London to Paris

A Year Ago Today...

March 15, 2009

Itinerary:

Sunday, 3/15 London/Paris

-Breakfast at hotel: Groceries. Leave at 7:00 for church service.

-8:00am Holy Communion, St. Paul's Cathedral.

-Camden market before check out of hotel.

-Lunch at train station: £2.00
-Train [12:02 PM-03:17 PM] 3/15/09, train 9082 London St. Pancras to Paris Nord, Economy, 2nd class youth. (2 hours, 17 minutes; $65)

-Arrive in Paris, check into our hotel (scoped out by Julia prior to our arrival); meet Julia at train station.

-Check into hotel

-Walk: along the Seine River, Tuileries Palace Gardens, the Louvre

-Trocadéro; Eiffel Tower. Dinner of baguettes, cheese, strawberries, nutella, yogurt, apple sauce, grape juice provided by Julia in grass in front of tower.

-Lodging: Hotel Concorde Saint-Lazare, (Priceline: $480.92/4 people/3 nights = $120.23 per person - $40.08 a night)

Sunday morning we hopped on the underground and headed to St. Paul's Cathedral once again, only this time we attended a service.

Here I am sneaking photos during the service. shhh! This was my first time inside the Cathedral. We went to the early service that was mostly liturgical. It is interesting to see such a huge church building that once was a major worship center in London and now hardly has any people inside for the worship services.

Of course we had to pull out our Mary Poppins reenactment of "Feed the Birds" on the steps of St. Paul's.

In the afternoon it was time to say goodbye to London and hello to Paris. We took the Chunnel train across--which was pretty much like riding a train in a really dark tunnel. I think I slept most of the way so I'm sorry I don't have any exciting Chunnel stories to tell.

But what was exciting was that on the other end my dear friend Julia was waiting to greet us! She was living in Paris as an au pair for the year. It was so wonderful to spend time with her and also to have her as a tour guide and translator through most of our time in Paris. Julia is from Buffalo, NY and we met in on a mission's trip in Brazil and became fast friends. She was able to come visit me in Tacoma a few years back, but the funny thing is that we have spent more time together abroad than we have at home. It's definitely time for me to get out to see her home so perhaps that will be my next adventure. :-)

For our hotel in Paris, I had put a bid on Priceline for a 4 star hotel and got a really great deal! The hostels in Paris were almost the same price and we felt so much safer here. The catch was that this room only had one huge bed! but actually it was large enough that when we all laid down the "wrong" way on the bed, we actually fit quite nicely and so it ended up being no problem at all!

This is Julia and Harm lounging in our hotel lobby.

And I had never seen such an interesting McDonalds as the one across the street from our hotel.

Once we were all checked in, Julia took us on a walking tour of Paris. We walked along the Seine River and took in all the amazing (and old!) architecture around Paris.

We also had some fun people watching. This lady and her dog were my favorite!

Finally we ended up by the Eiffel Tower for a wonderful dinner provided by Julia. We enjoyed genuine French bread, strawberries and chocolate, yogurt, and grape juice. It was fabulous!

Then we got to watch the sunset at the Eiffel Tower. Wow!

And stayed until it was dark. The tower was so gorgeous all lit up!

By the way, since it is March 15th, just gotta throw in there "Beware the Ides of March!"