Megz and Peter in Europe 2004

London & Paris

Peter and I spent five nights in London and Paris. We arrived in London at 6am last Wednesday after flying in from LA. Not getting much sleep on the flight and arriving just as the Californians would be going to bed. One of the first things we noticed was how cold it was. Not just a little bit cold, but absolutely freezing, and wet and windy.

It was my second time in London in less than a year, but Peter has never been there before, so we went and did the tourist things – Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc, etc. We took one of the Hop On Hop Off tour buses which was quite informative and went past all the major sites. At 15 pounds a head it’s not exactly cheap when you convert it to Kiwi dollars, but oh well. It was also a convenient, if slow, way of getting around town and certainly beats walking in the rain and hail, both of which we got caught in while out walking.

Unfortunately jet lag finally caught up with us around 3 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, and we found ourselves on the warm tour bus gently nodding off to sleep. But we did observe that we weren’t the only ones, and I suspect most tourists from the States end up doing the same thing.

Thursday was more of the same, and also included a visit to the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels. Have taken loads of photos.

In London we stayed with Rose Brandeis (ex Tranz Rail, now working for Network Rail (RailTrack) in London) in her Camden flat. Nice and close to town in that commuting doesn’t take too long, yet with all the pubs and cafs and shopping you don’t get in the city. We made sure to have both a café brekkie and a pub lunch during our two days in town.

Friday morning we had a very early start and caught the first tube of the day out to Heathrow. Surprisingly a lot of people around Kings Cross station at 5.30am.

We arrived in Paris during a strike and so the passport control had only two staff on, and two very long queues. Just as we almost got up to the counter, the Passport Officer got up from his counter and walked away. No explanation or nothing. So we and the people around us were wondering “is he coming back?”, “how long should we wait?”, “should we join the other queue?”. After five minutes we decided to merge with the other queue. C’est la vie.

We both experienced that kind of culture shock you get when you arrive somewhere and suddenly realize you haven’t got a clue what to do or where to go. Somehow we managed to bungle our way to the RER train and into the city. At Gare du Nord we got totally confused again and managed to get swindled by someone who we thought was helping us. But that’s another story and still too much of a raw nerve to go into right now.

We found a hotel in the Montmarte area more by luck than by design, as the hotel I had found on the internet three weeks before still hadn’t responded to my request. The building was old, the staircase was falling apart, and there was a communal toilet with no seat. But at least the room was clean, we had our own shower, and the place had plenty of character.

Staying at Montmarte we were right at the bottom of the hill below Sacre Coeur and practically around the corner from the Moulin Rouge and Pigalle district. So we had sightseeing right at our doorstep and no need to deal with the metro again, at least on day one. We were also in the area where I’d say most African immigrants end up, which actually meant that we had a great variety of different places to eat. Wandering through the streets of Paris at night, eating a kebab and chips was pretty cool.

Saturday we went out and did the tourist thing – Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Place de la Concorde, and one art gallery, the Musee d’Orsay. We did a lot of walking that day and got a good feel for Paris. It was nice to have the streets not crowded with tourists and it was pretty clean and attractive. It was still very cold though.

Sunday we started with the Eiffel Tower – walked up to the second floor and had great views over all of Paris. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Louvre – what little of the day was left. Somehow we managed to lose two hours which stuffed us up quite a bit – first we had our alarm set on NZ time instead of Paris time, so while we thought it went off at 8am it was really 8pm NZ time and 9am Paris time. Then daylight savings had kicked in that morning, so while we thought it was 9am it was really 10am. A bit of a waste of the day unfortunately.

We splashed out that night and had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame. A bit extravagant, but thoroughly worth it for the experience and the memories. The (French) onion soup came highly recommended and was very good. The meat dishes (veal and civet) were very tasty, filling and hearty.

And that was the end of our Paris and London experiences. We managed to cram a lot into five days. Too much really as it ended up feeling quite rushed. I would really recommend taking more time, however on this trip we have a lot of places we want to go, and not a lot of time to do them in. The weather was a *lot* colder than I’d expected and I hope it is better down south. If not then at least I am now the proud owner of a black London brolly and a pair of chenille gloves from Paris.

posted by Megz @ 5:01 pm