London and Paris, Monday, September 13, 2010

In London, we kept walking by this beautiful, old, ornate building multiple times a day. As you know I am trying to design a fabric line and am constantly on the look out for inspiration. This building did not disappoint.

The building is the Natural History Museum. The thing that is so amazing about it is the only thing this building has ever been is a museum. AND the construction to build it started in 1873! Incredible.

Kevin and I really enjoy museums. Especially Kevin. This one was fun for me too.

The layouts and the collections were all very well done and very interesting. The two that stick out most in my mind are the ant exhibit with live, leaf cutter ants that had to traverse a stick, over water, to get to an island for their leaves and then bring them back over the stick to their nest. It was fascinating. The second was the whale exhibit.

They reconstructed a blue whale to true-to-life scale above it hung and actually whale skeleton. It's shocking to be called to remember that such huge creatures still exist today.

We didn't have much time in London on this day because in the late afternoon we were to catch a plane to PARIS!!!

After the Natural History Museum we had just enough time to pop over to the Science Museum just around the corner. We were still on the hunt for something for Beckham for his birthday. We only made it as far as the gift shop where we got sucked in to all the cool gadgets and toys spending our last few free minutes in London playing like children. We loved it.

It was time to go. We picked up our stuff from the hotel, tried to capture as much as we could mentally of London, and went to the airport.

Normally, I wouldn't make an account of our flight between the two countries. It's only and hour and then some long flight, but we happened to have a bit of divine intervention occur and I think we'd both like to remember it.

As it was, the flight was delayed for some reason. We seriously spent more time in the airplane on the ground than it took for us to fly to Paris. Consequently, there was time to talk. Which meant Kevin became acquainted with the man sitting next to him, Eluir. Eluir happened to be a Parisian flying home. He was just about a decade older than us and already semi-retired from his, apparently, lucrative Realtor job which require him to fly all over the world. He doesn't normally flight coach, "But the flight is so short anyone can handle anything for an hour" he explained.

Now this may not seem important or note worthy to you, but it was very much an answer to a prayer for us. Kevin was very nervous about Paris, for a few reasons. One, neither of us spoke the language well enough for his satisfaction and Two, Parisians are often stereotyped as being unfriendly....specifically toward Americans. He worried that our language barrier and the supposed predisposition of the French would seriously hamper our good time.

Eluir put all those fears to rest. He was SO friendly. He answered all of our touristy what-the-best-way-to-do-this questions as well as offered many tips and tricks that we would not have other wise known. He told us what to avoid because we did look so much like Americans (he said that couldn't be helped. It was the way we dressed) and he didn't want us to be taken advantage of.  To top it all off, because the plane was so delayed it caused him to miss whatever he'd been hoping to get to that night. All of the sudden he was very relaxed and not in any hurry.

The closer we got to Paris the more Kevin and Him became friends. Eluir, then offered to take us to our hotel in a cab so we wouldn't have to take the train in.

We said, "Great! We would love to share a cab with you and split the costs"

He wouldn't hear of it.

He told us he'd be getting a cab anyway and he lived just around the corner from our hotel so we might as well fill the empty space in the cab because it would just go to waste.

SO NICE!

He explained all the buildings as we drove by, talked Parisian politics with Kevin and left us with his phone number should we need anything or if we wanted to get together for drinks later.

I wish we would have gotten his last name. I'd really like to send him a card.

All of the sudden there we were.

PARIS!!!

I'd waited and dreamed SO long for this moment and I was more than ready for the magic to begin.

That first night in Paris was wonderful. Our hotel was very close to the Seine, the river flowing through the middle of Paris, and to Notre Dame. We walked to the banks of the Seine, over the bridge and around Notre Dame. It was truly incredible to get me first good look at this historic building at night. With all the lights. It was breath taking.


 
 

Notre Dame is on the little island, Ile De La Cite. Eluir told us the best ice cream anywhere was on the next island over, Ile St-Louis. After we walked to the center of Paris, which is in the courtyard of Notre Dame, we walked across another bridge to get to this amazing ice cream.

The next time I go back to Paris, I'd like to spend a little more time on Ile St-Louis. The streets are narrow, the buildings are old and charming and house shops in the ground floors. We did find some note worthy ice cream and devoured it as we made our way back to the hotel.

Paris at night is very magical. Everything twinkles and everything is alive. There is always something or someone to catch your eye.

The hotel we stayed  at was in the middle of the Latin quarter. We decided to explore a bit and I am so glad we did. Discovering Paris for the first time at night was amazing. The Latin quarter has so much going on. Good food, some shopping, and some more good food.

This is when we stumbled up "our place". A cute little cafe that you could order crepes from and watch them being made as you stood on the street. Oh. My. Goodness. Best food ever! We got crepes with sticks of baking chocolate melted in between the folded layers. It was like eating an upscale version of the best chocolate chip cookie you can imagine.


We had a crepe from "our place" every night. I think we are both still going through with drawls.

Our hotel was charming. To get to our room we had to walk through the lobby out into a courtyard. The entrance to our room was right there on the patio.

This is what we would see every morning we opened our door.

What's not to love?

Perfect for a second honeymoon.

London, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010

The third day in London was my personal favorite.

We slept in a bit (one of these days I am going to go on a vacation where the main goal is to see just how much sleep I can possibly get in one day) and then headed to church which was really only two blocks away.

It was a wonderful meeting. I love being reminded the gospel is the same no matter where you are in the world. It was so interesting to me to be surrounded by people who are often the minority amongst their friends and they were so very strong in their beliefs. You can't help but be a better person after gleaning (that word is for you Sarah) wisdom from those who have to defend their position nearly every day. I hope I always remember that meeting.

Next on the agenda was Hyde Park. I was particularly excited about this because the first stop was Speakers Corner.

Being that it was Sunday, I was reminded that a few of our early, and more recent, church leaders have taught there, including Gordon B. Hinkley --during his mission.

The spot did not disappoint. There was a very large crowd gathered to listen to an African American guy, standing on a stool, as he describe his ancestor's slavery by the hands of Muslims. The Muslim guys had a table set up just outside of the crowds perimeter and would occasionally,quietly, shoot out snippets in an attempt to sway the opinion of the crowd.To which the black guy would energetically, and loudly, shout something equally as contentious.

Meanwhile, there was another man, all alone, atop a stool shouting, who knows what, to another group of Muslims a bit away.

No one was listening to him. Not even the Muslims he was shouting at.

This was all too much for me. I am SO not a fan of awkward moments. I have a hard time watching reality T.V. because of that. But then actually being amongst...well on the outskirts....of a crowd that was part of the contention made me all squirmy.

Kevin would have stayed around much longer to enjoy "the show", but it wasn't going to happen.

Hyde Park is a lovely place with huge areas of green grass and trees lining the walk ways. We only covered about a 1/4 of the whole park the two hours we were there. I love the Serpentine pond in the park. Complete with ducks and paddle boats. It was beautiful and charming and romantic.

We walked around part of the pond and stumbled across Princess Diane's memory garden. I loved the flowers, the lay out, and the peaceful feeling there.

That put us in the corner of the park, Hyde Park corner to be exact. Which is directly across from Wellington Arch.
An impressive stone arch that I still don't understand how people could have built such huge things without any big machines.

From there we walked to Buckingham palace. The guards with the awesome hats were out front and tourists were everywhere. I tried to imagine living in such a big building, having thousands of unknown people coming to stare at my front door every day. It would be very surreal.

 

After the palace we walked toward Westminster Abbey. I enjoyed this walk a lot as it we through some older parts of London that were a little quieter. We found a small pub that was had a killer deal on some fish and chips. We wanted to see if pub food tasted better than over priced food. And it did.

I also tried creamed peas for the first time. They are peas that are made like mashed potatoes. They tasted about as good as they sound. But hey, you've got to try everything once.


The post lunch plan was a surprise to me. Mainly because the building we were surrounded by were so high I couldn't see that much ahead of us. We turned a corner and suddenly we were face to face with Westminster Abbey.

It literally took my breath away. It was enormous and it came from nowhere.

We were lucky enough to be there for the Evening Song. The church is old and ornate. The sermon was mostly sung by the mens and boys choir. I adore the sounds of such choirs, but especially in a church. It was beautiful.

From the Abbey we headed back to Big Ben.

 A 3 mile trip from Hyde park. We took the tube to Tower Hill, walked by the Tower of London and onto the Tower Bridge.

The impressive Tower Bridge was getting some new paint color, but it made it feel too Disney for me. I'm not sure why they thought the blue, red and white would look good, but I think it missed the mark.

We could see, from the bridge, that there was some sort of festival, we didn't know about, going on along the south bank of the Themes. There were booths selling clothing, jewelery, and food. It was lovely walking along the river with the bridge in the background.

The walk took us to some really, really, old parts of London. I found I am quite drawn to the look of old buildings and small churches that pop up unexpectedly as well as these gorgeous flowers. I could just die over the color combination!

We also walked right by the recreation of The Globe theater.
 

Plus, just look at this sky line! Artist kill to get their clouds to look like that. It was breath taking.

And I loved these old buildings.

We crossed the river to the north bank, A 2.8 mile walk from the Tower of London, and found a few seats along the side walk to wait for the Carnival Parade with a killer view of the London Eye. An insanely, over the top, crazy, big ferris wheel that someone would have to pay me large sums of money to ride.

seriously, it's nearly as tall as a sky scraper. NO THANK YOU!

The parade was a blast!!!

The elaborate costumes, which where captivating in their own right, had lights on them, the music made it impossible to sit still, and the entertainers in the parade did their best to get the crowd involved.

At one point a man dressed in a monkey suit that had a fake, exposed bottom got a bit TOO involved with Kevin. I think he could tell he was a foreigner. Pretty much it was hilarious!

After walking almost 6 miles that day, we couldn't last the whole 2 1/2hrs for the parade. That and I'm not known for really liking parades. We did, however, stay long enough to get these great shots.

We made our way back home. We were tired and hungry and, in our weakened state, did the unthinkable.......

We had dinner at Burger King!

GASP!

The horror.

I know. I know. Now, as I am in my right mind, I just cannot believe we did such a thing. But at the time all we wanted was to grab some food and eat it in our hotel room. At the time is was a glorious idea. I cannot tell you how good it felt to get into bed right after our late dinner.

So maybe it was a good decision after all.