Bonjour (Part 1)

Bonjour!

Greetings from Paris!!!  I am sorry that it has been so long since we have written; it has been a hectic and eventful few days.  Where did we leave off…hmmm…right…last you heard from us we were in our second to last day in London  So instead of doing all the wonderful things we had planned for that day such as seeing St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, we spent ¾ of the day sitting at the Rail Europe office trying to get our train tickets from Paris to Venice.  After we bought our train tickets we went to check out same day ticket prices for Billy Elliot the Musical.  Sadly they didn’t have any for that evening’s performance but we did get a great deal on tickets for the following night’s performance…19 Euros per person for the 4^th row!  As my grandmother would say…Such A Deal!!!  From there we walked to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen…well not really. 

And the guards did this bizarre goosestepping thing every fifteen minutes. They all looked like they knew it was ridiculous, but the recession makes people do some stupid-looking things! So then we walked along the park that’s across from Casa de Her Majesty and down to the Marble Arch. Then we walked to Harrod’s which is a gigantic department store that both of our mothers informed us we HAD to visit while in London…so we did. It was a big department store.  A big department store with insanely expensive merchandise. Merchandise so expensive, in fact, that we were required to remove our backpack before we entered for fear that we may jar one of their…jars or any other items from their beloved shelves. The first half hour was spent desperately trying to exit the perfume section. We would have left the building if we had been able to do so, but the friggin’ place was like a giant smelly labyrinth. Fortunately that Dantesque nightmare was quickly followed by the Park from Willy Wonka opening atop one of the twelve-thousand mini escalators, complete with the flowing chocolate river. AND OOMPA LOOMPAS! Almost anyway. (Note: spray tanner should be outlawed for those who do not operate such luxuries with discretion. We headed back to our hotel early so that we could begin to pack up. Since the next day was, once again, planned to be jam packed with excitement, we knew we might not have enough packing time the next evening for doing all that needed to be done.

The next morning we got up and had our morning tea and muffin in the dining room where we met Ray and Valerie.  Ray was an Irish musician and Valerie was a French teacher, who were getting ready to tour the States for three weeks by helicopter.  We had a lovely chat with them (mostly Ray…he was a talker) and discussed both of our trips and their upcoming nuptials once they returned.  Once we were on our way, we headed towards Westminster Abbey.  We took a bus so we could take the scenic route through Notting Hill.  Once inside the Abbey we took the audio tour and learned about all the history behind the stunning building.  It was fascinating but we couldn’t stay too long because it was getting late and we still needed to make it to St. Paul’s before it closed.  When we arrived at St. Paul’s, the exterior was so stunning that we decided not to pay the 13 pounds per person to go in.  We walked around the exterior for a bit admiring the artistry before moving on.

Down about half a block from St. Paul’s, almost to the Millennium Bridge, there was an adorable pub with reasonable prices. Jen and I decided that it was about the right time in the afternoon-early evening for our libation. Jen had a pint of a very fine local cider, and I enjoyed a local microbrew that was FANTASTIC. It was a very enjoyable, warm afternoon with lots of people in good spirits in their little groups. We almost didn’t want to leave, but eventually did. We crossed Millennium Bridge and Jen was very excited because it was in the sixth Harry Potter movie. There were young men cooking candy-coated peanuts on each side of the bridge and it made the entire area smell AMAZING! We were both full, so we didn’t purchase any, but we enjoyed the view and appreciated the fine aroma on our way to Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. (Not the real Globe, that was destroyed a while ago. And not the remake of the Globe…that was also destroyed a while ago. We sojourned across Millennium Bridge to the THIRD installment of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.) It was almost an exact replica of the original Globe, as close as all the historical documents were able to describe, and it looked really good. We didn’t go on a tour, although that would have been nice, but we still wandered around the inside, the gift shop, and its exterior reading all the little information plaques along the way. I learned a lot. And I’ve taken two college courses on Shakespeare, and several others in which he was covered, and all we did was read the plaques. This place is pretty good. From the Globe we walked down the bank of the Thames. I stopped to take a picture of Jen in front of the Globe, still buzzed from my fine fine pint (and a bit of Jen’s too), while leaning back for the picture my canteen was dislodged from our daypack and tumbled over a ledge and into the water. A nice guy who was sitting nearby tried to save it as he heard it bouncing behind me (I had no idea where the noise was coming from…or why Jen was giving me that look), but it escaped. We chased it down river a good…15 yards before figuring that it was lost forever. We said our last goodbyes to our faithful canteen (me with my best “WILSON!!!! Nooo! Wilson! I’m sorry!” Tom Hanks impression) and made our way down the river. We passed by the Tate Museum next to the Globe, all the way down to the Waterloo Bridge where we caught a bus back across to the other side of the river Thames. We switched busses until we made it up to Leicester Square for dinner with a family friend. Lawrence was an old (not too old!) friend of Denise’s who has lived in London for five years. We had a fantastic dinner at an Italian restaurant a couple blocks from Trafalgar Square. He was a regular there since he works in that area, so the wait staff was wonderful and super friendly, and Jen and I had a terrific time chatting Lawrence up about everything and anything. (Don’t worry Denise, we take those stories to our graves J ) We had to jog/sprint to Billy Elliot. We were having such a good time at dinner that the play’s start time slid passed us. We missed the opening number, and had to disturb the lovely blonde family residing in the seats closest to the aisle, but still made it to our seats.

To Be Continued…..