Day 5: Mosying along the Champs-Elysees

First stop: Sacre Coeur Cathedral (translated Sacred Heart Cathedral)

This is up in the northern part of the city. I was told by a friend that this was a beautiful place and it was. We had to hike up some stairs to get to it as it is on a hill giving it a lovely view of Paris. Well it would have been lovely if there wasn't so much smog that day. Inside the church it is very quaint and simple. Smaller than you would think from the outside. Lots of little chapels and alters surround the main alter. And just as we were beginning to walk around a group of nuns came and started to sing. Oh it was so beautiful and and looking at the mosaics and stained glass windows of the stories of Christ really touched me. It was probably one of the most perfect moments of my life. We ambled around the area for a little bit and made our way down to the metro. I stopped in a little convenience store for some water and then we found an internet cafe. I think Jason was going to check on something about his credit card. But I decided to get on too and that is where you get this lovely blog post .


Second stop: Moulin Rouge

Funny that would we go from a church to a striptease. Well, it was on the route. We didn't stay too long. Just long enough to get some pictures in front of the windmill and look at some of the pictures that are outside the doors. Be careful they are holograms and if you move a certain way you just might get an eyeful. Scandalous! But they had some interesting information too. Lots of stars came to the Moulin Rouge (can't recall any right now). I guess it's always been a famous place even before the movie.


Third Stop: Arc de Triomphe

Wow, this was amazing. So big with beautiful carvings. The Arc is in the center of several roads converging into one large roundabout. There are no marked lanes, cars just drive where ever they want and change lanes with reckless abandon. I watched the cars for the slightest hope of an accident. (I know I'm evil, just a small one, nothing fatal or anything.) So the Arc stands on its own little island of concrete, not having to compete with any other structure for attention to its grandeur. Poetic huh? I took lots of pictures and then we took the underground pedestrian walkway to get a closer look. We decided to wait to go to the top until the next day once we had our museum pass. So we just took in everything underneath. It's kind of hard to describe it. You all will just have to go there and see for yourself.

Fourth (well we didn't really stop, its a road you walk down it): Champs-Elysees

One of the roads that stops at the Arc de Triomphe is the Champs-Elysees. This is the most famous street in Paris mainly for its shopping. It has all the amazing stores. You got money to burn this is where you do it. Louis Vouitton and more. We just walked down and drooled because we knew none of it could be ours. On our way down we decided to stop and eat at the French version of a fast food place called Quick. The food wasn't very good and the service wasn't either. I had to wait an extra five minutes just to have them leave off tomatoes and lettuce and mayonaise. Then we kept walking some more stopping in stores here and there. Then we came upon two palaces on the side of the road. Just sitting there. So we checked them out. One is the Le Petit Palais (as pictured to the right) and the other is Le Grande Palais. I think one is offices and the other is a museum. We didn't go in but just stared for a few moments.

Down the street in between the two palaces leads to a bridge called the Alexandre III Bridge. It had gold statued columns and a great view of Eiffel Tower with the Seine river. Kodak Moment! I was excited and looking forward to tomorrow when we would actually go up to the top. Well, some more wandering and going back to our hotel so Melanie and I could find some good postcards. There was a little store just around the corner from our hotel so we grabbed some snacks for our dinner. Chocolate cookies and ice cream. Mmmmm.

End of Day 4: First Glimpse

I'll keep this one short since there is only a few hours left in the day. Quick little story that I failed to mention last time. When we came to Hotel Lescot, we just sent Melanie in to talk to the desk clerk (since she could speak the best French). Well he couldn't speak any English so he called in another guy who could. His name was Carat (not sure of the spelling). We had decided to ask to see the room before we take it just in case it was a dive. So she did and came out with a thumbs up. I waited while Jason and Melanie went up in the small elevator. Carat started talking to me. Asking if Jason was mine or Melanie's boyfriend. Then he asked if we would want to go to an Irish Pub with him right then to hear some good music. I told him we would think about it and let him know.

Well we hung out in our room for a little while and then decided we were hungry. Carat wasn't anywhere in sight when we went down so we figured he had given up on us. We wandered around. Lots of open 24 hours cafes and a McDonalds and Pizza Hut. Well, we picked a cafe and had a pretty good meal. Then we wandered around our neighborhood. Lots of hotels and restaurants. But there was this garden area by a mall I guess that was pretty cool and then we happened upon a cathedral just smack in the middle of all this 20th century commercial nonsense. We were quite surprised and even more so that it was St. Eustache, a cathedral on my list. It was interesting looking. Gothic on one side and romanesque on the other. There was a really cool ampitheater like place in front of it where people were just hanging out. Then we went up some stairs and caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. Just the tip. Melanie was ecstatic and took a few pictures. Then back to the hotel.

Jason and I were ready for bed when Carat called and invited us again to the pub. Melanie tried to convince us to go but we were so tired. We said we would go tomorrow. Melanie went to explain and was gone a long time. I got a little worried, thinking maybe she went alone with him. But she came back and told us of her lovely conversation. I think Carat had a little crush on her. Time to sleep.

sorry wasn't as short as I thought.

Day 4: Paris Here We Come!

We woke up early today to squeeze in some last minute sights in London before we had to catch our train to Paris. We wanted pictures of the front of Buckingham Palace and the guards so we went there first. With our packs strapped to our backs we hiked up the street. The weather was a little overcast so our pictures are kind of blah. Also they didn't have the guards with the tall furry hats and red coats. Just ordinary guards. We hung out there longer than we probably should have but oh well. We were really good at wasting time in London.

Okay so then we got on the tube to Waterloo Station to drop our bags off so we didn't have to carry them everywhere. Jason didn't really want to do this thinking it would waste more time but we made him anyway. Then back on the tube up to the British Museum. Even though we had just started my feet were already killing me. I totally brought the wrong shoes (really not the wrong shoes just not so good on the cobblestones).

We picked a couple of rooms in the Museum to check out: Egyptian and Greek Rooms. We saw the Rosetta Stone which was pretty cool. I remember learning about it in middle school or something and then I was looking at it. Awesome! Then Mel and I looked at other stuff while filmed a little. Mel and I liked to pretend we were shooting a tour guide video and since we were in London we had to have British accents. Mel was really good at it but mine wavered in and out. There was a piece of the Sphinx's beard, Statue of Ramses II, etc. I'm not that big of a museum person so any chance I got to sit down I took it. We only a spent a short time there before we needed to catch our train. We caught the train at Waterloo Station at 1:40 to Paris.

We were sitting somewhat next to each other on the train. On the train there are sections of four seats around a small table on each side of the train. Sitting next to me was an Englishman and in front of me was a Frenchman (a quite handsome one at that). After a bit of time and some broken ice Jason and I got to talking to the two men. They were lawyers and colleagues. Englishman's name was John and the Frenchman's name was Alexander. We talked a lot about our countries and politics and such. Jason loved it. Then they gave us some tips on good things to see in Paris. It was really fun talking to them. Then we arrived in Paris!!

We pulled into Gare du Nord which is in the northern district of Paris. After we got our bearings and a map we set out in search of the internet to find a hotel. We wrote down several possibilities and then went back to the station. We bought a 3-day metro pass and caught the #4 train to mid-Paris. We got off at Chatelet Station and walked for a while until we found the right street. The first hotel we found had no vacancies and as we were going to head to the next hotel on the list we saw another hotel sign just down the street. But again, no. But third time's a charm and we found one that was a nice hotel with an extremely small elevator. The bathroom was really nice only the light didn't work. So we paid for the night at Hotel Lescot.

to be continued....

Day 3: Cramming in a week's worth of sightseeing

Okay this is really really long.

Sept 11, 2006

We woke up a bit late this morning. Mainly because Jason turned off the alarm clock thinking we would appreciate the extra sleep. Well, we didn't. As Melanie and I got ready, meaning packing and what not because we were going to find a different hotel, we sent Jason to go get some breakfast from a "nearby" grocery. We waited for almost an hour for him to get back. Man I was so bugged. We wasted a tons of sightseeing time. We didn't leave the hotel until around 11:00 am. We should have been at Buckingham Palace by then.

Well, we hopped onto the Metro, in silence, to Victoria Station. We got off and there was a nice little park where we stopped to eat the food that Jason bought. At this time, Melanie and I had decided that Jason could no longer be in charge of the alarm clock or getting us food. More time is wasted. We find our hotel after getting lost for a bit. It is called the Hotel Rama and it was a disaster. We got put into a basment room where there was only room for the beds, a dresser and a small little walk-way between the beds and the wall. The bathroom was even smaller than the last one. If I had been any bigger I would not have been able to squeeze through the shower door. Ridiculous. And it was more expensive.

So then we tried to figure out what to do next. We needed to purchase our Eurostar tickets to Paris sometime today and we would have to go to Waterloo Station for that. Well, since Buckingham Palace was just up the street we decided to do that first. It's on Buckinham Palace Road, fancy that!

We bought tickets for a tour of the State Rooms. These are only open to the public when the Queen is away which is only a two month period. So it was lucky that we happened to be there at the right time. The rooms were amazing and we had a little audio device that explained things as we walked around. I couldn't take photos unfortunately but I'm sure you can seen them online. Also, because this year is the Queen's 80th birthday they had an extra display of several of her gowns. So beautiful. My favorites were the ones she wore when she was young, in the '50s. After that we took a quick walk around the gardens but didn't have much time to take pictures because we had to hurry to Westminster Abbey before it closed.

We hopped on a bus, can I just say that the transit system in London is top notch. Everything was so easy. We headed to Westminster Abbey, snapped some quick shots of the outside and went in. It's mostly just a church with a whole bunch of memorials and tombs in it. But famous historical figure's tombs. We saw Elizabeth I buried near her sister Mary Tudor, Geoffrey Chaucer, Mary, Queen of Scots, Oliver Cromwell and lots of others.
We saw the old coronation chair and the grave of the unknown warrior. We left just as it was closing.



Then a few feet away was Big Ben and Parliament. We rested and took pictures in Parliament square where apparently people are not really supposed to go there as there is no way to get to it other than by jay-walking. Seriously I don't think I saw one crosswalk to it. Also, funny tidbit, since the cars drive on the other side of the road all the crosswalks tell you which way to look. It was really helpful because I constantly found myself looking in the wrong direction.

Next stop: Waterloo Station, the main train station in London. It was something to see. We bought our Eurostar tickets after quite a bit of trouble with Melanie and Jason's debit cards. They were frozen. Apparently it doesn't matter if you call ahead and say "Hey I'm gonna be in some foreign country from this day to this spending loads of money so don't freeze my card." Nope. Doesn't matter at all. Of course I never had a problem. We reserved our time to go to Paris and moved on.

We then took a bus to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Actually we crossed over it. The bridge not the Tower, just in case you were wondering. We didn't feel like going in so it didn't matter that it was closed when we got there. The bridge is really cool looking lit up at night. The Tower of London was pretty interesting too. It's one of the oldest surviving buildings in London. It has a playground...that's gotta be new.

Being in London was really cool for me. I've always loved learning about royalty, where and how they live or lived. Though I didn't get to see as many palaces as I would have liked it still was fun.

After the Tower Bridge we we found a pizza place to eat at. Melanie and Jason were appalled that I ordered the American (pepperoni pizza). Sorry, but as far as food goes there is nothing in London that you couldn't find in America, except for maybe spotted dick, but I didn't see that anywhere.

Then the metro took us back to our crappy hotel where we relaxed by watching "White Oleander" and then it started raining for our last night in London. Oh and for Julie's and Alyson's benefit: the crosswalk signal man is green in Europe.

Day 2: London Baby!

Sept 10

I was led into the Customs line from Hell. It took an hour and a half to get
through. Once I did I met Melanie and Jason at my baggage claim who had been waiting for three hours. What do you do? Next was deciding where to go. We had no hotel reservations, we were just gonna wing it. We knew we wanted to go to church and the sacrament meeting we could catch was in South Kensington. So that's where we went. We bought our Tube pass after getting some Pounds and caught the next train.

First thing we needed was a hotel. So we found an internet place right next to the station and checked what was around. We made a list of a few and then tried to figure out where we were. So we needed a map. Then we hoisted our packs and off we went. We got a little lost but on the way we saw the Victoria and Albert Musuem and the Natural History Musuem and hey where church would be. We seemed to be in the Victoria and Albert section of London because everything seemed to be dedicated to them.

And coincidentally we checked into the Albert Hotel. Our receptionist was very nice and helped us out even though they don't normally take walk-ins. Our room is kind of small with two bunk beds, making this more of a hostel than a hotel. We do have our own bathroom which is good but really small and a disgusting shower. Jason plopped down on the bed and napped while Mel and I quickly changed for church. We were excited to hear an English accent from the pulpit.

Once we got Jason up and going we headed over a block to the building. Now because of lack of sleep we were all extremely tired. I have never had the hardest time trying to stay awake in church. Though I tried really hard for the first speaker. She was really spunky and had an accent. Kind of reminded me of Julie. After Sacrament meeting we decided we needed a power nap before we could do anything else.

After the nap I talked them into going to Kensington Palace. Yay! First palace! I really wanted to go in but we missed the last admission by a second because of dawdling. I was a little bugged but oh well the gardens were nice. So we spent the rest of the day walking around Kensington Garden and Hyde Park taking pictures. Here's a couple:



Time to eat. We walked an insane amount of distance to find some place to eat, the whole time passing many viable options, but no one would make a decision. We finally settled on a little cafe where the food was okay and then took the long trek back to the hotel. We ended up walking around the outside of the whole garden, as now it was closed. And it is big my friend, it is big. Back at the hotel we tried to figure out plans for tomorrow and then never has sleep come so soon.