammar. In case you are wondering, I had the Royal with Cheese.

After lunch, we took the Metro to Montmartre and headed to Sacre Coeur (pronounced Sack-ra Ker, I think) which is a church at the highest point in Paris. These are the steps we hand to climb to reach Sacre Coeur with the city of Paris in the background. This was the first thing I really saw in Paris, and it was a bit of a culture shock. Paris is filled with gypsies and immigrants. Many of these immigrants can’t work legally, so they try to sell things to tourist. Some of them can be very pushy. At the bottom of these steps, one guy even poked me in the chest when I ignored him. It’s a good thing I don’t have anger management issues, or I probably would have been in a brawl with an illegal immigrant within my first hours of being in Paris. Now wouldn’t that be a great story. Don’t let that scare you away though, this was the only semi-bad experience I had with these people.

This is the Basilica Sacre Coeur at the top of the steps. I’ve heard that this is one church in Paris where they strongly enforce the no pictures inside rule, so I didn’t risk it. Notice the guy singing on the steps. This was a very cool environment. The guy was singing Video Killed the Radio Star and the crowd was singing along in about 10 different accents. Also, the pushy immigrants did not hang out near the church, so that was nice too. You can see a YouTube video of a guy singing on the steps here.

Here is another view of the crowd at Sacre Coeur with Paris in the background.

This is the Eiffel Tower in the distance as seen from Sacre Coeur.

This is the Moulin Rouge, it’s not far from Sacre Coeur, so I had to take a picture on our way back to the metro. I actually would have liked to see a show here, just because it is *the* Moulin Rouge, but I was with my aunt, so um, no.

Next we took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. I think the Arc was commissioned by Napoleon, and it is a tribute to France’s war veterans. Underneath it is France’s Tomb of the Unknown Solider. The Arc is also much bigger than it looks in this picture, and you can climb to the top.

These are the steps to the top of the Arc. There are 284 of them. According to Wikipedia, you can also take an elevator. Huh, that would have been nice to know.

This is a view of Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. In the distance, you can see Sacre Coeur, which is where we just were.

This is the Champs-Elysees, which is pronounced Shaams-el-ee-saay. If you say champs elsie, people will hate you. Anyways, the Champs-Elysees is one of the most famous streets in the world that I didn’t know existed until I went to Paris. There were lots of shops and restaurants with outdoor seating on this street. The shops I saw included Louis Vuitton, Cartier, a Disney Store, and a Virgin Megastore. We went inside the Virgin Megastore, and the Michael Jackson memorial was playing on all the TVs. Michael’s daughter Paris was speaking, which confused the hell out of me because the TV kept saying that Paris was speaking, but I was in Paris, and that made no sense. Eventually I figured it out.

Here is the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It’s tall.

Here is the viewing platform on top of the Arc. It’s weird, because from below you can’t even tell that there are people on the Arc, but there are actually a lot of people on the Arc.

The is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider under the Arc de Triomphe with the Champs-Elysees in the background.

As much as you plan and plan and plan, no trip goes perfectly. I got a lot of good advice from @Susanisk who lived in paris for like 6 months or something. One of her pieces of advice that I was most looking forward to taking was eating at Le Relais de Venise, which serves steak and frites (french fries) with a sauce that is supposed to be to die for. Here is a picture. After the Arc de Triomphe, we walked all the way to Porte Maillot to eat at Le Relais de Venise. When we got there, there was a sign on the door saying that they were closed the entire month of July for remodeling. Ironically, they have a London location, but I wanted to eat at the original in Paris. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back to Paris someday. Do you want to come with me? I’ll buy dinner. Hell, I’ll even spring for wine.

After the dinner fail, we walked back to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysees to Avenue Montaigne. Avenue Montaigne is a street filled with very fancy and expensive stores of designers like Dior, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, and Jimmy Choo. In other words, I could care less about Avenue Montaigne. Here is a picture of Dior.

The Eiffel Tower has a way of popping up everywhere in Paris. Here it is as seen from the end of Avenue Montaigne.

This is the Flame of Liberty. It was given to France by the International Herald Tribune (a english language international newspaper published in Paris) as a symbol of French-American friendship. Thank you Wikipedia. It is also located over the Pont de l’Alma tunnel which is the site of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash. Many people think the Flame of Liberty is a memorial to Princess Di, but it’s not.

At this point, it started to rain so we decided to head back towards our hotel and look for dinner. We ended up eating at Pizza Pino. Pizza in Paris seemed a little odd, but my goat cheese and artichoke heart pizza was delicious. After dinner, we walked by a protest. These are North Africans protesting for the right to work legally in France, or something like that.

This ends another long day. Tomorrow we take a boat trip on the Seine, visit the Louvre, and walk under the Eiffel tower. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Welcome to day 6. You are probably a little tired of all this by now, but we still have a lot to see, so suck it up and let’s go. This is our first full day in Paris. I tried to learn a little French before going to Paris, and in the process, I started following a few Parisian Tweeters. One of the people I followed was @ParisHeather who runs the Secrets of Paris blog. Heather is an american travel writer who has lived in France for the past 11 years or so, and she also gives small group tours of Paris. On a whim, I signed us up for one of Heather’s walking tours. She gave us a quick tour of Ile de la Cite, which contains Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and the Conciergerie. Then we took the Batobus up and down the Seine, while Heather pointed out various landmarks, gave us tips, and told us stories about living in France/Paris. The tour ended with a walk through the St. Germain des Pres district and the Latin Quarter. I thought the tour was well worth the money. Beyond the tour itself, it was also nice to talk to an american who really knows Paris and could answer all of our silly tourist questions.

A quick side track. While searching for Parisian tweeters, I also found the Katia and Kyliemac blog/podcast. Katia and Kyliemac are an Australian and a Michigander (as in person from Michigan) who live in Paris. They have a podcast about their lives as expats and also shorter podcasts with tourist tips and quirky French phrases. If you are going to Paris, I strongly reccomend checking out the Katia and Kyliemac podcast. Their podcast is also good if you want to live vicariously though people whose lives are far more interesting than yours

Okay, enough talking, here is Notre Dame.

This is the inside of Notre Dame. Most of the churches we saw on our trip had rules against taking pictures inside, and Notre Dame was no different except that everyone ignored this rule. So I did too. Besides, I don’t speak French, how am I supposed to know what a picture of a camera inside a circle with a line through it means?

Here is Notre Dame from the side.

This is the Batobus that we took with Heather up and down the Seine. It’s a fun way to get around, and a cheap way to take a Seine river cruise. They even pretend to give onboard announcements in English.

This is a street in the St. Germain des Pres district. The streets here are narrow with lots of cafes and markets. We had excellent gelato and crepes in this area. One of Heather’s best pieces of advice was to try a banana and Nutella crepe. Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread and it goes great with bananas. I had never heard of Nutella before, but it’s actually really easy to find in american grocery stores. It’s by the peanut butter. You can also try a Nutella banana crepe at the City Coffeehouse & Creperie in Clayton. As far as I could tell, the Clayton version taste as good as the French version, but it feels weird to eat a crepe on a plate. Crepes should really be street food.

Here is a video of the inside of Sainte Chapelle. I always forget that my camera can take these videos. It’s not the greatest quality, but it is a nice way to show more than you can in a single picture. Anyways, Sainte Chapelle is a chapel with amazing stained glass windows and it is located inside the Palais de Justice. The Palais de Justice contains the the head courts of France or something like that.

We spent the afternoon at the Louvre. Which of course is the world famous art museum. I’m not a huge art fan, but I love the Louvre simply because the building is amazing. In my opinion, even if you don’t like art, you must see the Louvre if you are in Paris. Here is a picture of the area outside the Louvre, notice the glass pyramid in the background.

Here is Mary Magdalene’s tomb inside the Louvre.

Here is a hall inside the Louvre. This space was amazing.

Here is the Mona Lisa. There were only about 1000 people trying to take her picture.

Another hall in the Louvre. See the sculpture through the entryway in the distance. It’s famous. I don’t remember what it is, but lot’s of people were taking its picture. Here is a closer look from my flickr set.

I think my favorite art in the Louvre was the Egyptian art. If you know me, you shouldn’t be surprised that I liked this cat.

Here is a sphinx. This is a good example of what I think is so great about the Louvre. They don’t just throw a bunch of art into a big building, they make sure that the space complements the art inside it. It’s hard to describe, but you really should see it someday.

Here is the entrance to the Louvre under the big glass pyramid.

This was my favorite room inside the Louvre. It’s a courtyard covered by a glass roof with sculptures everywhere. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was amazing.

Here is the famous Louvre glass pyramid up close.

Another picture of the area outside the Louvre.

After the Louvre, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower. Here is a picture of the Pont Neuf and the Ile de la Cite in the Seine. I wish you could stick your head inside this picture and look around. The scenery is tres impressive.

Here is the Eiffel Tower as seen from across the Seine on the Palais de Chaillot. I would have loved to go up the Eiffel Tower, but in the summer the lines are hours long. I wasn’t willing to waste that much time. Next time I will go to Paris in the off season. From here we walked down underneath the Eiffel Tower to the park on the other side. There are a lot of those immigrants selling miniature Eiffel Towers in this area, especially on the bridge across the Seine. When we were crossing the bridge, the Police came by to do a sweep, and they all went running. It was crazy, like 100 people went running in all different directions, and they were fast. I didn’t see the police even try to catch them though, it’s like they just wanted to scare them or something.

Here is a view of the Eiffel Tower from the Parc du Champ de Mars. People like to have picnics here and they gather in this park before sunset to see the Eiffel Tower’s lights turn on.

Only two days left. Tomorrow might be my favorite day of the trip. We take the train to Caen in Normandy and tour various D-day related sights. You will love it. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is going to be a long day, but we are focused on a single subject rather than trying to jam in as many different things as possible. Today we are traveling by train to Caen to go on a D-day tour. When I was planning this trip and I decided to take the day trip to Windsor, Bath, and Stonehenge in England (see day 3), I also started looking for day trips in France. My first thought was to take a trip to some type of winery, but I quickly stubbled across a bunch of D-day tours, and that seemed a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, most of these tours were bus tours, and Normandy is about 3 and a half hours from Paris by bus. The idea of being stuck on a bus with 50 other random people in a foreign country didn’t really appeal to me. Just when I was about to give up on the idea, I found these trips on LinkParis.com. On the Link Paris trips, you take a train to Caen. The train only takes 2 hours to get to Caen and it is way more comfortable than a bus. Plus the Link Paris trips are small group tours (like 8 people) rather than the 50 people on the bus tours.

Here is a picture of the Gare St. Lazare in Paris. This is the station where we caught our train to Caen. Of everything we did on our trip, this was the scariest part for me. There was very little English in this station. All of the overhead announcements were in French and only French. Fortunately finding the train was pretty easy. It helped to follow the random scattering of Americans trying to pronounce Caen. In case you are wondering, Caen is pronounced like “caa-uhn” but all one syllable. It’s more like a grunt than a word.

We arrived in Caen and met our tour guide. At first I thought she was British, because it kind of sounded like she had a British accent. Then she explained that she studied English for 8 years in England. Poor girl, the British taught her to talk funny Actually I enjoyed her accent a lot, maybe a little too much. Moving on… I think there were 8 people on our tour. A college student and his Mom from California, two women from Canada, a married couple from Michigan (I think), and of course my Aunt and I. The college student was traveling to Barcelona soon to tour Spain for 19 days. Note to self, in my next life, take advantage of the travel opportunities in college, they don’t happen later in life. After we all met up in the Caen train station, we got in the minivan and headed to the Caen Memorial Museum. The video on the museum’s web page gives a good overview of the tour we were on, and it is narrated by our tour guide, so you can hear her accent for yourself. Here is a picture of the museum’s lobby. I love that plane.

We were given a guided tour of the museum, which gave a good overview of the whole D-day operation. One of the exhibits in the museum contained letters written home by soldiers who fought in D-day. There were letters from American, Brittish, French, and German soldiers, which was cool, but I could only read the French and German letters because they were translated into English. They just assumed that if you spoke English, you would be able to read the 60 year old handwritten letter in English. Not so much. After the museum we saw a movie with real footage from D-day and had lunch in the museum’s restuarant. I had steak and frites, but it did not come with a sauce like the steak and frites at Le Relais de Venise would have. After lunch we had time to walk around the gardens behind the museum. There were American, English, and Canadian gardens. Below is a picture of the American garden. In case you didn’t know already, on the allies side during D-day, there were mainly American, British, and Canadian troops.

Here is the front of the Caen Memorial Museum. All those flags probably mean something, but I don’t know what that thing is.

This is a picture from the Longues-sur-mer battery of the remains of the Arromanches artificial harbor. This is where the British built an artificial harbor to move equipment into France. The structures you see in the water are the remains of this harbor.

Here is a gun at Longues-sur-mer that could be used to fire on the Omaha or Gold beaches.

Here is a gun bunker that was damaged. I wish I could say that this was damaged in battle, but I think our guide said that this damage happened after D-day. Apparently the allies stored ammunition in this bunker, and one day it um… amunized.

The next stop on the tour was the American cemetery overlooking Omaha beach. Omaha beach was also called Bloody Omaha. Around 1500 americans lost their life fighting on D-day, many of them on Omaha beach. Here is the view of Omaha beach from the American cemetery.

Here is a picture of the American flag over the American cemetery. This cemetery contains the graves of 9,387 American servicemen (and a few women). The American cemetery is considered American soil, although I’m not sure what that means. I think it means the United States owns the land and does not pay taxes on it. However, I’m pretty sure that if you commit a crime here, the French police will still arrest you, but I could be wrong. You probably want to ask something like, wasn’t being in this cemetery an overwhelming emotional experience? To which I must respond that if you think I’m going to share my emotions on this blog, you really don’t know me In all seriousness, we were only there for 45 minutes, and it was so visually stunning that I rushed around to make sure I got every possible picture. In other words, I didn’t really have time to process it all. I will say that it was very surreal to have such a distinctly American experience in France, and of course it was beyond humbling to think of the sacrifices made in this place by these men (and women).

This is a picture of an unknown soldier, and it might be my favorite picture from the entire trip. I hate to ruin the moment, but in this cemetery, the Christian soldiers get cross gravestones and the Jewish soldiers get star of david gravestones. Which makes sense, but the unknown soldiers all get crosses. Isn’t that a bit presumptuous? What if they are Jewish? or atheist? Okay, in war there probably aren’t many atheist, but you get my point. Oh!!!! that reminds me. As I was walking out of this cemetery, I heard a little girl ask her Dad something like, “Why does God let people fight wars and kill each other?” All I could think was, good luck with that dude. He had a pretty good answer though, something about free will and choices.

Here is another picture of the gravestones. I love the way you can see the Atlantic ocean in the background.

The cemetery is fairly big, and I felt sorry for the guy who was in the very back corner. I mean hardly anybody comes by to visit him, so I decided to take his picture and make him famous on my blog. Daniel J. Knapp, welcome to Roseyland!

Here is the reflecting pool and memorial area of the cemetery.

After the cemetery, we were taken to Omaha beach, which shockingly is no where near the city of Omaha. I tried to imagine what it would be like to see thousands of soldiers running on this beach with gunfire and motor blast everywhere, but it was hard. I mean it pretty much looks like any other beach, but colder.

Here is a picture of our tour guide (the woman). I have to admit, I had a little crush on her. First she had the whole French/British accent thing going on, but she was also a total history nerd and she obviously loved her job and meeting all the people who take the tour. It was also cool to be around a French person who wasn’t from Paris. I don’t know why, but she seemed different than a Parisian. Which I’m sure she was, but you wouldn’t think that as an american it would be noticeable. Of course this is probably all in my head, but it’s my story and I’m sticking to it

Here is the site of the first American cemetery on Omaha beach, which has since been moved to the American cemetery that we just saw.

This is la Pointe du Hoc, the sight of an army ranger assault on D-day. The army rangers had to scale these cliffs, while being shot at by the Germans, to reach the top and disable a few heavily fortified guns. It turns out the guns had been moved, but the rangers successfully took Pointe du Hoc none the less. This site is also considered american soil, but again, I’m not sure exactly what that means.   

This is the ground at Pointe du Hoc. It has been left pretty much the same since D-day. All of these craters are from allied bombing attempts to destroy the guns. Kind of makes you wish you could give them a few laser or GPS guided bombs, doesn’t it?

Here are are some of the German fortifications at Pointe du Hoc, which are all heavily damaged. While I was climbing around one of the bunkers, I came across a group of German tourist, which was kind of weird. I wonder what it’s like to be German and see something like this. I felt like they didn’t want me there, but that’s probably just my imagination.

After Pointe du Hoc, we were taken back to the Caen train station. We had some time, so my Aunt and I decided to eat at a local restaurant. This was a mini adventure in itself, because the waiter spoke virtually no English and the menu was of course only in French. I ordered the cheeseburger and my Aunt ordered fish and chips, which were the only things on the menu we could read. Before our entrees, the waiter brought us these. We started to eat it, but it didn’t taste right to me, and I became convinced that it was some type of condiment, and that we would look dumb if we ate it. So we stopped. It turned out we were supposed to eat it, and it is some form of beet juice. I don’t like beets. This was the only food I came across during our trip that I didn’t like.

I think this was my favorite day of the trip. Not only was the tour great and the D-day history amazing, but it was also great to see the French countryside. I definitely feel like I’ve experienced more of France by getting out of Paris for a day. Only one more full day left. Thank god, my feet hurt. Tomorrow we will try to see everything we haven’t yet seen in Paris. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is our last day in Paris, and the last day of the trip. Our only officially planned activity on this day was a wine tasting lunch, so we took it a little easy and tried to fit in some odds and ends. The wine tasting was at noon near the Louvre, so my plan was to start near the Musee de l’Armee to see Napolean’s tomb, and then walk by the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin des Tuileries to the wine tasting lunch. Here is a picture of Invalides which contains the Musee de l’Armee (museum of France’s armed forces) and Napoleon’s tomb. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to get to Napoleon’s tomb, so we just walked around courtyard in the building and moved on.   

On the way to the Place de la Concorde, I got this picture of the Eiffel tower. I love the way the Eiffel tower just pops up everywhere in Paris, it almost looks more impressive from a distance than up close.

While we were walking, we came across this marching band. Bastille Day was only few days away, so I am assuming that they had something to do with the Bastille Day festivities.

This is the Pont Alexandre III. The building in the background is the Grand Palais, which is a big glass roofed exhibition hall. We looked inside, but it appeared to be empty.

Here is the Place de la Concorde with the Luxor Oblisk. The Oblisk is originally from Egypt, and it is older than the city of Paris itself. I am assuming that the stands with the French flag canopy were built for Bastille Day. I wonder if this is where Sarkozy views the Bastille Day parade.

Here is the Fontaine des Mers in the Place de la Concorde.

Here is the Jardin des Tuileries, which is a garden/park that connects the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. I believe it is also the site of a former palace, or something like that.

I liked this ferris wheel next to the Jardin des Tuileries. It’s not the London Eye, but it fits in well with the surroundings.

Our wine tasting lunch was in a wine cellar below a building across from the Louvre. This is the courtyard in that building. I thought it was cool, so I took it’s picture. I wish I had a picture of the steps down to the cellar. They were stone and twisty. It felt like we were going into a medieval dungeon.

Here is a picture of the wine cellar where we had our wine tasting lunch. In case you are wondering, we did the O Chateau wine and cheese tasting lunch. We tasted 5 wines (1 bubbly, 2 white, and 2 red) and we were also served a variety cheeses, meats, and bread. The sommelier told us a lot about the wine and the different wine producing regions of France. I don’t remember much of what he said, because well, there was a plate of cheese in front of me. One of the coolest parts of this tasting was that the other people in our group were from all over the world, but the tasting was in English, so they all spoke english. It was cool to be around such a geographically diverse group of people and be able to understand what they were saying. The wine itself was pretty good. I was hoping for life changingly great, but that might have been setting the bar a little too high. I almost hate to admit it, but to date the best glass of wine I have ever had was at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. The tasting did reaffirm that I like a good Bordeaux, so you know… if you are thinking of getting me a present.

After the wine tasting lunch, we headed to the Musee d’Orsay. This is another art museum like the Louvre, but with slightly newer (but not modern) art and it is not as huge as the Louvre. Here is a picture of the main hall in the Musee d’Orsay. I thought it was very impressive. Apparently, the building used to be a train station.

I like this polar bear. He would look good in my living room. I wonder how much he cost.

After the Musee d’Orsay, we had about 90 minutes left until the museums closed, so we hurried back to Invalides to see if we could find Napoleon’s tomb. It turns out that the entrance to Napoleon’s tomb is not inside the Musee de l’Armee, but it is inside this building, which we did not walk far enough to see earlier in the day.

I think this is Napoleon’s tomb, but I’m not sure. You see, there is another smaller tomb off to the side with Napoleon’s name on it, but this looks more like Napoleon’s tomb to me, so who knows. Maybe you do, if so, please leave a comment.

This alter was inside the building with Napoleon’s tomb. Very ornate.

After Napoleon’s tomb, we had some time to kill. I wanted to see the Eiffel tower with it’s lights on, which wouldn’t happen for another 4 hours, so we headed to the Champs-Elysees to have dinner and do some window shopping. Here is another shot of the Eiffel tower and the Seine river. You really need to see this in person, pictures just don’t do it justice.

Here is the Arc de Triomphe from the Champs-Elysees. Notice the Cartier store on the right.

There were a lot of automobile company stores on the Champs-Elysees. I don’t think they sold actual cars, but you could go inside and look at the different car models, which was cool. This is the Renault store.

Finally, we made it to the Parc du Champs de Mars to watch the lighting of the Eiffel tower. They turn the lights on at sunset, and in the summer, the sunset is very late in Paris. This night, the sunset was at 9:53 PM, and it didn’t really get dark until about 10:30. I think this is because most of continental Europe is on the same time zone, which puts France significantly to the west in it’s time zone. Longitudinally, France should really be in the same time zone as the United Kingdom. I like it light later though, so I’m not complaining. Now back to the lighting of the Eiffel tower, I swear I had seen pictures on TV of the Eiffel tower at night where it is covered in these sparkly camera flash like lights. I expected these lights to come on at sunset, but they did not, the tower just became illuminated with regular old interior lighting. I was confused, because a lot of people had gathered to watch the tower, and when the lights came on, they didn’t react, they just sat there like nothing had happened. I thought that maybe the sparkly lights would come on soon, but minutes went by and nothing happened. I wasn’t willing to wait forever, so at 10:00 PM, we got up to leave, and then boom! The sparkly lights came on. Apparently the sparkly lights only run for 5 minutes every hour after dark. Something about being green. Here is a video I took with my camera of the sparkly lights and the scene of people gathered to watch in the Parc du Champs de Mars.

And with that, the London & Paris adventure is pretty much over. I’ll leave you with this parting shot of the illuminated Eiffel tower on a summer evening in Paris.

This is the last real vacation post, but I still have one post left about my trip. I have some bits and pieces to throw in, and I want to answer a few questions like, which is better? London or Paris? and even more fun, how much did all of this cost? You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Okay, so I told you that the trip was over, but it’s not quite over, I mean we are still in France. We took a taxi to the Charles De Gaulle airport 4 hours before our flight. I thought that this would be way too much time, but I had no idea what the airport would be like, and I figured better safe than sorry. Turns out 4 hours was just about right. Here is the American Airlines check-in area, and this is just for the New York and Chicago flights. It took over an hour to get through the check-in line and about 45 minutes to get through security after that. Not the most fun I have ever had. I’ve never seen an airport as chaotic as Charles De Gaulle. I went through LaGuardia at Thanksgiving once, and it was crazy, but not this crazy.

Here is a view of the gate area after we got through security. I took this from an elevated cafe area where I had one last Pain au Chocolate before leaving France. I don’t think I have mentioned pain au chocolates yet. They are basically a croissant with dark chocolate baked in. I was a big fan, they were chocolaty, but not overly sweet. Pain au Chocolate is pronounced (Pahn-ah-shoc-ah-lot), it’s very fun to say.

The flight was long, we left Paris around noon and arrived in Chicago at about 2:30pm (which was really like 9:30pm). There isn’t much to say about the flight except that 777s are way more fun than 767s. If at all possible, you want to travel on a plane with personal video screens. In Chicago, I only had 1 and half hours to get though customs, re-check my bag, and go through security again in the domestic terminal. That was just enough time. It took me one hour to get to my next gate, but I made it. When I finally arrived back at my condo, the cat celebrated my arrival by meowing at the top of his lungs for a good 30 minutes. I think he was a little pissed. I stayed home the next day, and he pretty much never left my side. Poor guy. Here are most of the touristy trinkets I bought on my trip. I bought French wine at Harrods in England (that makes sense), a mini London double decker bus, a mini Eiffel tower, and then I threw in my left over money, Oyster card, and Avenue Q program. I still have the money. I figure I can use it when I go back.

I have about a million things left that I want to say, but I can’t keep blogging about my 9 day trip forever. Instead, I’ll just cram everything that is left into this one post. First, a video of naked women on the streets of Paris. Someone in my Twitter stream posted a link to this video right after I got back. Perfect timing. I love this video because it really feels like paris to me, the architecture, the language, the naked women. Actually I didn’t see any naked women in Paris. I must have done something wrong. Regardless, I’m totally addicted to this song now. I have it on my iPhone and the iPod in my car. Check it out, there is no actual nudity in this video, but it might not be work safe. Try to watch it in HD if you can.

If you are like me, you want to know how much all of this cost. I’m a little worried that it is uncool to talk about money like this, but this is the information I always want and can never find, because nobody will just come out and say how much they spent. Lucky for you, we don’t have decency standards here at Roseyland. I was going to give a detailed line by line cost analysis, but it got to be too complicated with me paying for some things and my aunt others, and exchange rates, etc… The bottom line is that this trip cost about $4000 per person. Here are the cost of some of the items per person:

• Plane tickets - $1000
• Hotels - $1000 (per person)
• Train ticket from London to Paris - $175
• Windsor, Stonehenge, and Bath day trip - $130
• Normandy D-day day trip - $300

If you add up the numbers above, you are probably wondering what I spent the last $1400 on. Good question. We didn’t really do anything lavish or expensive. All I can say is that between food, taxis, metro rides, and entrance to various attractions, it all adds up. I took $400 in Euros and Pounds with me, and I easily spent most of it. I also used my credit card a lot. If I had it to do over again, I would probably use more cash and avoid the foreign transaction fees on my credit card. If you are a Bank of America customer, you can use your ATM card at Barclays ATMs in England and BNP Paribas in France without paying any fees. Of course you still have to hope that Bank of America gives you a decent exchange rate. Also, you can’t use American credit cards at self service kiosk in Europe, because American credit cards don’t use the chip and pin system that European credit cards use.

A question I have been asked a few times is, “Which did you like better? London or Paris?”. Ugh, this is pretty much impossible to answer. Paris felt a lot more chaotic to me. In my first few hours in city, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it. Partly this was because of the pushy immigrants trying to sell me things and partly because I had grown attached to London. Paris definitely grew on me though, it’s an absolutely beautiful city. Paris feels more exotic than London, and having been to Paris makes me feel like I have truly been to Europe. That being said, I feel like London has a greater breadth of things to do. For example, I loved going to a show in London’s West End, which isn’t really they type of thing you can do in Paris. I want to say something like Paris has amazing things to see, and London has amazing things to do. Does that make sense? If I had to choose between London and Paris, I would reluctantly choose London. I feel guilty saying it, but mostly this is because I speak English, and speaking the language opens the door to a lot of experiences you might not be able to appreciate otherwise. I recommend seeing both cities though, and while you are at it, see the rest of Europe too.

I am an obsessive compulsive planner. I’d hate to go all the way to Europe and forget to see something important, so I had itineraries planned out with a number of different contingency plans. In the process of planning this trip, I came across a few good tools that I want to give a shout out to. The best tool by far is Tripadvisor.com, Tripadvisor has list of attractions, restaurants, and hotels, which are all rated and commented on by fellow travelers. Tripadvisor also has very active forums, where you can ask just about any question and get a useful answer. In addition, Tripadvisor owns FlipKey.com, which is a site that will help you find vacation rental apartments all over the world. If I ever go back to London or Paris, I will definitely look into renting one of these apartments. They usually have a minimum nights stay, but if you are staying long enough, they are comparable in cost to a hotel. If you are going with a group of people, an apartment can be significantly cheeper than a hotel, and a lot more comfortable/fun in my opinion. The nice thing about the FlipKey site is that the apartments are reviewed and many are professionally managed, so you feel like you know what you are getting into.

I’m not a big fan of travel books, but for this trip I purchased the Frommer’s London and Paris Day by Day books. I really liked these books because they contained sample iteneraies you can follow to get the most out of a small number of days in a city. I didn’t use any of these itineraries directly, but I found them helpful for making my own itineraries. These books also helped me prioritize different attractions and they gave me an idea of how much time I could expect to spend at them. One last thing, at Barnes & Nobel or Boarders, they sell these laminated Streetwise maps of different cities around the world. They fold up nicely, and it is really nice to have a map before you arrive, so that you are ready to go when you do.

I tried to learn a little French before this trip, and I even got a 6 month subscription to Rosetta Stone. For the most part, I like the Rosetta Stone method of teaching, and I was able to read French okay while I was in Paris. After I got back from my trip, I discovered Livemocha.com. Livemocha has free online classes for a bunch of languages, and I’ve actually been using them to keep working on my French. I think I like Livemocha better than Rosetta Stone, which is odd, because Livemocha is free. Livemocha also has a social networking aspect to it, and you can pay $12.95 for a travel crash course. I wish I had known about this before my trip, because a travel focused language course would have been a lot better for me than a general language course. Oh well, next time. If you are really serious about learning French, you might want to check out the Alliance Francaise which has a local St. Louis chapter. The Alliance Francaise offers a number of real life French courses, which are reasonably priced.

Okay, this is getting way to long, so here are my last bits of advice. I took over 1300 pictures, so make sure you have a big enough memory card. Also, have an extra camera battery to carry around with you. It would suck to have your camera battery run out half way through the day. Some people tried to talk me out of taking my computer on the trip, because some customs agents can get nosey or the computer could be stolen. I think this is silly though. Nobody ever even tried to look at my computer. I would make sure that you have a backup before you leave, and don’t have anything of a questionable nature on your computer (or camera, or cell phone, etc…). You might even want to encrypt your hard drive incase your computer is stolen. Also, make sure you have enough power adaptors before you leave, they have funny plugs in foreign countries, and of course make sure that you can plug your various electronics into a 220V socket.

I loved traveling to Europe, and I hope to go again soon. If I could go anywhere next, I would go to Italy. I even have the guide book already. Who wants to come with me?

You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.