From London to Paris

12.55am Paris, Francis



Bloggers and Blogettes: It's been wonderful thus far! We arrived in London early (645am) on the 20th after having not slept at all on the plane AND staying up all night the night before so that we could sleep on the plane. Great idea. So we started off finding the bookstore to get the travel book that I think I may have left on the plane, still not sure where it went. They have Border's in London, who knew. After that we headed over to Cafe Nero to get a jump start to last the rest of the day. From there we began touring as tourists do. We went to the British Museum, saw the Rosetta Stone, St. Paul's the London Bridge and such. We actually took a nap on the grass at St. Paul's because we were so exhausted. Carrying around packs will really take it out of you. Oh yeah, and not sleeping for 36 hours. We met up with the guy we were staying with (Richard) at the London bridge. Richard is about 65-70 years old and the jolliest old man you ever did see. We both loved him. He bought us dinner (and wine) and then we headed back to his house. And when I say house I mean water tower from 1890 that was renovated circa 1979 to be offices and an apartment at the very top. SO cool. It has marks on the bricks where it was shot up in WWII. If thats not legit I don't know what is. We slept in the very top of the tower where there were no windows at all, we went to bed at 9.30pm and got up at 10.30am. Mmm jetlag. Out for traditional fish and chips and then back to London for Big Ben, Westminster, and Buckingham Palace.



We got to Paris around 11.30 that night and managed to find our way from the international train station to the Eiffel Tower, the gleaming beacon of tourist hope. Along the way we saw a real life drug deal! A man climbed up and grabbed pills out of the ceiling and sold them to another man waiting nearby, we were in a bad part of town for a bit. Luckily we had our giant backpacks, American accents, and we were staring at the ticket machine for 10 minutes deciphering between pounds and euros. We ran the place for all they knew! Andrew came to get us at around 2am from the tower and we had the best time ever. We got dinked through paris! And what that means, for those of you who don't know, is that we sit on the back of their bikes as they ride through the city. I fell once, Angela got dumped twice. Quite the experience, especially after they have had a bit o wine. Livin the dream.

Today we did all things tourist: Notre Dame, Pantheon, Luxembourg Gardens, whatever-their-giant-cemetary-is-called, and so forth. Out for dinner, drinks, and crepes with Andrew, and here we are. It has been so good to see Andrew and makes me really excited to get back home and share the laughter all together. I hope everyone is doing well and can't wait to hear from you all. I'll post pictures later. (*Edit: posted one! Nothing like hanging out with your roommate at the Eiffel Tower. Miss you TalTal.) All the best!

Aaron