Day 9
London Bound
I was a little premature on the Perfect Day in Paris post… I
had two glasses of Cabernet and that ended the day with perfection…
I’m writing this as we are on the Eurostar, heading back to
London. We have seats with a table in the middle, so it makes it a little
easier, even though it’s only a two hour train ride. I got one last look at the
Eiffel Tower as we were in the countryside; it’s a little hard to spot, but
it’s there. We started the day by getting up a little early, since we wanted to
do a couple of things before we had to leave. First off it was time to find
some food. We really didn’t want a sit down restaurant since that would take too
much time. Yes, we should be drawn and quartered, but we decided on McDonald’s
at about 9:30 AM because it was the only thing open. We walked in to order a couple Egg McMuffins
only to find out it would be a 20 minute wait, but then they said they couldn’t
make them. We figured if they couldn’t make them, we’d go somewhere else. There
was a Quick restaurant, but we found out they didn’t open until 11:00. We
discovered that on a Sunday morning there’s not much open. We did find a market,
though, and settled on bananas, Special K bars and some juice or yogurt
drink….the breakfast of champions. From there we boarded the Metro to Notre
Dame. Once we got back up to street level, we found an interesting thing for
the Olympics. They were showing some events live in a square on a giant
television. They had chairs and big bean bag chairs that you could plop down on
and watch the events as they unfold. We consumed our morning meal as we watched
Table Tennis.
Notre Dame was a special moment on the trip. I had read
somewhere that Notre Dame didn’t compare to some of the other churches, but we
caught it at a special time. You can
walk into the church for free, and we discovered that there was a service going
on at the same time. You can take pictures as long as there is no flash, which
was unique compared to the other churches we visited. Most don’t allow you to
take pictures at all. Anyway, we were able to hear the priest talk and sing,
and we were also able to hear the organ. It was an amazing experience to hear
it in that giant church. There were incredible stained glass windows throughout
and the tall arches were spectacular. I hope I was able to take some pictures
that capture it a little bit. I was also able to take a little video on my
iPhone that I hope can let you hear what it was like. We saw a sign that Notre
Dame was celebrating it’s 850th anniversary…..no I didn’t type that
incorrectly. We feel so lucky that we decided to make a trip there to see it.
We walked around Notre Dame a little bit and saw some street
performers, flower markets, pet stores, and plant shops. All the little things
that people that live there need for their daily lives. We also walked along
the Seine river and crossed the Pont Neuf bridge on foot so that we could take
in the sites. The Pont Neuf bridge is the oldest in Paris and has survived
numerous floods from the river Seine. At
this point, it was time to go back to the hotel and get checked out. We still
had a little time before we had to get to the train station, but we needed to
relinquish our room.
After checking the bags, we decided to take one last walk
along a canal that was a couple blocks from our hotel. It was very interesting
to see. There were a series of locks that allowed boats to travel on the
canal……Oh we just entered our trip in the Chunnel…… We were lucky in that we
were able to follow one boat as it went through the locks. The boat entered,
tied up to the side, and then was lowered to the next level as the water was
released into the lower lock. Once the water was level, the big gates opened up
and the boat could continue on. The last point we saw was the boat going into a
tunnel that was still part of the canal. From there I don’t know where the boat
would end up because 100 feet on the other side of the street was a park where
the canal should be. We finally decided we had to leave Paris and headed for
the train stop. No issues (which if you know me and border crossings – is a
good thing), other than not being able to understand the English speaking
border agent. We’ll head to our London hotel for the remaining 5 days of our
trip.
Jill and I were both talking on the train and have come to
the same point of view. Paris is an amazing place that we’re so fortunate to
experience but I don’t think we’d go back just to see it again. While there’s
so much amazing history and sites, it’s a really dirty and crowded city. I
think there would be more places that we’d like to go and experience. Despite
the person that tried to scold Jarret because he must have cut her off as we’re
taking our luggage to the Metro (he didn’t know what he did and I think she was
just in a bad mood), the people there were very nice. I’d heard a lot about the
attitudes of Parisians towards Americans, but we just didn’t experience any of
it. Maybe it was because we had kids along with us or because we tried to speak
the language a little bit. Also, nobody got their pockets picked.
There was one funny moment that the kids keep bringing up
when we ordered dinner the other night. The waiter came up, I threw out a
“Bonjour” and felt pretty good about myself……until he rattled off something in
French that I had no idea about. The kids said the look on my face was
priceless until the waiter said “English?” and we gratefully nodded. Maybe
my “Bonjour” was so authentic that he
couldn’t tell I was an American…at least that’s what I’m going with.
The other funny thing is that the kids have nicknamed each
other. Rylee has named Jarret “No Finish Jarret” because whatever he orders he
doesn’t finish. Can’t eat the fries, can’t finish the crust, or can’t drink all
of his pop. I finally told Jarret he doesn’t get to order pop anymore because
he doesn’t finish it. Jarret on the other hand has nicknamed Rylee “No Try Ry”
because she won’t try anything new. She’s sick of ham and cheese sandwiches,
but won’t branch out to anything else (no escargot for me!). In fact, by
mistake on the train, she got another ham and cheese pretzel. Oh well, maybe
someday she’ll learn trying new things isn’t all that bad.
Oh, just popped out on the other side of the English Channel
and are now in England.
As I’m thinking about our adventure, Jarret did something
funny as we’re using the Metro. We have these little tickets that you put into
the machine, it pops out the other end, and you grab it before you exit into
the subway. As Jarret was getting his ticket ready he sang “ I’ve got a golden
ticket…..” which you probably know is a reference to Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory.
Jarret did come up with our Walter Emergency Plan in regards
to riding the subways. Ever the thinker
and problem-solver, he came up with this plan about our second day in
London. If one of us doesn’t make it on
to the subway (which, if you’ve ever ridden the tube or the Metro, this will
make sense), then whoever is on the subway will get off at the next stop. Whoever got left behind will get on the next
subway and get off at the next stop, so we would all be together again. Smart huh? Thankfully, we haven’t had to put
his plan into use yet. Our Walter
routine is to enter the subway as quickly as possible, sit or stand as close to
a door as possible, then get off quickly and run to the wall for our Walter
family meeting. We would come up with
our game plan, then break, and off we’d go.
It’s been working well so far. But I do wish they had more lifts or
escalators so we wouldn’t have to lug our big, heavy bags up all those stairs.
Some of the keys to traveling together and keeping the kids
happy are to always feed them, separate them whenever possible, and say things
like, “we’ll be there soon” or “I think it’s just around this corner”. Hmm, these are some of the things we did when
they were toddlers…
Well, au revoir, Paris!
And hello London again J
We just got into our hotel, did some laundry to get us
through the rest of the week and are having a pizza delivered. Our hotel room
is really small by our standards but it’s clean and should be comfortable
enough. Jarret might end up sleeping on the floor on a cushion instead of the
sofa hide-a-bed but we’ll see how that goes. Also, I did a Skype session
tonight with Dave Cotton from KHQ. We’re going to send in a few pictures and
Skype with him on the 6 AM news broadcast tomorrow morning. He said we’d be on
between 6 and 6:15 so keep an eye out for us. Not sure where we’ll be but
hopefully we’ll be somewhere interesting.
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