I finally got around to posting (and organizing - which was the bigger task) all of my photos from the trip. They are in "rough" chronological order of when we did things, but they are organized by topic and some of the really bad shots are taken out:
Disneyland Paris - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619510065337/
Eiffel Tower - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619593543944/
Musee d'Orsay - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619510157905/ (one of my photos of the clock from inside Musee d'Orsay is being used in an online Paris guide!!)
Musee Rodin - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619593780420/ (my favorite place in Paris)
Gayle and I at the Arc d'Triomphe - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619594010416/
Paris Day 2
The Louvre and Tuilleries Garden - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619510818469/
Musee l'Orangerie - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619511086937/
Notre Dame - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619511201545/
Batobus ride around Paris - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619511321167/
Off to London
TGV and Eurostar - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619594950748/
Random London shots - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619513073299/
Westminster Abbey - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619513166671/ (one of my favorite spots in London)
Big Ben - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619596640914/
Flight on the London Eye - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619597585358/
The Guard warming up at the Barracks - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619514419203/ (an unexpected highlight of the trip)
Hyde Park & Kensington Palace - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619598178822/
Tower of London - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619598379924/
John Wesley Museum - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619515034079/
Windsor Castle/St. George Chapel - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157619598683222/
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Our last blog entry for the trip!
Well here it is folks - our last blog of the trip.
Kara: We had planned to spend our last day in the UK out at Oxford but as we told you
yesterday we altered the plan a bit and so instead we headed out to Windsor so we could get back a bit earlier in the day and get packed and ready for our flights home tomorrow.
We headed off to the train station, got our tickets at the little self-serve machines, and got right on the train that departed about five minutes later. Unlike yesterday where we would have had to go up to another underground/train station, this train left right from our station which was most convenient. The train ride was pleasant enough and took only about 45 minutes.
We arrived at Windsor/Eton Riverside station. We walked a few short blocks to the main visitor entrance of Windsor Castle. All I can really say about the Castle is - WOW! What an amazing and impressive place. Pictures do nothing to expose the incredible size and sprawl of the castle. Its setting up on a hill only adds to the grandeur as you approach this place.
Gayle: I had visited Windsor Castle on my previous visit to England and was glad to make a return visit. My memory had downplayed the size, but I was immediately reminded of why I like it so. It was curious to see the rooms that had been destroyed/damaged by the fire, as all of the trims and paints were so much brighter than the other rooms. In the renovation they included a new octagonal room that now connects the public state apartments with the actual residence. Of course the residence was roped off from us. :(
For the first day ever on this trip, it was sprinkling rain. Although not a good combination when visiting Windsor, I was glad Kara had to finally experience a typical weather day here.
Because of the precipitation, the changing of the guard was not held, but instead a smaller ceremony. This included the "Castle band" and they were shockingly good. Add to that they were playing fairly contemporary music, it was quite enjoyable.
Kara: We toured both the state apartments and Queen Mary's dollhouse - both were quite impressive. We also went through St. George's church which was the site of Charles and Camilla's wedding a few years ago. It was a beautiful church. Small in comparison to St. Paul's or Westminster but still beautiful.
It was time to leave the castle and we decided to grab lunch before heading back to London on our return train. We had passed a pub on our way in that I was interested in having lunch in. Gayle wasn't so sure about the idea, but they had fish and chips on the menu so she said it would be okay. So we proceeded into the Horse and Groom for lunch of Shepherd's Pie for me and Fish and Chips for Gayle. We took a bit of ribbing from the bar-keep for not adding a pint of ale to our meals, but neither of us is much for beer. We knew we'd be having a different kind of pint a bit later in the day.
Gayle: Oh yeh, the Dollhouse. It's a precise replica of then-Queen Mary's home, and we mean precise. Artists were commissioned to paint miniatures of the painting, and it was complete with working electricity and running water!
We tranported back to London without incident, but Kara was having an ice cream craving. So a stop at the mini-mart was required.
Kara: We found this 24 hour mini mart that's really one long shelf in the middle with a freezer at the back and a cooler down the other side. Not much of a store, but they've had everything we've needed or wanted in the way of snacks, water, etc. I was in serious need of ice cream and two weeks of ads for Ben and Jerrys, which must be quite big here, had nearly done me in, so we both grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerrys Half Baked, which is a luscious combo of vanilla and chocolate ice cream with brownie and unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough. We should have grabbed a pint to share but we didn't. One of us ate her pint dry the other gave up half-way in. We'll leave you to figure out which was which.
For the evening we grabbed food from the local eateries behind the hotel and are spending the evening packing, posting, and getting ready to head out tomorrow. While we're both looking forward to being home, seeing family and friends (and our kitties) and sleeping in our own beds, it's been a great trip. We've walked more than 75 miles, seen some of the most famous sites in London and Paris, had a few restful days of vacation time, and just spent a lot of time hanging out and laughing. We hope you've enjoyed taking this journey with us - we promise not to bore you too much with our photos when we return.
Gayle: So we are hoping for an uneventful flight to Cleveland & then on to Indy tomorrow. It has been a good trip, and I'm certain I could not travel with anyone this long, other than Kara. Yet, I think this trip may have been a day or two too long. We just went, went, went and didn't really take anytime to rest, which caught up with us. Each day in London we did less and less. On my part, I'm definitely more tired now than before the trip even started; this is not a good thing. It will take some time to get back on Eastern time, so bare with us.
Oh - & I can virtually guarantee one thing. Part of our conversation on the plane home will be... planning our next trip! Stay tuned!
Kara: We had planned to spend our last day in the UK out at Oxford but as we told you
yesterday we altered the plan a bit and so instead we headed out to Windsor so we could get back a bit earlier in the day and get packed and ready for our flights home tomorrow.
We headed off to the train station, got our tickets at the little self-serve machines, and got right on the train that departed about five minutes later. Unlike yesterday where we would have had to go up to another underground/train station, this train left right from our station which was most convenient. The train ride was pleasant enough and took only about 45 minutes.
We arrived at Windsor/Eton Riverside station. We walked a few short blocks to the main visitor entrance of Windsor Castle. All I can really say about the Castle is - WOW! What an amazing and impressive place. Pictures do nothing to expose the incredible size and sprawl of the castle. Its setting up on a hill only adds to the grandeur as you approach this place.
Gayle: I had visited Windsor Castle on my previous visit to England and was glad to make a return visit. My memory had downplayed the size, but I was immediately reminded of why I like it so. It was curious to see the rooms that had been destroyed/damaged by the fire, as all of the trims and paints were so much brighter than the other rooms. In the renovation they included a new octagonal room that now connects the public state apartments with the actual residence. Of course the residence was roped off from us. :(
For the first day ever on this trip, it was sprinkling rain. Although not a good combination when visiting Windsor, I was glad Kara had to finally experience a typical weather day here.
Because of the precipitation, the changing of the guard was not held, but instead a smaller ceremony. This included the "Castle band" and they were shockingly good. Add to that they were playing fairly contemporary music, it was quite enjoyable.
Kara: We toured both the state apartments and Queen Mary's dollhouse - both were quite impressive. We also went through St. George's church which was the site of Charles and Camilla's wedding a few years ago. It was a beautiful church. Small in comparison to St. Paul's or Westminster but still beautiful.
It was time to leave the castle and we decided to grab lunch before heading back to London on our return train. We had passed a pub on our way in that I was interested in having lunch in. Gayle wasn't so sure about the idea, but they had fish and chips on the menu so she said it would be okay. So we proceeded into the Horse and Groom for lunch of Shepherd's Pie for me and Fish and Chips for Gayle. We took a bit of ribbing from the bar-keep for not adding a pint of ale to our meals, but neither of us is much for beer. We knew we'd be having a different kind of pint a bit later in the day.
Gayle: Oh yeh, the Dollhouse. It's a precise replica of then-Queen Mary's home, and we mean precise. Artists were commissioned to paint miniatures of the painting, and it was complete with working electricity and running water!
We tranported back to London without incident, but Kara was having an ice cream craving. So a stop at the mini-mart was required.
Kara: We found this 24 hour mini mart that's really one long shelf in the middle with a freezer at the back and a cooler down the other side. Not much of a store, but they've had everything we've needed or wanted in the way of snacks, water, etc. I was in serious need of ice cream and two weeks of ads for Ben and Jerrys, which must be quite big here, had nearly done me in, so we both grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerrys Half Baked, which is a luscious combo of vanilla and chocolate ice cream with brownie and unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough. We should have grabbed a pint to share but we didn't. One of us ate her pint dry the other gave up half-way in. We'll leave you to figure out which was which.
For the evening we grabbed food from the local eateries behind the hotel and are spending the evening packing, posting, and getting ready to head out tomorrow. While we're both looking forward to being home, seeing family and friends (and our kitties) and sleeping in our own beds, it's been a great trip. We've walked more than 75 miles, seen some of the most famous sites in London and Paris, had a few restful days of vacation time, and just spent a lot of time hanging out and laughing. We hope you've enjoyed taking this journey with us - we promise not to bore you too much with our photos when we return.
Gayle: So we are hoping for an uneventful flight to Cleveland & then on to Indy tomorrow. It has been a good trip, and I'm certain I could not travel with anyone this long, other than Kara. Yet, I think this trip may have been a day or two too long. We just went, went, went and didn't really take anytime to rest, which caught up with us. Each day in London we did less and less. On my part, I'm definitely more tired now than before the trip even started; this is not a good thing. It will take some time to get back on Eastern time, so bare with us.
Oh - & I can virtually guarantee one thing. Part of our conversation on the plane home will be... planning our next trip! Stay tuned!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday and Thursday - YEAH we're caught up!
Gayle: Well, looks like we’re still a day behind and want to make this one quick to enjoy a quiet evening.
So yesterday (Wednesday) was to be our second full day in London, but the length and pace of this trip was really catching up with us. Thus, we altered “THE PLAN” yet again. This morning we were first headed to the Tower of London. The real reason for this inclusion was the Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels. I definitely wanted to see these and here’s a quick synopsis of why…. The mascot of my HS is a King, but we really use a crown in all of the logos, graphics, etc. The crown is an important symbol in my life, not really from the HS as such, but rather from our state championship marching band. (Read: “Geek” at your leisure.) And this crown is apparently modeled after a very famous crown.
Luckily, we arrived just after opening and finally had no line to get a ticket. We browsed the gift shop first since it was not busy. And oh there were crowns everywhere! (I think I heard a whimper from my credit card!) And so we were through the gate where we were lucky enough to join one of the official tours.
Kara: Tours at the Tower of London are conducted by “Beefeaters” who are known for being gregarious and funny in their story telling. We followed this particular Beefeater past the Bloody Tower and Traitor’s Gate and a couple of other story-telling spots about the (numerous) deaths and dismemberments that happened here at the tower before we headed off to see the Crown Jewels.
The exhibit at the Tower of London for the Crown Jewels is well done with three or four different films in queuing areas – although we didn’t have a need to queue. Then you proceeded into pretty narrow passages to see several of the royal scepters and swords before finally going into the vault – a real vault with VERY thick walls and doors – and getting on a moving walkway that takes you past the crown jewels. No lollygagging here.
We purchased a few items in the gift shops, walked along the tower walls to take a few more pictures, stopped to read more of the history of the tower, snapped a bunch of photos including a couple of good shots of the Tower Bridge. Apparently most people think that it is London Bridge that is one of the iconic symbols of London, but it’s really the Tower Bridge that is featured in most pictures, movies, and post cards.
Gayle: VERY sadly, we were not permitted to take photos of the Crown Jewels. :-( So, just as they planned, I purchased several momentos, including a book on the history of them. Next, we were off to St. Paul’s Cathedral. But first we needed lunch. Needing some beef (!), we popped into the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Apparently we arrived just in time, as soon the line was too the door. Nothing really special here.
So this morning I was feeling sorry for St. Paul’s. After visiting Westminster, I thought “St. Paul’s better bring it.” Well, it really didn’t. St. Paul’s is the location where Charles and Diana were married. It’s much lighter than Westminster, making for a better positive location. But otherwise, that’s about it.
Kara: Gayle’s right that St. Paul’s had a lot to compete with in Westminster Abbey. I appreciated the lightness of it and truly believe that the ceilings in St. Paul’s must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. One of the special memories I’ll have from this trip though are the “worship” experiences we had in both Westminster and St. Paul’s. One other at Westminster we’ll get to momentarily. However, at Westminster they pause once every hour for a moment of silence and to say a prayer. We arrived at Westminster just in time for this and were actually seated right in front of the older altar at the time of the prayer. While we visited St. Paul’s they were holding noon time mass which was coming to an end when we arrived. We sat down until the mass came to an end and prayed the Lord’s Prayer as a part of the mass. Both were memorable experiences as was another we had a Westminster later in the day, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
We toured St. Paul’s on our own – no audio guide here. The tour ends in the crypt area with many beautiful plaques and monuments. There seemed to be more honor paid to military veterans in St. Paul’s than in Westminster. We stepped back outside and sat on the steps in front of St. Paul’s to figure out our next stop. And, of course, being girls no vacation would be complete without a little shoe shopping.
Gayle: We next arrived at Oxford Circus and immediately understood the “circus” part. The tube station had access on all 4 street corners, which was a bit disorienting. Strangely, Kara got us headed in the right direction. However, it was so busy with slow service, we decided it wasn’t worth the time or effort. So, we headed home.
Kara: We rested a bit and read for a while – both of us now well into our books we brought with us to read on vacation. I had wanted to go to an Evensong service at Westminster to hear the choir sing and since we didn’t have plans for the evening we decided this would be a good night to go. We headed over to Westminster about 40 minutes before the service started and when we turned the corner to the gate where you enter for worship there was a HUGE line of young people – some sort of school group. The usher stopped us but we told him we were there for worship and he let us pass. We took the last two seats in the back row. It was standing room only. Unfortunately the choir doesn’t sing on Wednesday nights but it was still an interesting and unique way to close the day and we did get to hear the pipe organ being played and even sang with it. I wasn’t really a “moving” experience but it was certainly was memorable.
Gayle: At first I wasn’t real keen about going back to Westminster for the service, but the more I thought about the more I’m glad we did this. It wasn’t so much the service, but the significance of the place, its history & meaning, and all it has been through – how God has been there each step of the way – and how this tourist site can make people stop and think about their relationship with God, no matter where they are from or what brought them here. I’m really glad we did this.
Then we headed to the Westminster shop, which we’d just browsed previously and picked up a few more momentos. Finally we had supper at an Italian restaurant located right at the back exit of our hotel. An early night was to be had, as we were headed to Oxford on Thursday – or so we thought….
Kara: So that brings us to this morning. We had planned, as Gayle said, to go to Oxford today. We knew we wanted an early train in order to get out to Oxford in time for the possible tour at Christ’s Church – the real reason we were going out there. We got up, headed out in plenty of time, and went to the ever confusing Waterloo station to get our train tickets. We had to take the tube from Waterloo up to Paddington to catch our train. With train tickets in hand we headed down to the tubes and immediately found that getting to Paddington this morning was going to be nearly impossible as every line headed in that direction had some sort of signal failure. That meant every line that was operating was jam packed. At this point, we both decided that we’d rather spend a relaxing day in London and actually take a vacation day on our vacation than try to stress ourselves with subways and busses and trains to try to make a tour that we weren’t even sure was going to run. So, the helpful train information office cashed in our tickets for us and we headed back to the hotel to regroup and figure out what we wanted to do with a free day in London.
Gayle: I have a slightly different version of this, but will spare the minute details. Let’s just say there is usually one meltdown per trip and today was it for me. The introvert in me screamed, “ENOUGH!” I was tired of planning tube transfers and being packed in a subway train like a sardine, etc. So this turned into “American Day” in London. We scrapped Oxford altogether & I’m hoping Kara won’t regret this. We headed back to the hotel and simply lounged for an hour or so.
Kara: I don’t regret it and enjoyed the day today regardless of where we were. I had attended a worship service the Sunday before we left in which the pastor talked about John Wesley’s original church in London. I had Googled it before we left and brought information with me on the church in case we happened to make time for a visit. So, we headed out on the metro which was operating better by this time and went up to the John Wesley Church and Museum. It wasn’t much to see, but I got some interesting photos and gifts for my folks which I think they will enjoy.
We left and headed back down to our area of town to have lunch at The Wellington. We arrived a bit before the kitchen opened, but enjoyed drinks while we read through a few brochures for things going on in theatres on the West End. Lunch was absolutely delicious – we each had baked potatoes and shared a “starter” plate called – rightly enough – the Statesider platter which featured a lot of VERY good American style fried appetizers. An absolutely delicious lunch!!
Gayle: Lunch was awesome! The platter included garlic bread, fried mushrooms, onion rings, chicken fingers, potato skins, and nacho chips! We then headed back to the hotel for some relaxed reading time before Americanizing the day even more. We learned early on our hotel is quite near the London IMAX, apparently the only IMAX in England. So we took in the new Star Trek movie, which was pretty good. By now it was supper time and still feeling a bit lazy and “American” we grabbed Subway sandwiches to bring back to the room and watch an episode of NCIS on the laptop!
Tomorrow we’re headed out to Windsor for our final full day of the trip…. (And yes, we will actually go out there!)
So yesterday (Wednesday) was to be our second full day in London, but the length and pace of this trip was really catching up with us. Thus, we altered “THE PLAN” yet again. This morning we were first headed to the Tower of London. The real reason for this inclusion was the Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels. I definitely wanted to see these and here’s a quick synopsis of why…. The mascot of my HS is a King, but we really use a crown in all of the logos, graphics, etc. The crown is an important symbol in my life, not really from the HS as such, but rather from our state championship marching band. (Read: “Geek” at your leisure.) And this crown is apparently modeled after a very famous crown.
Luckily, we arrived just after opening and finally had no line to get a ticket. We browsed the gift shop first since it was not busy. And oh there were crowns everywhere! (I think I heard a whimper from my credit card!) And so we were through the gate where we were lucky enough to join one of the official tours.
Kara: Tours at the Tower of London are conducted by “Beefeaters” who are known for being gregarious and funny in their story telling. We followed this particular Beefeater past the Bloody Tower and Traitor’s Gate and a couple of other story-telling spots about the (numerous) deaths and dismemberments that happened here at the tower before we headed off to see the Crown Jewels.
The exhibit at the Tower of London for the Crown Jewels is well done with three or four different films in queuing areas – although we didn’t have a need to queue. Then you proceeded into pretty narrow passages to see several of the royal scepters and swords before finally going into the vault – a real vault with VERY thick walls and doors – and getting on a moving walkway that takes you past the crown jewels. No lollygagging here.
We purchased a few items in the gift shops, walked along the tower walls to take a few more pictures, stopped to read more of the history of the tower, snapped a bunch of photos including a couple of good shots of the Tower Bridge. Apparently most people think that it is London Bridge that is one of the iconic symbols of London, but it’s really the Tower Bridge that is featured in most pictures, movies, and post cards.
Gayle: VERY sadly, we were not permitted to take photos of the Crown Jewels. :-( So, just as they planned, I purchased several momentos, including a book on the history of them. Next, we were off to St. Paul’s Cathedral. But first we needed lunch. Needing some beef (!), we popped into the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Apparently we arrived just in time, as soon the line was too the door. Nothing really special here.
So this morning I was feeling sorry for St. Paul’s. After visiting Westminster, I thought “St. Paul’s better bring it.” Well, it really didn’t. St. Paul’s is the location where Charles and Diana were married. It’s much lighter than Westminster, making for a better positive location. But otherwise, that’s about it.
Kara: Gayle’s right that St. Paul’s had a lot to compete with in Westminster Abbey. I appreciated the lightness of it and truly believe that the ceilings in St. Paul’s must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. One of the special memories I’ll have from this trip though are the “worship” experiences we had in both Westminster and St. Paul’s. One other at Westminster we’ll get to momentarily. However, at Westminster they pause once every hour for a moment of silence and to say a prayer. We arrived at Westminster just in time for this and were actually seated right in front of the older altar at the time of the prayer. While we visited St. Paul’s they were holding noon time mass which was coming to an end when we arrived. We sat down until the mass came to an end and prayed the Lord’s Prayer as a part of the mass. Both were memorable experiences as was another we had a Westminster later in the day, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
We toured St. Paul’s on our own – no audio guide here. The tour ends in the crypt area with many beautiful plaques and monuments. There seemed to be more honor paid to military veterans in St. Paul’s than in Westminster. We stepped back outside and sat on the steps in front of St. Paul’s to figure out our next stop. And, of course, being girls no vacation would be complete without a little shoe shopping.
Gayle: We next arrived at Oxford Circus and immediately understood the “circus” part. The tube station had access on all 4 street corners, which was a bit disorienting. Strangely, Kara got us headed in the right direction. However, it was so busy with slow service, we decided it wasn’t worth the time or effort. So, we headed home.
Kara: We rested a bit and read for a while – both of us now well into our books we brought with us to read on vacation. I had wanted to go to an Evensong service at Westminster to hear the choir sing and since we didn’t have plans for the evening we decided this would be a good night to go. We headed over to Westminster about 40 minutes before the service started and when we turned the corner to the gate where you enter for worship there was a HUGE line of young people – some sort of school group. The usher stopped us but we told him we were there for worship and he let us pass. We took the last two seats in the back row. It was standing room only. Unfortunately the choir doesn’t sing on Wednesday nights but it was still an interesting and unique way to close the day and we did get to hear the pipe organ being played and even sang with it. I wasn’t really a “moving” experience but it was certainly was memorable.
Gayle: At first I wasn’t real keen about going back to Westminster for the service, but the more I thought about the more I’m glad we did this. It wasn’t so much the service, but the significance of the place, its history & meaning, and all it has been through – how God has been there each step of the way – and how this tourist site can make people stop and think about their relationship with God, no matter where they are from or what brought them here. I’m really glad we did this.
Then we headed to the Westminster shop, which we’d just browsed previously and picked up a few more momentos. Finally we had supper at an Italian restaurant located right at the back exit of our hotel. An early night was to be had, as we were headed to Oxford on Thursday – or so we thought….
Kara: So that brings us to this morning. We had planned, as Gayle said, to go to Oxford today. We knew we wanted an early train in order to get out to Oxford in time for the possible tour at Christ’s Church – the real reason we were going out there. We got up, headed out in plenty of time, and went to the ever confusing Waterloo station to get our train tickets. We had to take the tube from Waterloo up to Paddington to catch our train. With train tickets in hand we headed down to the tubes and immediately found that getting to Paddington this morning was going to be nearly impossible as every line headed in that direction had some sort of signal failure. That meant every line that was operating was jam packed. At this point, we both decided that we’d rather spend a relaxing day in London and actually take a vacation day on our vacation than try to stress ourselves with subways and busses and trains to try to make a tour that we weren’t even sure was going to run. So, the helpful train information office cashed in our tickets for us and we headed back to the hotel to regroup and figure out what we wanted to do with a free day in London.
Gayle: I have a slightly different version of this, but will spare the minute details. Let’s just say there is usually one meltdown per trip and today was it for me. The introvert in me screamed, “ENOUGH!” I was tired of planning tube transfers and being packed in a subway train like a sardine, etc. So this turned into “American Day” in London. We scrapped Oxford altogether & I’m hoping Kara won’t regret this. We headed back to the hotel and simply lounged for an hour or so.
Kara: I don’t regret it and enjoyed the day today regardless of where we were. I had attended a worship service the Sunday before we left in which the pastor talked about John Wesley’s original church in London. I had Googled it before we left and brought information with me on the church in case we happened to make time for a visit. So, we headed out on the metro which was operating better by this time and went up to the John Wesley Church and Museum. It wasn’t much to see, but I got some interesting photos and gifts for my folks which I think they will enjoy.
We left and headed back down to our area of town to have lunch at The Wellington. We arrived a bit before the kitchen opened, but enjoyed drinks while we read through a few brochures for things going on in theatres on the West End. Lunch was absolutely delicious – we each had baked potatoes and shared a “starter” plate called – rightly enough – the Statesider platter which featured a lot of VERY good American style fried appetizers. An absolutely delicious lunch!!
Gayle: Lunch was awesome! The platter included garlic bread, fried mushrooms, onion rings, chicken fingers, potato skins, and nacho chips! We then headed back to the hotel for some relaxed reading time before Americanizing the day even more. We learned early on our hotel is quite near the London IMAX, apparently the only IMAX in England. So we took in the new Star Trek movie, which was pretty good. By now it was supper time and still feeling a bit lazy and “American” we grabbed Subway sandwiches to bring back to the room and watch an episode of NCIS on the laptop!
Tomorrow we’re headed out to Windsor for our final full day of the trip…. (And yes, we will actually go out there!)
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Here's Tuesday!
Okay - we're still a day behind but yesterday was REALLY long and today not terribly better. We're off to Oxford tomorrow but should be back early so will hopefully catch up then. Here you go!
London – Tues. June 3
Gayle: We’ll try to put something quick together, as we’ve changed THE PLAN again. We’re headed to Oxford tomorrow (Thurs.) and will have a very early morning train to try to catch a semi-planned tour. So where were we? Oh yes, Tuesday. This was our first full and big day in London. We had an incredible night’s sleep in our new hotel and really didn’t want to get up! Yet, there were places to be seen!
We started with a quick breakfast in the room and made up sandwiches for lunch. As we’d taken photos of Big Ben (which are actually the bells inside the tower) and Parliament, our first stop was Westminster Abbey - & boy was it an incredible place to start. The initial things you notice are the enormous size and stunning architecture. The audio guide was included, and we listened to the majority of it. We both agreed early on we could spend at least half a day here. There are crypts memorializing most every British king, queen, close family members, and other plaques and such dedicated to others who have impacted the world and Great Britain. It really hurt that we couldn’t take any photos in here, but that would have taken literally all day. One of most recent and remembered occurrences at the Abbey was the funeral of Princess Diana.
Ok – time for Kara to take over as I jump in the shower….
Kara: I agree that Westminster Abbey was by far one of the most stunning places I’ve ever visited. We had planned to go to The Guard’s Museum on our way to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. The night before, we had discussed maybe cutting this out as we had a lot on the plan and might need to cut it down some. We took a leisurely walk from the Abbey towards Buckingham Palace along “Birdcage Walk” which passes right along the edge of St. James Park. We started to see signs for the Guard’s Museum as we neared Wellington Barracks and discussed again whether or not we should go in. Then, we noticed there were guards out in the front of the Barracks drilling so I stopped to take some photos. The additional royal guards had musical instruments in their hands, and we quickly realized they were going to be warming up here before heading off on parade towards the palace. We staked out prime spots right at the gate where they would exit. When they broke in to “Copacabana” we both started laughing. I hope you all could see the video and enjoyed it. When we get home to a good Internet connection, I’ll upload the other videos we took to my Flickr page so you can see those. We both got video of them playing both Copacabana and the Theme to “Star Wars”. As they exited the gate we were truly right on the edge of the sidewalk, which I hope also made for some good photos (haven’t had a chance to really look at them yet but will try to post a few if we can).
We walked/ran the rest of the way down Birdcage to try to get a look at the action at Buckingham Palace. The Rick Steve’s travel guide I had said something about a lot of yelling and shouting and standing and moving and he was right – the ceremony itself really isn’t all that exciting – at least what we could see of it wasn’t. I’m really glad we got to see the Guard like we did – it was much more entertaining. I realize as I’m writing this I didn’t get a picture of Buckingham Palace, but I wouldn’t have done it justice. It was quite beautiful though.
Gayle: I’m cutting in comments here, as Kara got a ton written in the last few minutes. Kara & I are both huge lovers of music in addition to being band geeks – and yes – there is a difference! I too was really glad we got to see the band playing outside of the formal ceremony. After that I really didn’t care about the official changing of the guard.
Kara: As we continued walking (we left during the ceremony and went around the crowd) we were looking for a tube station and perhaps a “loo” which we both wanted to find. We couldn’t find either of what we wanted but ran smack into the Hard Rock Café. While they couldn’t help us with the tube station, we could get lunch and a bathroom. So we had a nice, relaxing lunch in the Original Hard Rock café. It definitely hadn’t been a stop on the plan – but that’s why we make plans – so we can enjoy the other things that happen along the way by accident.
Gayle: Okay, we’ve eaten at enough Hard Rocks in our day that the novelty ran out long ago, but hey, it was food we were guaranteed to like and there was that whole “loo” situation! We both got salads, but most of you who know me even a little, know I’m a lover of dessert. I really wasn’t thinking about getting any as it was so warm out, but the special of the day was banana pie. Now I like (not love) banana pie, but it’s tough to find in restaurants, so I’ve got to take advantage of such opportunities. The pie itself was nothing special – tough pie crust & banana pudding with bananas. But here’s the special part, they topped the whipped cream with fresh strawberry sauce. Now I like, not love, strawberry-flavored things. (It’s not a fruit I will eat straight.) And if I’d known it came with the sauce, I would have asked to not include it. But wow would I have been wrong. Wowza that sauce was awesome! (Mae – I took a picture just so you can replicate it!) It was by far the best thing I’ve had to eat on this trip and that is totally sad.
Kara: We left Hard Rock and still couldn’t get to a Tube station to get to Hyde Park. The problem was we wanted to see (I wanted to see) the Diana Fountain which is in Hyde Park almost to Kensington. No tube stops really allow you to do that easily so we decided – probably wrongly – to walk through Hyde Park. This is an absolutely beautiful and HUGE public park and since it was a beautiful, sunny, 80 – 85 degree day it was quite busy. The walk was nice and easy – very flat – but quite long. Unfortunately, the Diana fountain wasn’t really all that exciting to see. I appreciate the approachable, usable nature of it, and how that represents how she was perceived by the people so architecturally I get it, but it’s not a “site” you really need to visit unless you want to play in the water.
Gayle: Note to those visiting London soon (Adam, Marissa, Madison, Briana, etc.), Hyde Park is GIGANTIC. I would NOT recommend walking the entire thing. We definitely regretted this all too soon. But it’s the perfect spot to hang out, have lunch, paddle boat, play Frisbee, etc.; you get the picture.
Kara: After seeing the fountain, we headed down to Kensington Palace. There are three separate exhibits to see here – Diana’s dresses, the King’s and Queen’s apartments, and an exhibit on the place of debutantes and debutante balls in London history/society. All were interesting, but the audio guide in the King/Queen apartments was really long in a few places and kind of boring. The rooms also were quite dark (they keep it that way to preserve the fabrics). However when you combine full stomachs, a long walk, heat, and a dark room the only thing I think either of us wanted to do when we came out was take a nap.
Gayle: Actually, I wanted to jump in a fountain….
Kara: But, none of that – we had one more stop to make – Harrods! We tubed up to Knightsbridge and exited nearly in the door of Harrods. We walked through several of the halls including going up to Pet World on the 4th Floor (Amanda – tell Dippy and Fluffy that I’m sorry I didn’t find anything for them). We both did load up on a couple of things for ourselves and gifts for friends and family back home before we got on the tube to head back home.
Gayle: Although one of my favorite bags in the world is from Harrods that I got 9 years ago and still use today, I actually bought nothing for myself. Shocking! Harrods is always overwhelming and we were just too hot & tired to put in that kind of effort.
Kara: Now Gayle and I have been best friends for more than 16 years now, and we’ve shared a lot. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been as close to her (literally!) as I was on the tube on the way from Knightsbridge down to Waterloo station. There had been many delays on the London Underground system during the day and you could tell they were straining to keep up. If any of you are thinking about coming to the 2012 Olympics here, you might want to think again if you have any issue at all with claustrophobia. The tubes here are already packed and it’s not even a busy tourist season yet. I don’t know where they plan to put all the Olympic events, but in our opinion, this is NOT a city ready to host a games – and particularly not if you’re traveling with someone in a wheelchair or who requires extra assistance or has any mobility issues.
Gayle: As for our experience trying to get home on the tube, I was physically closer to some of those people there than guys I’ve dated! Ewww.
Kara: We arrived at Waterloo station and for the first time on this trip got completely turned around. By this time I was “pua” (a reference to our Hawaiian vacations – look it up in any Hawaiian – English dictionary). However, we turned around a few more times before I finally convinced Gayle to let me hail a cab and get us home. We were literally one roundabout and a street from home but we were so completely turned around I’m not sure how long it would have taken us to get there. We grabbed a sandwich at Subway and came back to the room to relax and head off to bed.
Gayle: I’m still ticked that I got turned around and couldn’t get us home. Waterloo station and the surrounding streets make no sense whatsoever.
Well, we’ve got an early train to catch tomorrow morning and with any luck we’ll have a double installment tomorrow night in order to get caught up with this blog. Hope you laughed at least once; we sure have!
London – Tues. June 3
Gayle: We’ll try to put something quick together, as we’ve changed THE PLAN again. We’re headed to Oxford tomorrow (Thurs.) and will have a very early morning train to try to catch a semi-planned tour. So where were we? Oh yes, Tuesday. This was our first full and big day in London. We had an incredible night’s sleep in our new hotel and really didn’t want to get up! Yet, there were places to be seen!
We started with a quick breakfast in the room and made up sandwiches for lunch. As we’d taken photos of Big Ben (which are actually the bells inside the tower) and Parliament, our first stop was Westminster Abbey - & boy was it an incredible place to start. The initial things you notice are the enormous size and stunning architecture. The audio guide was included, and we listened to the majority of it. We both agreed early on we could spend at least half a day here. There are crypts memorializing most every British king, queen, close family members, and other plaques and such dedicated to others who have impacted the world and Great Britain. It really hurt that we couldn’t take any photos in here, but that would have taken literally all day. One of most recent and remembered occurrences at the Abbey was the funeral of Princess Diana.
Ok – time for Kara to take over as I jump in the shower….
Kara: I agree that Westminster Abbey was by far one of the most stunning places I’ve ever visited. We had planned to go to The Guard’s Museum on our way to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. The night before, we had discussed maybe cutting this out as we had a lot on the plan and might need to cut it down some. We took a leisurely walk from the Abbey towards Buckingham Palace along “Birdcage Walk” which passes right along the edge of St. James Park. We started to see signs for the Guard’s Museum as we neared Wellington Barracks and discussed again whether or not we should go in. Then, we noticed there were guards out in the front of the Barracks drilling so I stopped to take some photos. The additional royal guards had musical instruments in their hands, and we quickly realized they were going to be warming up here before heading off on parade towards the palace. We staked out prime spots right at the gate where they would exit. When they broke in to “Copacabana” we both started laughing. I hope you all could see the video and enjoyed it. When we get home to a good Internet connection, I’ll upload the other videos we took to my Flickr page so you can see those. We both got video of them playing both Copacabana and the Theme to “Star Wars”. As they exited the gate we were truly right on the edge of the sidewalk, which I hope also made for some good photos (haven’t had a chance to really look at them yet but will try to post a few if we can).
We walked/ran the rest of the way down Birdcage to try to get a look at the action at Buckingham Palace. The Rick Steve’s travel guide I had said something about a lot of yelling and shouting and standing and moving and he was right – the ceremony itself really isn’t all that exciting – at least what we could see of it wasn’t. I’m really glad we got to see the Guard like we did – it was much more entertaining. I realize as I’m writing this I didn’t get a picture of Buckingham Palace, but I wouldn’t have done it justice. It was quite beautiful though.
Gayle: I’m cutting in comments here, as Kara got a ton written in the last few minutes. Kara & I are both huge lovers of music in addition to being band geeks – and yes – there is a difference! I too was really glad we got to see the band playing outside of the formal ceremony. After that I really didn’t care about the official changing of the guard.
Kara: As we continued walking (we left during the ceremony and went around the crowd) we were looking for a tube station and perhaps a “loo” which we both wanted to find. We couldn’t find either of what we wanted but ran smack into the Hard Rock Café. While they couldn’t help us with the tube station, we could get lunch and a bathroom. So we had a nice, relaxing lunch in the Original Hard Rock café. It definitely hadn’t been a stop on the plan – but that’s why we make plans – so we can enjoy the other things that happen along the way by accident.
Gayle: Okay, we’ve eaten at enough Hard Rocks in our day that the novelty ran out long ago, but hey, it was food we were guaranteed to like and there was that whole “loo” situation! We both got salads, but most of you who know me even a little, know I’m a lover of dessert. I really wasn’t thinking about getting any as it was so warm out, but the special of the day was banana pie. Now I like (not love) banana pie, but it’s tough to find in restaurants, so I’ve got to take advantage of such opportunities. The pie itself was nothing special – tough pie crust & banana pudding with bananas. But here’s the special part, they topped the whipped cream with fresh strawberry sauce. Now I like, not love, strawberry-flavored things. (It’s not a fruit I will eat straight.) And if I’d known it came with the sauce, I would have asked to not include it. But wow would I have been wrong. Wowza that sauce was awesome! (Mae – I took a picture just so you can replicate it!) It was by far the best thing I’ve had to eat on this trip and that is totally sad.
Kara: We left Hard Rock and still couldn’t get to a Tube station to get to Hyde Park. The problem was we wanted to see (I wanted to see) the Diana Fountain which is in Hyde Park almost to Kensington. No tube stops really allow you to do that easily so we decided – probably wrongly – to walk through Hyde Park. This is an absolutely beautiful and HUGE public park and since it was a beautiful, sunny, 80 – 85 degree day it was quite busy. The walk was nice and easy – very flat – but quite long. Unfortunately, the Diana fountain wasn’t really all that exciting to see. I appreciate the approachable, usable nature of it, and how that represents how she was perceived by the people so architecturally I get it, but it’s not a “site” you really need to visit unless you want to play in the water.
Gayle: Note to those visiting London soon (Adam, Marissa, Madison, Briana, etc.), Hyde Park is GIGANTIC. I would NOT recommend walking the entire thing. We definitely regretted this all too soon. But it’s the perfect spot to hang out, have lunch, paddle boat, play Frisbee, etc.; you get the picture.
Kara: After seeing the fountain, we headed down to Kensington Palace. There are three separate exhibits to see here – Diana’s dresses, the King’s and Queen’s apartments, and an exhibit on the place of debutantes and debutante balls in London history/society. All were interesting, but the audio guide in the King/Queen apartments was really long in a few places and kind of boring. The rooms also were quite dark (they keep it that way to preserve the fabrics). However when you combine full stomachs, a long walk, heat, and a dark room the only thing I think either of us wanted to do when we came out was take a nap.
Gayle: Actually, I wanted to jump in a fountain….
Kara: But, none of that – we had one more stop to make – Harrods! We tubed up to Knightsbridge and exited nearly in the door of Harrods. We walked through several of the halls including going up to Pet World on the 4th Floor (Amanda – tell Dippy and Fluffy that I’m sorry I didn’t find anything for them). We both did load up on a couple of things for ourselves and gifts for friends and family back home before we got on the tube to head back home.
Gayle: Although one of my favorite bags in the world is from Harrods that I got 9 years ago and still use today, I actually bought nothing for myself. Shocking! Harrods is always overwhelming and we were just too hot & tired to put in that kind of effort.
Kara: Now Gayle and I have been best friends for more than 16 years now, and we’ve shared a lot. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been as close to her (literally!) as I was on the tube on the way from Knightsbridge down to Waterloo station. There had been many delays on the London Underground system during the day and you could tell they were straining to keep up. If any of you are thinking about coming to the 2012 Olympics here, you might want to think again if you have any issue at all with claustrophobia. The tubes here are already packed and it’s not even a busy tourist season yet. I don’t know where they plan to put all the Olympic events, but in our opinion, this is NOT a city ready to host a games – and particularly not if you’re traveling with someone in a wheelchair or who requires extra assistance or has any mobility issues.
Gayle: As for our experience trying to get home on the tube, I was physically closer to some of those people there than guys I’ve dated! Ewww.
Kara: We arrived at Waterloo station and for the first time on this trip got completely turned around. By this time I was “pua” (a reference to our Hawaiian vacations – look it up in any Hawaiian – English dictionary). However, we turned around a few more times before I finally convinced Gayle to let me hail a cab and get us home. We were literally one roundabout and a street from home but we were so completely turned around I’m not sure how long it would have taken us to get there. We grabbed a sandwich at Subway and came back to the room to relax and head off to bed.
Gayle: I’m still ticked that I got turned around and couldn’t get us home. Waterloo station and the surrounding streets make no sense whatsoever.
Well, we’ve got an early train to catch tomorrow morning and with any luck we’ll have a double installment tomorrow night in order to get caught up with this blog. Hope you laughed at least once; we sure have!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Copacabana
Okay - I'm not sure this will work or not, but I think you'll be able to see the first of the two videos I took of the Royal Guard band. This one features them playing Copacabana - http://www.itookthisonmyphone.com/kmonroe/Europe/mediadce4f5ce93814805a0fe8a7729ba0ebc
Good, but exhausting, day in London
Hi all! This is Kara. Gayle has declared she's not blogging tonight and that we'll do a double post tomorrow. I thought I should at least give a quick update. We had a great day in London today - highlighted by getting to hear the Royal Guard band (the guys in the black Q-tip style hats) playing Copacabana and the Theme from Star Wars as warm ups at the Guard's Barracks just before the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Great pictures and videos to follow eventually, but the connection isn't great tonight either so I'm not even going to try with those.
We also ate lunch at the original Hard Rock cafe and had a wonderful server and very good food. Walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Garden which was pretty, but a REALLY long walk on already tired feet so we were both pretty spent by the time we got to Kensington. Enjoyed the palace, although got a little bored with the audio guide in places. Left Kensington and endured the "Tube" again to go to Harrods. Had fun shopping in Harrods and buying souvenirs and a few gifts for you folks back in the states.
Came home and got a little turned around coming out of Waterloo station so just grabbed sandwiches and came back to the room to get through showers and a bit of planning for tomorrow. All in all a good day. We'll give you all a full update tomorrow.
We also ate lunch at the original Hard Rock cafe and had a wonderful server and very good food. Walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Garden which was pretty, but a REALLY long walk on already tired feet so we were both pretty spent by the time we got to Kensington. Enjoyed the palace, although got a little bored with the audio guide in places. Left Kensington and endured the "Tube" again to go to Harrods. Had fun shopping in Harrods and buying souvenirs and a few gifts for you folks back in the states.
Came home and got a little turned around coming out of Waterloo station so just grabbed sandwiches and came back to the room to get through showers and a bit of planning for tomorrow. All in all a good day. We'll give you all a full update tomorrow.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Daily Conversation - Transfer from Paris to London
Good day & Cheerio!
It’s Kara starting off the blog again tonight as we take turns using the blow dryer. We’ve had a full day and are ready to get a bit of rest before we hit the streets of London again tomorrow.
We had breakfast as usual at Sequoia Lodge in Paris and then went back to our room to do a final check that we had all of our things and then headed off to the train station at Disney (Marne-le-Valle Chessy). Yesterday we walked to and from the parks using the walkway along the lake at the resort complex. Because the buses were continuously slow during our visit we decided we’d just walk with our backpacks and duffels. It was not a bad walk, and we arrived at the train station about an hour in advance of our train – apparently far too early by European standards. We waited until our TGV train arrived and then boarded bound for Lille, France.
When we had booked our train tickets several weeks ago, Gayle and I “agreed” (or rather I suggested and she apparently rolled her eyes at me via our phone call) that we would get the “low” first class tickets for our train rides today. That gave us a served meal on the Eurostar and first class seating on both trains. Apparently until today Gayle had thought I was nuts for booking this extra luxury, even though it was a very affordable luxury, but I’ll let you tell her if it was a good decision or not, while I go take a turn with the blow dryer.
Gayle: (From above, it’s also important to know Kara was going to try to call home at 9am this morning. 9am Paris time. To which I reminded her it was only 3am at home and calling at this time probably wasn’t a good idea!) So, we’re at the train and this issue of the 1st class tix, eh? Yep, Kara definitely made the right call on this one. It was like 1st class on an airplane, except there was more room, no security, no waiting, no re-circulated air, a huge window… I think you get the picture. In fact, on the TGV train from Disney to Lille, France there were only about 5 others in our entire train car, including the cutest little dog who took a nap in the aisle!
We were both really excited about the EuroStar simply for the class of service and of course, the speed. One of the best things today was the UK Border Control officer; it was SO nice to finally hear a non-French accent! Literally seconds after pulling out of the station they were taking our drink and lunch choices. We received a nice lunch with salad, entrée, dessert, bread, and “beverages”! J I captured a few seconds of video to illustrate the speed, but not sure if we can get it to upload from here…. The only annoyance was the constant pressure changes from passing other trains, going through tunnels, and of course, being under the English Channel. Very soon we arrived at St. Pancras Station where the real adventure began.
Each of us brought a rolling duffle and rolling backpack. Luckily there were “lifts” (elevators) at this station, so all was well, minus the significant crowds. We stood in line for a Tube (subway) ticket to one of the stops nearest our hotel. (We probably should have just used our pounds in the self-serve kiosks instead.) Got tickets and were off to the Tube! But when we arrived at Westminster Station, life started to get a little mean. There were two sets of stairs (up) from the platform to the main station level. (Umm, hello? It said this station was handicap accessible! Apparently that was only if you were transferring lines!) There was no lift, so dragging our bags was, well, an exhausting drag. We finally make it outside and no kidding, there are another couple sets of steps to traverse. Huffing & puffing, I proclaimed, “I love America!” Over the bridge and through hordes of people, we finally make it to our home for the next 5 nights: the Marriott County Hall. This hotel sits right on the Thames, over the bridge from Big Ben, and immediately behind the London Eye. This is where I wanted to stay since my previous visit here in 2000. Check-in was seamless and our room is divine. It’s a good thing we’re doing the trip in this order, Paris then London, because our room here has everything the Disney one didn’t. (I could go on and on about this, but will spare you.)
Once we recovered from our baggage Olympics, we set out to get the lay of the land and find dinner. We walked around Parliament and Westminster Abbey on our way to supper at The Abbey. This is a bar/restaurant we found on the Net. I was joking with Adam Smith that it was kinda like Scotty’s, but in London. Oh, but it was so much more, as it had class and sophistication. It was one of the nicest bars I’ve ever been to and would happily return. We had our requisite 1st night in London fish & chips and then stopped at a convenience store for a few snacks for breakfasts, etc.
Too soon it was time to head out, as we had pre-reserved tickets for the London Eye. Wow. No picture ever allows you to truly understand the scale of this massive ferris wheel. In fact, I started to get a big anxious, but as they say here, it turned out to be “brilliant”! We then investigated the area behind the hotel and stumbled upon a lovely Italian café/restaurant, which we plan to visit later this week, as well as the back entrance to the hotel.
For London it’s incredibly warm, nearing 80 degrees. Gratefully our room air conditioner is more than up to the task, unlike what we endured at Disney. So at least for me, I’m planning on my first good night’s sleep of the entire trip tonight. With that, I’m off – wondering if I will read any of my book before I drift off to dreamland in the cushy and cool bed.
Tomorrow? Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace, and much more, including… Harrods! (I think my credit card just screamed.)
Kara: I’m back from the blow dryer and think Gayle has captured everything so with this we’ll just say good night!
Gayle: PS…Yes – we know we now own 60% of GM – it’s the only thing on British television!
It’s Kara starting off the blog again tonight as we take turns using the blow dryer. We’ve had a full day and are ready to get a bit of rest before we hit the streets of London again tomorrow.
We had breakfast as usual at Sequoia Lodge in Paris and then went back to our room to do a final check that we had all of our things and then headed off to the train station at Disney (Marne-le-Valle Chessy). Yesterday we walked to and from the parks using the walkway along the lake at the resort complex. Because the buses were continuously slow during our visit we decided we’d just walk with our backpacks and duffels. It was not a bad walk, and we arrived at the train station about an hour in advance of our train – apparently far too early by European standards. We waited until our TGV train arrived and then boarded bound for Lille, France.
When we had booked our train tickets several weeks ago, Gayle and I “agreed” (or rather I suggested and she apparently rolled her eyes at me via our phone call) that we would get the “low” first class tickets for our train rides today. That gave us a served meal on the Eurostar and first class seating on both trains. Apparently until today Gayle had thought I was nuts for booking this extra luxury, even though it was a very affordable luxury, but I’ll let you tell her if it was a good decision or not, while I go take a turn with the blow dryer.
Gayle: (From above, it’s also important to know Kara was going to try to call home at 9am this morning. 9am Paris time. To which I reminded her it was only 3am at home and calling at this time probably wasn’t a good idea!) So, we’re at the train and this issue of the 1st class tix, eh? Yep, Kara definitely made the right call on this one. It was like 1st class on an airplane, except there was more room, no security, no waiting, no re-circulated air, a huge window… I think you get the picture. In fact, on the TGV train from Disney to Lille, France there were only about 5 others in our entire train car, including the cutest little dog who took a nap in the aisle!
We were both really excited about the EuroStar simply for the class of service and of course, the speed. One of the best things today was the UK Border Control officer; it was SO nice to finally hear a non-French accent! Literally seconds after pulling out of the station they were taking our drink and lunch choices. We received a nice lunch with salad, entrée, dessert, bread, and “beverages”! J I captured a few seconds of video to illustrate the speed, but not sure if we can get it to upload from here…. The only annoyance was the constant pressure changes from passing other trains, going through tunnels, and of course, being under the English Channel. Very soon we arrived at St. Pancras Station where the real adventure began.
Each of us brought a rolling duffle and rolling backpack. Luckily there were “lifts” (elevators) at this station, so all was well, minus the significant crowds. We stood in line for a Tube (subway) ticket to one of the stops nearest our hotel. (We probably should have just used our pounds in the self-serve kiosks instead.) Got tickets and were off to the Tube! But when we arrived at Westminster Station, life started to get a little mean. There were two sets of stairs (up) from the platform to the main station level. (Umm, hello? It said this station was handicap accessible! Apparently that was only if you were transferring lines!) There was no lift, so dragging our bags was, well, an exhausting drag. We finally make it outside and no kidding, there are another couple sets of steps to traverse. Huffing & puffing, I proclaimed, “I love America!” Over the bridge and through hordes of people, we finally make it to our home for the next 5 nights: the Marriott County Hall. This hotel sits right on the Thames, over the bridge from Big Ben, and immediately behind the London Eye. This is where I wanted to stay since my previous visit here in 2000. Check-in was seamless and our room is divine. It’s a good thing we’re doing the trip in this order, Paris then London, because our room here has everything the Disney one didn’t. (I could go on and on about this, but will spare you.)
Once we recovered from our baggage Olympics, we set out to get the lay of the land and find dinner. We walked around Parliament and Westminster Abbey on our way to supper at The Abbey. This is a bar/restaurant we found on the Net. I was joking with Adam Smith that it was kinda like Scotty’s, but in London. Oh, but it was so much more, as it had class and sophistication. It was one of the nicest bars I’ve ever been to and would happily return. We had our requisite 1st night in London fish & chips and then stopped at a convenience store for a few snacks for breakfasts, etc.
Too soon it was time to head out, as we had pre-reserved tickets for the London Eye. Wow. No picture ever allows you to truly understand the scale of this massive ferris wheel. In fact, I started to get a big anxious, but as they say here, it turned out to be “brilliant”! We then investigated the area behind the hotel and stumbled upon a lovely Italian café/restaurant, which we plan to visit later this week, as well as the back entrance to the hotel.
For London it’s incredibly warm, nearing 80 degrees. Gratefully our room air conditioner is more than up to the task, unlike what we endured at Disney. So at least for me, I’m planning on my first good night’s sleep of the entire trip tonight. With that, I’m off – wondering if I will read any of my book before I drift off to dreamland in the cushy and cool bed.
Tomorrow? Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace, and much more, including… Harrods! (I think my credit card just screamed.)
Kara: I’m back from the blow dryer and think Gayle has captured everything so with this we’ll just say good night!
Gayle: PS…Yes – we know we now own 60% of GM – it’s the only thing on British television!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Disneyland Paris - Day #2
Hi everyone. This is Kara - writing the post while Gayle is working on packing up as we are getting ready to transfer to London tomorrow. The packing is stymied a bit by the fact that most of our clothes are still wet from the laundry adventure today - but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
We slept a bit later this morning since we didn't need to get to a park until 10 a.m. local time. We went to breakfast here in the hotel like normal - completely excited about our VIP Breakfast Pass, as we got to buzz right past the entire line and go right into breakfast. There is no variety at the breakfast here, but it is tasty enough and filling, and we make lunch out of it as well to pack into the park. Grab a bottle of water and you're good to go.
Our plan today was to take in the two or three things we wanted to see at Disney Studios park. We got there around 9:30 and were already well behind the many, many other people who arrived before us. We headed to our most anticipated stop which was Crush's Coaster - a wild, spinning, coaster like ride on the East Australian Current!! We'd both heard the ride was great. We got in the queue and waited for the park to open. As soon as the park opened they opened the queue area up for us to enter and the "wait time" sign immediately changed to 80 minutes. We checked our watches and headed on in. We got through the exterior queue and entered the building with what appeared just a short additional wait at approximately 45 minutes in. At that moment the ride shut down, and we started to have Buzz Lightyear flashbacks from yesterday. We were on the stair steps going up into the queue area, so we sat down and waited. The lights came back on - never a good sign in a Disney ride - but we kept waiting. We were gonna ride this ride!! After about 20 - 25 minutes the ride came back on. The announcement was in French but we figured it out from all the clapping that it must be good news.
We boarded the ride about 15 minutes later - so we now really had waited the 80 minutes. Gayle had been a bit nervous before the ride. She is commenting to me now, that she was filled with fear, and had her eyes closed. However, I gave her my advice that the goal of coasters like these is to let out all your pent up frustration, hostility, and anger in your screams and giddy joys of laughter as you go careening through the darkness. What do you know - she took my advice. She kept her eyes open and screamed and giggled! And, she just said I should tell you it is her most favorite Disney ride ever (and they better move it to Orlando - now)!
After such a great ride - and since the Sunday crowds were crazy - we decided that we had had enough of the Studio. Plus, we still had laundry to do.
So, back to our resort where we both packed up our backpacks with our dirty clothes and laundry supplies. We both laughed that other than the dorm our first year together at Ball State we had never done laundry together in a laundromat type of place - we always had washers and dryers in our apartments and both of us have had washers and dryers in our houses.
We went to the Hotel Santa Fe (motel 6/CSI crime scene hotel), bought our tokens at the gift shop to do laundry and then headed down to building 33 (right next to the Area 51 flying saucer). Yesterday when we had done our laundry reconnaissance, the laundry room had been open. However, the door was locked today. So, luckily there was a phone on the wall and we called housekeeping. They said they would send someone right over. Another phone call and about 15 more minutes later someone who spoke no English came over to unlock the door. He tried to explain to us what we finally decided was that if we both left the door would lock again, and we communicated to him that at least one of us would stay the entire time.
Gayle: Okay! I'm here. Even with my BFF, I can't give up total control and would hate to be misinterpretted! First, let's get one thing straight. In the two years I lived in DeHority at BSU, I never, ever did a load of laundry! In fact, other than one time at a condo in FL, I've never done laundry on vacation; what a waste of good time! As far as Crush's Coaster, that is THE BEST ride EVER! Alright, back to our story already in progress.
Kara: I packed my entired bag and she wrote that one paragraph. Oh well - on with the story. We finished the laundry, but a single dryer token bought only 20 minutes of heat so we only go the clothes warm - not really dry. We put the clothes back into our duffles - now folded and wet - and headed back to the bus stop. We took the bus back to the train station and then caught our bus back to our hotel. We got back the hotel and started unloading clothes out of our bag using the six hangers and every other surface in the room - including the handle that allows the window to open (which my shorts are still dangling from). We called housekeeping for more hangers and began to put the iron we'd ordered earlier in the week to work ironing some of the moisture out of our clothes.
When we arrived back at the hotel earlier Gayle had also made a reservation at the restaurant here in the hotel. We had done a bit of planning on meals prior to arrival and thought we'd be eating up at Val d'Europe where food was supposed to be less expensive. However, we found that food here at the park and resort really wasn't terribly expensive in comparison to food at Val d'Europe and even in comparison to food in the states. We took our time ironing and blowdrying our clothes and then headed down to dinner at Beaver Creek Tavern here in the hotel. The food was good, although nothing special. After dinner we went to the hotel gift shops to finally get stamps for all of the post cards. Gayle had gone just ahead of me and had bought her stamps ahead of me. She tried to warn me about the fact that these were stamps that you had to lick and you had to be careful not to choke. Unfortunately, the third stamp stuck to my tongue a bit more and there was a little bit of laughter as I recounted the "I was afraid I was going to choke on a stamp" a couple of times in the store.
I've also set a new record here at Disneyland Paris - I spent more at the parks/resort than Gayle. I am a HUGE Pluto fan! He's by far my favorite Disney character. The American parks seem to have something against Pluto, but here he is well featured in individual plush animals and other items. So, I loaded up. I need to be flying home with a kennel rather than a duffel bag for all these stuffed animals.
We're back in the room now and getting ready to head off to bed before we take our train to Lille and then board the EuroStar for a trip through the Chunnel to London tomorrow. We're headed off to Westminster Abbey and then have reservations for a sunset flight of the London Eye. No pictures today, but I'm sure there will be plenty tomorrow.
Gayle: A decent night's sleep has not been part of this trip, and I'm really starting to drag. Hopefully the air conditioning at our London hotel will be better? So tomorrow we change cities, countries, time zones, and currency. Oh boy, here we go again....
We slept a bit later this morning since we didn't need to get to a park until 10 a.m. local time. We went to breakfast here in the hotel like normal - completely excited about our VIP Breakfast Pass, as we got to buzz right past the entire line and go right into breakfast. There is no variety at the breakfast here, but it is tasty enough and filling, and we make lunch out of it as well to pack into the park. Grab a bottle of water and you're good to go.
Our plan today was to take in the two or three things we wanted to see at Disney Studios park. We got there around 9:30 and were already well behind the many, many other people who arrived before us. We headed to our most anticipated stop which was Crush's Coaster - a wild, spinning, coaster like ride on the East Australian Current!! We'd both heard the ride was great. We got in the queue and waited for the park to open. As soon as the park opened they opened the queue area up for us to enter and the "wait time" sign immediately changed to 80 minutes. We checked our watches and headed on in. We got through the exterior queue and entered the building with what appeared just a short additional wait at approximately 45 minutes in. At that moment the ride shut down, and we started to have Buzz Lightyear flashbacks from yesterday. We were on the stair steps going up into the queue area, so we sat down and waited. The lights came back on - never a good sign in a Disney ride - but we kept waiting. We were gonna ride this ride!! After about 20 - 25 minutes the ride came back on. The announcement was in French but we figured it out from all the clapping that it must be good news.
We boarded the ride about 15 minutes later - so we now really had waited the 80 minutes. Gayle had been a bit nervous before the ride. She is commenting to me now, that she was filled with fear, and had her eyes closed. However, I gave her my advice that the goal of coasters like these is to let out all your pent up frustration, hostility, and anger in your screams and giddy joys of laughter as you go careening through the darkness. What do you know - she took my advice. She kept her eyes open and screamed and giggled! And, she just said I should tell you it is her most favorite Disney ride ever (and they better move it to Orlando - now)!
After such a great ride - and since the Sunday crowds were crazy - we decided that we had had enough of the Studio. Plus, we still had laundry to do.
So, back to our resort where we both packed up our backpacks with our dirty clothes and laundry supplies. We both laughed that other than the dorm our first year together at Ball State we had never done laundry together in a laundromat type of place - we always had washers and dryers in our apartments and both of us have had washers and dryers in our houses.
We went to the Hotel Santa Fe (motel 6/CSI crime scene hotel), bought our tokens at the gift shop to do laundry and then headed down to building 33 (right next to the Area 51 flying saucer). Yesterday when we had done our laundry reconnaissance, the laundry room had been open. However, the door was locked today. So, luckily there was a phone on the wall and we called housekeeping. They said they would send someone right over. Another phone call and about 15 more minutes later someone who spoke no English came over to unlock the door. He tried to explain to us what we finally decided was that if we both left the door would lock again, and we communicated to him that at least one of us would stay the entire time.
Gayle: Okay! I'm here. Even with my BFF, I can't give up total control and would hate to be misinterpretted! First, let's get one thing straight. In the two years I lived in DeHority at BSU, I never, ever did a load of laundry! In fact, other than one time at a condo in FL, I've never done laundry on vacation; what a waste of good time! As far as Crush's Coaster, that is THE BEST ride EVER! Alright, back to our story already in progress.
Kara: I packed my entired bag and she wrote that one paragraph. Oh well - on with the story. We finished the laundry, but a single dryer token bought only 20 minutes of heat so we only go the clothes warm - not really dry. We put the clothes back into our duffles - now folded and wet - and headed back to the bus stop. We took the bus back to the train station and then caught our bus back to our hotel. We got back the hotel and started unloading clothes out of our bag using the six hangers and every other surface in the room - including the handle that allows the window to open (which my shorts are still dangling from). We called housekeeping for more hangers and began to put the iron we'd ordered earlier in the week to work ironing some of the moisture out of our clothes.
When we arrived back at the hotel earlier Gayle had also made a reservation at the restaurant here in the hotel. We had done a bit of planning on meals prior to arrival and thought we'd be eating up at Val d'Europe where food was supposed to be less expensive. However, we found that food here at the park and resort really wasn't terribly expensive in comparison to food at Val d'Europe and even in comparison to food in the states. We took our time ironing and blowdrying our clothes and then headed down to dinner at Beaver Creek Tavern here in the hotel. The food was good, although nothing special. After dinner we went to the hotel gift shops to finally get stamps for all of the post cards. Gayle had gone just ahead of me and had bought her stamps ahead of me. She tried to warn me about the fact that these were stamps that you had to lick and you had to be careful not to choke. Unfortunately, the third stamp stuck to my tongue a bit more and there was a little bit of laughter as I recounted the "I was afraid I was going to choke on a stamp" a couple of times in the store.
I've also set a new record here at Disneyland Paris - I spent more at the parks/resort than Gayle. I am a HUGE Pluto fan! He's by far my favorite Disney character. The American parks seem to have something against Pluto, but here he is well featured in individual plush animals and other items. So, I loaded up. I need to be flying home with a kennel rather than a duffel bag for all these stuffed animals.
We're back in the room now and getting ready to head off to bed before we take our train to Lille and then board the EuroStar for a trip through the Chunnel to London tomorrow. We're headed off to Westminster Abbey and then have reservations for a sunset flight of the London Eye. No pictures today, but I'm sure there will be plenty tomorrow.
Gayle: A decent night's sleep has not been part of this trip, and I'm really starting to drag. Hopefully the air conditioning at our London hotel will be better? So tomorrow we change cities, countries, time zones, and currency. Oh boy, here we go again....
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Disneyland Paris - Day #1
A few more photos are on the blog and hopefully a little video will be up shortly. In the meantime, here is today's update!
Gayle: It was so warm yesterday, we knew it would be a “shorts day” today. We felt really lucky about this, as we didn’t expect it to get this warm here, so we just added shorts to our bags a day or two before the trip! :-) Now, on with the day…
Every day at Disneyland Paris (DLP) has Extra Magic Hours (EMH). This means guests of the resort hotels gain access to the park two hours prior to the opening to the public. (See, you WILL learn things about Disney whether you want to or not!) So we were up early to breakfast and at the front gate just prior to 8am. This is something we also do at Walt Disney World (WDW) in FL, but this was different. First, there were NO other people on our bus, which would NEVER happen at WDW. When we arrived at the gate there were only about 10 other people waiting with us; again, this would never happen at WDW. It felt very weird.
Kara: We have a regular path we take when we enter a park – go around the castle and back to Dumbo. We stopped several times to take pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle – a couple of them were really good. Then it was off to Dumbo. We didn’t have to wait in the queue and our flight had several empty elephants. Very odd. While we were back in this part of the park we also rode Peter Pan’s Flight and the Tea Cups. Only two of the four lands at the Disneyland Park were open, so after this we headed over to ride Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. Gayle doesn’t care much for roller coasters so I rode Space Mountain on my own. I don’t like really big roller coasters, but most of the Disney Park coasters are great for me. However, this version of Space Mountain shook me like crazy. It was still a decent adrenaline rush and good for a little screaming – but nowhere near as fun as some of the other stuff we rode a bit later.
Gayle: Yeh, at the Magic Kingdom in FL, there are a limited number of rides open during EMH, and a list of them is provided. No such list was provided here, which made for a bit of backtracking when learning something wasn’t yet open. Grrr. Speaking of… “it’s a small world” was closed during EMH; that simply goes against all things Disney. If the park is open, the small world MUST be open! While Kara was on Space Mountain, I went on Buzz Lightyear. It’s easier to score points here, as you can lift the laser gun out of the ride vehicle. Kara & I then met up to go on Buzz together. However, just as we were nearing the front of the line we noticed they were no longer loading people into the vehicles. Hmmm. Then the ride stopped. Uh oh. Then the music stopped and all the lights came on. This is virtually the Disney equivalent to the “blue screen of death”. Luckily we were given Fast Passes to return at a later time. Fast Passes allow you to come back at a later time and enter a shorter (usually nill) line. There is always a designated hour or so of return time, but since we endured a ride breakdown, we could return any time we wanted. And this allowed us to get a second Fast Pass for another ride (Star Tours) during this time, which is something you also usually can’t do.
Kara: Since we had ridden everything that was open we walked over to Frontierland so we could be there when it opened at 10. On our way we stopped in the Castle. Gayle took several photos inside the Castle of the stained glass windows. When we left the castle we headed to Frontierland. Apparently this park allows anyone into the park before it opens – it’s just that only people with resort IDs can get into the two open lands. So, we joined a pretty large mob of people at the entry to Frontierland. When Frontierland opened we headed straight to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMR) – which is one of my favorites. Apparently it is also everyone else’s as we experienced a ride-entry mosh pit at the entrance to the ride. We finally got into the queue and waited only about 10 minutes in line before we got on the ride. Gayle actually rides this one with me, although she hung on – to me – the entire time. In my opinion BTMR here was much better than any other ride thus far and it’s better than BTMR in Disney World. Very fun!
After this, we went over and rode Pinocchio – a ride they don’t have at Disney World. After this we went back and rode the storybook boat ride which included miniature versions of many of the Disney stories. It was cute. We finished out our time at this park with our Fast Pass to Buzz Lightyear. Gayle kicked my butt!
Gayle: To be fair, I hang on for dear life on BTMR because I’m always afraid I’ll fly out. (It stems from a scary experience at Kings Island many, many years ago.) By this time we headed out of Disneyland and were off to Disney Studios. First, to reach the front gate of the Disneyland Park you have to go through the Disneyland Hotel. That’s really weird compared to WDW. I actually don’t think I’d like staying there because all of the people coming & going all day (& night). The other thing is the front gate of Studios is only about 75-100 yards from the Disneyland Park & Hotel. That is REALLY weird. In FL NOTHING is close enough to see! As we were entering the Studios people were having their photos taken with a 1970s/80s? model of a black Cadillac stretch limo. That seemed odd. Do they not have limos over here? The funniest thing was the limo had an Ohio license plate on the front! HA!
Kara: We headed through Studio 1 – this big rectangular building right inside the Studios. There are restaurants and shops inside. We exited into the park, which is what I call Studios in miniature. Everything is right there. We planned to take in the two shows today so we could do the other attractions we wanted to do tomorrow. So, first we watched Animagique which is a Disney character shows featuring black light effects. There were songs from several Disney feature films. Then we headed over to the other show – Cinemagique. This one was a little more odd. A guy in the audience (an actor) got pulled into the screen and then they took him through several classic movies. It was funny, but not really what I expect from Disney.
Gayle: Yeh, Animagique and Cinemagique were really just adaptations of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Journey of the Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride, etc. from FL. I guess this is smart on Disney’s part. Why should they recreate the wheel, when most Europeans won’t be visiting WDW? I guess if the regular visitors here like them, then so be it, but they certainly weren’t what we were expecting.
Next is the start of a little preview for tomorrow. We left the park to check out the laundry facilities at one of the other hotels. In a previous blog I described the basic differences between our hotel and its inspiration in FL. Laundry facilities here are available only at the lowest-level/basic hotel. In FL the equivalents would be the All-Stars or Pop Century. This is Disney’s version of a motel vs. hotel. In FL, they are definitely the nicest motels available and fully Disney themed. Here they have Hotel Santa Fe (New Mexico theming) and Cheyenne Hotel (Wyoming theming). Very imaginative, eh? We went to Hotel Santa Fe, the motel we briefly saw upon our initial arrival. Our eyes literally bugged out. How in the world is the Disney name associated with this place?! Kara described it as a horrible “Motel 6”, but even better – one of those abandoned motels they investigate on CSI! LOL! On the way to the laundry we saw a crashed flying saucer. Yeh – no kidding – I’m now calling it Area 51. That’s just sad. We eventually found the laundry, but are still unsure if we can actually get them to work &/or clean our clothes, so stay tuned to the update tomorrow.
We escaped from there ASAP and headed back to Sequoia Lodge. Very soon we were back at Disneyland for a quiet dinner of… BBQ chicken & steak fries. Frighteningly, this was one of the best meals we’ve had so far. We tried to stroll the very busy shops and shockingly, didn’t buy a single thing. Usually I blow my budget exponentially in the shops at WDW. It’s like a whole other dimension here. I have my “World of Disney” and let’s just say DLP doesn’t really fit in my world. We did however grab some yummy chocolaty treats at the Bake Shop before heading home for the night.
And P.S.: We were reading a menu the other night that listed cheesecake made with, not cream cheese, but “Philadelphia Cheese”. Do they make cheese in Philly? Guess something got lost in translation!
Goodnight!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Pictures
Picture uploading isn't cooperating too well so if you want to see a few more of the pictures, you can visit my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157618924018416/ - this should let you see all the photos from the trip as we upload them. I'll try to get more uploaded shortly, but the connection off the Blackberry can only do so much and right now it doesn't want to cooperate with loading the photos.
Daily Dialogue - Paris Day #2
Since yesterday’s dialogue seemed to work okay, we thought we’d try this format again today. So, here is our dialogue about our second day in Paris…
Kara: We got moving a little earlier this morning and no real interruptions during the night. Thanks to all who have asked – my headache went away and I feel completely fine now. We at breakfast and grabbed “lunch to go” from the hotel and then headed to the metro station to catch the train into Paris. We had to make a transfer at one of the major transfer spots this morning – Gare de Lyon. We were also going during what I would actually call rush hour today, and it was Friday, which we’re guessing also added to the busy feeling in the metros. Needless to say, it was a bit more hectic today but once again we navigated with no problems.
Gayle: Perhaps I’ll be narrating a little different take on some things today. First thing this morning has presented a big challenge, and it’s called electricity. We’ve struggled the past couple of days to find outlets in our room that work and what combination of converters and adapters to use. We both decided to let our hair go with some natural curl, but every girl needs at least some style control. Yesterday we did get the flat iron working, although not on full power. It got nicknamed “Luke” because it only got lukewarm. Well, this morning bad turned to worse, as Luke is dead. We don’t know if it’s the input or if there’s now a short, but regardless, there was no heated styling tool to be used. As such, you will see no photos of me in today’s post! As for the morning rush hour on the metro? Our airplane seats were more spacious.
Kara: Well Gayle has decided not to advance the story at all so I guess that’s my job today. We arrived at the Louvre via the Palais Royale - Musee de Louvre metro stop which brings you right into the underground entrance of the Louvre. I have to say that while I’ve enjoyed every other museum we went to on the trip, I was completely overwhelmed by the Louvre. As usual, we had pre-determined a plan, and while we did see most of what we wanted to see – it took a lot of turning around and going back and asking for help. Since we were there early – thankfully – we did get to have a nice time in the Salle de Etats where we got to see the Mona Lisa (above) and The Wedding Feast at Cana.
We also spent a great deal of time wandering the Grande Gallerie and the Salon Carre. I have to admit I think our visit was tempered by the fact that neither of us has a good enough background in art to know what we are supposed to appreciate about the paintings and other pieces.
Gayle: Over the past couple of days we’ve also been indecisive on whether or not to go to Versailles. We were very tempted, especially by the recommendations of others (particularly Inga and Manoj on my side). However, after the miles and miles of walking the past two days and countless pieces of art, homes, palaces, museums, etc., we decided we’re too maxed out on any more “fine art”. In a simple attempt to fill that content gap in our trip, we did visit the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre, which contained the Coronation Crown of Louis XV. As you will see from one of the photos, the room was gilded, ornate, and completely over the top. As far as we can tell, this is very similar to Versailles as a whole. (Inga & Manoj: Feel free to shake your head and roll your eyes at this point!)
Kara: We exited the Louvre at the Pyramid and spent some time just relaxing by the fountains and enjoying the view. We took a BUNCH of photos out here. Gayle even grabbed the Nikon from me and took a few shots. She’s disappointed in the hair styling in all the shots today, but I really had a great time playing with the camera in such a picturesque location – even if she doesn’t like the shots I know her mom will! After leaving the Louvre we strolled through Tuileries Garden. This was a beautiful walk – especially since today was warm and sunny. We didn’t take a tremendous amount of pictures in the garden, but did take some at both ends. The gate at the Louvre end was extremely impressive and there were great views of the Eiffel Tower at the other end, where we also took a couple of photos of each other with the tower in the background. Our next stop was Musee de l’Orangerie.
Gayle: Okay. Kara’s forcing me to advance the story…. Musee l’Orangerie was on “The Plan” because it contains Monet’s “Water Lillies”, of which I am a fan. This museum felt much more formal than the others, but was also quite small. There are only two rooms of “Water Lillies”, but you will see from the photos why. I was stunned at the size of these pieces. You typically see prints no larger than 24x36 and expect the piece to actually be that size or smaller, such as the Mona Lisa. But wow. All of the “Water Lillies” were (approximately) no less than 12 ft. long with some likely being twice that size. Not needing an incredible amount of time here, we were next headed to Notre Dame.
Kara: Notre Dame is situated on Ile de la Cite which is the small island in the middle of the Seine. I really enjoyed strolling around this little island. It seemed to capture what I thought about Paris more than anywhere else we had been before. We arrived at Notre Dame right around 1:00. As we were standing in line waiting to get in, a few folks in front of us met some friends who had just come out of the church and said there was a mass going on. At first I thought this might mean we wouldn’t get in, but apparently they just send in the tourists to move right around the church’s outside area while the mass is said in the center of the church. It was kind of cool to hear mass being said as we were traveling around the church. I’m not sure what I expected here, but Notre Dame wasn’t really it. It was beautiful – especially the stained glass – but I guess it just wasn’t as reverent a location as I had expected.
Gayle: I agree. I couldn’t believe they let tourists in during the Mass. It was truly odd to be “sightseeing” during the Mass. The glass was beautiful, and I wish I had a narrative of the stories told with each pane of glass and the sections of the Bible each related to. Alas, in virtually no time at all we were exiting. The next and final stop for the day was to be St. Chappelle. However, when we arrived, a service was in session, and we were not permitted entrance. At this point, Kara decided we should hop on the “Batobus”, a sightseeing boat cruise. This had always been part of the PLAN, but we were never sure when we might have the opportunity to actually do it.
Kara: We strolled along the Seine from St. Chapelle to catch the Batobus. I really enjoyed seeing all the sidewalk vendors with their art, photos and other wares. We got our tickets and got on the Batobus. The Batobus was a nice relaxing way move around the city. We stopped at the Champs Elysees stop and strolled up the street to the Metro station. We boarded our metro, made all the transfers, and headed back to “home” for a fun dinner.
Gayle: It was a relatively early day, but we were also up late the night prior. Simply getting back to the room and resting for a bit was a luxury we’d not had the prior days. We headed to the Disney Village to Annette’s (50’s-inspired diner) for supper. Between the last two night’s suppers at Disney, we’ve come to truly realize THIS Disney is NOT THE Disney, which we kinda knew from previous research. I could go on with a ton of detailed differences (shortcomings) with this park, but I won’t bore those of you who have no idea what I would be referring to. In short, our dining expectations are certainly not being met. Tomorrow we’ll be staying “home” and spending our first (and really only) full day at Disneyland Paris.
Kara: We’re both looking forward to switching into “vacation” mode tomorrow and resting/relaxing in the park while riding rides. While Gayle’s right that there are a lot of differences in the parks, I do think the Paris park does do a much better job of creating beautiful locations for photos so I’m looking forward to more pictures and playing around with the camera. For now though, we’ll both say good night to all of you as we’re headed off to bed shortly.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Daily Dialogue - Paris Day #1
Today’s installation will feature a dialogue account of Thurs. May 28
Gayle: This morning began very early especially since Kara awoke at 1am with a migraine – super weird since that’s usually me. Headed down to breakfast and luckily we have VIP seating for our entire stay at Disney ;) so we don’t have to wait to be seated. HA!
Kara: We’ve read in all the books that we can get the Museum Pass at any train station. ALL THE BOOKS ARE WRONG! However, we did succumb to buying the 2-day Paris Visite pass which allowed us to get on and off the trains/metro all day without having to figure out when we needed to buy more tickets or how many we needed – something I’m not sure we would have ever figured out. By the end of the day, Gayle was navigating the train stations like a pro – and I was happily following her :-)
Gayle: Actually I believe it definitely took both of us, as we had to read all of the signs, trains, etc. First stop today was Tour de Eiffel – or for you Americans the Eiffel Tower. Wow. It is A LOT taller than I even could imagine. We were off of THE PLAN, which I am now simply referring to as an OUTLINE, and were there later than opening. The line for the elevator was crazzzzzy long, so we decided to take the stairs….
Kara: That’s all 382 stairs (I would capitalize those numbers if there was a way to do that). We made it, although I think I found some muscles in my legs that I didn’t have before. We’ve also discovered that weather.com can’t tell temperature in Celsius – or can’t tell French weather as it was forecasted to be warm and only partly cloudy. As you can see in pictures we had on jackets all day and it was extremely cloudy. We took several pictures though of both the city and the tower. One of our favorites was of one of the workers “just hangin’ out” on the lower side of the first level of the tower.
Gayle: Oh and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Colleen when I saw a figure of the Eiffel Tower painted in cow spots! Next, we walked along the Seine on our way to the Musee D’Orsay. It was much further between metro stops than we expected. Again, we arrived later than we wanted to, but the line moved very quickly.
Kara: We finally got our 2 day Museum Passes and then headed in to take care of some basic things like free bathrooms and finding lunch! Actually, we packed lunch from the hotel this morning and just needed a couple of bottles of water and some fruit and chips. After a nice lunch we headed to find the galleries and enjoyed looking at the works of Monet, Manet, Renoir, and others. We can both pick out a Monet from about 20 paces so I think we agree we liked those best. Got photos of many of those, but didn’t load those yet.
Gayle: Actually, my favorite here were the works by Degas, definitely the ballerina in me! The building itself is an impressive architectural piece that I could have enjoyed much longer. But as you will see, a strange passer-by got in one of our shots. Hmm…
Kara: I actually took the shot of the polar bear for Ashley Ann! I also have a Panda Bear shot for Amanda that I haven’t loaded yet, but will. It’s from “small world” at Disney. The other piece that I took several photos of was the Prince with his dog Nero. Very cute sculpture. We left Musee d’Orsay and headed to one of the smaller museums – but definitely one I had been looking forward to – Musee Rodin.
Gayle: Surprisingly, this was both of our favorite stop of the day. It includes a wonderful traditional museum in Rodin’s former home, as well as many works in a stunning garden. Kara shot continuous photos, while I narrated the history of some pieces from the brochure.
Kara: If you ever get to Paris you MUST see Musee Rodin. I could have probably stayed there just looking at the pieces and the flowers for several more hours, but we managed to see everything we wanted – except Orpheus – which was not installed when we visited. We left Musee Rodin after grabbing a quick drink in the café and headed to the Arc de Triomphe.
Gayle: In case you are wondering why we liked Musee Rodin so much, it contains “The Thinker”, “The Gates of Hell”, and “The Kiss”. Look these up and learn something today! And remarkably, there is a photo (not contained here) of me literally stopping to “smell the roses” in the garden.
Kara: When we arrived at the Arc we exited right out of the metro and right in front of it. The structure is HUGE. We met a lot of other tourists there who were all taking photos much like ours. A couple of younger American girls returned the favor of me taking their picture in front of the Arc by taking a few pictures of us as well. As in most places, I could have stayed there all day just taking photos of others for them – a favorite activity of mine when I travel.
Gayle: By this time we were more than ready to head “home”. Upon arrival we had supper in Disneyland and then to our room. The “OUTLINE” seems to still be in flux. However, tomorrow will include at least: The Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, and St. Chappelle.
Kara: We both enjoyed our first day in Paris very much and hope you enjoy a few of the more than 150 photos we took between the two of us today. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll take many, many more. All in all we walked more than 7.5 miles today and we are tired so it’s off to bed for us.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tues. May 26/Wed. May 27
From Gayle...
I'll just add to what Kara posted below. I worked really hard to prep for the flight and time change. Luckily I did get a moderate amount of sleep on the plane. Between the plan and Harry Potter 1 (my dissertation-writing background) the time literally flew.
The Paris airport (CDG) is really big and somewhat confusing, but we quickly figured things out. It took awhile to get out of the airport & as usual, I was asleep on the Disney bus by the time we were headed out of time.
Apologies, as I'm about to switch to Disney-speak. We're at Sequoia Lodge because Kara loves Wilderness Lodge and this is the closest thing DLP has; I selflessly gave up being at Newport (the cousin of my beloved Beach Club in FL). Yet we knew it would never BE Wilderness Lodge. In fact, I was expecting it to be more of an "All Star Resort" feel. The lobby was very nice & check-in smooth. The room, however, just met my expectations of the "All Stars", but I am a fairly high-maintainence traveler! We've encountered some issues, and tonight's quality of sleep will indicate the severity.
Getting into Disneyland Paris was a breeze, I laughed at how close the parks & village are too each other. Like Kara said we're getting really tired now, as we never did take a nap. We've just decided to change "The Plan", which rarely happens. So next up - Paris Day 1 on Thurs. (instead of Fri.).
Trust us - much better posts are on the horizon.
Gayle
I'll just add to what Kara posted below. I worked really hard to prep for the flight and time change. Luckily I did get a moderate amount of sleep on the plane. Between the plan and Harry Potter 1 (my dissertation-writing background) the time literally flew.
The Paris airport (CDG) is really big and somewhat confusing, but we quickly figured things out. It took awhile to get out of the airport & as usual, I was asleep on the Disney bus by the time we were headed out of time.
Apologies, as I'm about to switch to Disney-speak. We're at Sequoia Lodge because Kara loves Wilderness Lodge and this is the closest thing DLP has; I selflessly gave up being at Newport (the cousin of my beloved Beach Club in FL). Yet we knew it would never BE Wilderness Lodge. In fact, I was expecting it to be more of an "All Star Resort" feel. The lobby was very nice & check-in smooth. The room, however, just met my expectations of the "All Stars", but I am a fairly high-maintainence traveler! We've encountered some issues, and tonight's quality of sleep will indicate the severity.
Getting into Disneyland Paris was a breeze, I laughed at how close the parks & village are too each other. Like Kara said we're getting really tired now, as we never did take a nap. We've just decided to change "The Plan", which rarely happens. So next up - Paris Day 1 on Thurs. (instead of Fri.).
Trust us - much better posts are on the horizon.
Gayle
One verrrrrrrry long day!
Yesterday, we finally left on our trip to Paris and London. We flew from Indianapolis to
Newark and from Newark on to Paris. Both flights went fine. Unfortunately I didn't sleep
terribly well on the second flight so when we landed in Paris at 9:40 a.m. local time, I had
already been up for nearly 24 straight hours. As I write this now at 8:04 p.m. local time,
I've lost count of how many hours I'm on, but we're headed to sleep soon.
We arrived at Charles de Gualle airport a little early, went through customs (my passport
now finally has a stamp!), got our bags, and found the Disney transfer bus with relatively
little difficulty. We knew before we came that the European hotels would not be at the
standard of American hotels. However, when we pulled into the lot of the first Disney hotel
on the bus route - Hotel Santa Fe - I started to have a sinking feeling that this was going
to be terrible. However, we went on down the road to the Sequoia Lodge - our resort for the
week - and it looked much better. Gregory, the cast member who checked us in, even gave us
VIP breakfast passes which means we don't have to stand in line for the free breakfast while
we're here - a HUGE bonus.
We went to Val d'Europe - a shopping complex one train stop up - and had dinner at a
restaurant called Hippopotamus. It was just a burger, green beens and a baked potato, but
given how long we'd been going without a good meal, it was quite good. We came back to Disney and went into the park. We rode Snow White, Small World, Pirates, and Phantom Manor - all with relatively no wait. We explored a little in the village and then headed back to the bus stop to come back to the hotel.
We're back in the room now and preparing to finally bring this really long day to a close and already debating possible changes to the overall trip plan. I promise tomorrow's post will include pictures and be far more interesting. Quite honestly - I'm just too tired to be funny or interesting right now.
Newark and from Newark on to Paris. Both flights went fine. Unfortunately I didn't sleep
terribly well on the second flight so when we landed in Paris at 9:40 a.m. local time, I had
already been up for nearly 24 straight hours. As I write this now at 8:04 p.m. local time,
I've lost count of how many hours I'm on, but we're headed to sleep soon.
We arrived at Charles de Gualle airport a little early, went through customs (my passport
now finally has a stamp!), got our bags, and found the Disney transfer bus with relatively
little difficulty. We knew before we came that the European hotels would not be at the
standard of American hotels. However, when we pulled into the lot of the first Disney hotel
on the bus route - Hotel Santa Fe - I started to have a sinking feeling that this was going
to be terrible. However, we went on down the road to the Sequoia Lodge - our resort for the
week - and it looked much better. Gregory, the cast member who checked us in, even gave us
VIP breakfast passes which means we don't have to stand in line for the free breakfast while
we're here - a HUGE bonus.
We went to Val d'Europe - a shopping complex one train stop up - and had dinner at a
restaurant called Hippopotamus. It was just a burger, green beens and a baked potato, but
given how long we'd been going without a good meal, it was quite good. We came back to Disney and went into the park. We rode Snow White, Small World, Pirates, and Phantom Manor - all with relatively no wait. We explored a little in the village and then headed back to the bus stop to come back to the hotel.
We're back in the room now and preparing to finally bring this really long day to a close and already debating possible changes to the overall trip plan. I promise tomorrow's post will include pictures and be far more interesting. Quite honestly - I'm just too tired to be funny or interesting right now.
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Plan
From Gayle
Those of you reading this know at least one of us. Something to know is we are both detailed planners. As such, we've developed the following "PLAN" for the trip. Now, let's see how close we get on the actual execution....
Tues. May 26 - Depart IND>Newark>Paris on Continental
Wed. May 27 - Arrive and get settled
Thurs. May 28 - Disneyland Paris
Fri. May 29 - Paris Day 1 - Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Musee Rodin, Arc de Triomphe (Louvre, if we have time, as they are open late on Friday nights)
Sat. May 30 - Paris Day 2 - Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, St. Chappell, Boat along Seine
Sun. May 31 - Disneyland Paris &/or Versailles
Mon. June 1 - Eurostar to London, London Eye
Tues. June 2 - Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Guards Museum, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Harrods
Wed. June 3 - Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Martin of the Fields, British Museum (& Wimbledon, but probably won't have time)
Thurs. June 4 - Windsor Castle & possibly Eton
Fri. June 5 - Oxford, specifically Christ Church
Sat. June 6 - Fly home - Heathrow>Cleveland>Indy
Stay tuned; it's sure to be exciting, but at least humorous!
Gayle
Those of you reading this know at least one of us. Something to know is we are both detailed planners. As such, we've developed the following "PLAN" for the trip. Now, let's see how close we get on the actual execution....
Tues. May 26 - Depart IND>Newark>Paris on Continental
Wed. May 27 - Arrive and get settled
Thurs. May 28 - Disneyland Paris
Fri. May 29 - Paris Day 1 - Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Musee Rodin, Arc de Triomphe (Louvre, if we have time, as they are open late on Friday nights)
Sat. May 30 - Paris Day 2 - Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, St. Chappell, Boat along Seine
Sun. May 31 - Disneyland Paris &/or Versailles
Mon. June 1 - Eurostar to London, London Eye
Tues. June 2 - Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Guards Museum, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Harrods
Wed. June 3 - Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Martin of the Fields, British Museum (& Wimbledon, but probably won't have time)
Thurs. June 4 - Windsor Castle & possibly Eton
Fri. June 5 - Oxford, specifically Christ Church
Sat. June 6 - Fly home - Heathrow>Cleveland>Indy
Stay tuned; it's sure to be exciting, but at least humorous!
Gayle
Friday, May 22, 2009
My turn
From Gayle...
Okay, here's my first post (finally). Kara & I are chatting online about the plan for this weekend. Basically we're working to reset out body clocks to avoid as much jet lag as possible - something I have a horrible time with. So we will plan to go to bed and get up an hour earlier each of the next 4 nights. This means I need to be asleep by 5:30pm Monday night in order to get up at 1:30am Tues. If you know me at all, I'm usually just heading TO bed at 1:30am, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.
Otherwise, I'm sure the remainder of the weekend will be spent on the phone for countless hours dealing with "Did you take care of...? How will we...? Which of these 20 shirts should I pack (including picture messages)? What about...?" Ugh. Enough already. Just squeeze me like a sardine into my crampt seat and get the horribly long flight over.
The next thing I'm looking forward to is seeing Kara's bag. See, she has a packing problem and by this, I mean an overpacking problem. We are always holding our breath when it gets weighed, which entertains me. (Kara will kill me for this!) Me? I'm the packing machine. I think there's a Tetris program always running in my head. I better be nice though, as Kara's in charge of all the electronics, cables, chargers, etc. So if you want to see anymore posts, it's because of her. :)
Next up: The daily "plan" for the trip!
G
Okay, here's my first post (finally). Kara & I are chatting online about the plan for this weekend. Basically we're working to reset out body clocks to avoid as much jet lag as possible - something I have a horrible time with. So we will plan to go to bed and get up an hour earlier each of the next 4 nights. This means I need to be asleep by 5:30pm Monday night in order to get up at 1:30am Tues. If you know me at all, I'm usually just heading TO bed at 1:30am, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.
Otherwise, I'm sure the remainder of the weekend will be spent on the phone for countless hours dealing with "Did you take care of...? How will we...? Which of these 20 shirts should I pack (including picture messages)? What about...?" Ugh. Enough already. Just squeeze me like a sardine into my crampt seat and get the horribly long flight over.
The next thing I'm looking forward to is seeing Kara's bag. See, she has a packing problem and by this, I mean an overpacking problem. We are always holding our breath when it gets weighed, which entertains me. (Kara will kill me for this!) Me? I'm the packing machine. I think there's a Tetris program always running in my head. I better be nice though, as Kara's in charge of all the electronics, cables, chargers, etc. So if you want to see anymore posts, it's because of her. :)
Next up: The daily "plan" for the trip!
G
Monday, May 18, 2009
We're in the single digits
The countdown calendar is officially in single digits. The packing list is made, the trip books are done and my house is starting to look like a tornado ran through it as I'm ransacking every nook and cranny looking for all the things I just have to take with me. Thankfully, I was able to finally decide on the Pacsafe CitySafe 200 Anti-Theft Hand Bag
that will serve as a great day bag during the trip - holding my camera, travel guide, and other necessary items each day. Gayle got the next smaller version of the same bag several weeks ago - it just took me a while - and three different purchases - to decide which one I finally wanted.
Big things yet to do are to find all my SD cards and get them cleaned off, make sure all the necessary travel documents are in my bag and pack. I'm at the point where I just want to be there though so my motivation is lacking - but hopefully we'll get everything done and be ready to head out next Tuesday with little fanfare and stress.
that will serve as a great day bag during the trip - holding my camera, travel guide, and other necessary items each day. Gayle got the next smaller version of the same bag several weeks ago - it just took me a while - and three different purchases - to decide which one I finally wanted.Big things yet to do are to find all my SD cards and get them cleaned off, make sure all the necessary travel documents are in my bag and pack. I'm at the point where I just want to be there though so my motivation is lacking - but hopefully we'll get everything done and be ready to head out next Tuesday with little fanfare and stress.
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