Europe in September

I'm home now. I had a fantastic time everywhere I went but I'm glad to be back in my own bed, with my own, clean, shower. I especially loved Ireland; the people, the landscape, and the history were all so vibrant and beautiful. Amsterdam was such a fun city; the people were almost as friendly and fun as the Irish, and I just loved my bike.

I'm not going to post any more pictures on the blog because the resolution and presentation are poor, so I'm making Picasa albums and I'll post the link to those.

When we arrived in London around 9:30 pm we learned that the underground line that we needed to take to our hostel was stopped for the weekend. What was going to be such an easy, quick journey suddenly became a great trial. We were directed by underground employees to take a certain bus which would take us to a place to pick up an underground replacement bus which would take us to the proper underground stop. Unfortunately, the instructions were wrong and many people needing the same tube line all ended up on a bus that was not going to get us the entire way. Luckily we met three men on the bus who were trying to get to the same tube stop that we needed, and one of them had lived in the neighborhood for a while so he knew where to go. We had a long walk after getting off the first bus because it took us to the wrong place, but we got a lovely little tour as we walked, thanks to Mark, and we even got to see his old flat. They made what would have been a frustrating and stressful journey quite pleasant. We parted ways and made our way to the hostel, where we ended up watching an Irish horror film about mutant cows and socializing with many fun people in the lounge.

In the next two days we did a lot, but it didn't feel as rushed or hectic as Paris. We went to Buckingham Palace where we happened to catch the Changing of the Guard. We walked through Trafalgar Square, ate lunch at a bookstore and walked to Big Ben and Parliament. We went to Westminster Abbey for the Evensong service, which was beautiful. There was a choir of men and little boys with the most pure voices I have ever heard. I kept trying to picture them getting dirty playing football or getting in trouble with their mums, and I couldn't. I love visiting famous buildings and doing what they are meant for rather than taking a tour of them. When I told Ariel this, she said maybe we shouldn't do that with the Tower of London. After church we went to Tate Britain, which is an incredible art gallery. The day ended with dinner of our own making back at the hostel and chatting with some of the people we met the night before.

The next day something amazing happened. We went to Selfridges on Oxford Street. Selfridges is a giant, opulent department store that is really more like a carnival than a store. All the boutiques were lit up and sparkling and full of lovely expensive things. I thought it was better than Versailles, which Ariel did not approve of. Our reason for going was to see the brand new Shoe Gallery that had just opened on the second floor. The space is over half the size of the Palace at Versailles and has over 4,000 pairs of shoes, all in cozy, sparkling little boutiques and "apartments." There were shoes that cost 20 pounds and shoes that cost 1,000 pounds. There were shoes that designers had made especially for the opening of the gallery and had only made a few pairs of. There was a photo booth, where you could take shoes in with you and pose with them, which we did three times because it was free and fun. The pair I wanted the most was 290 pounds. Pictures to follow. We managed to drag ourselves out to get lunch but first we walked around the outside of Selfridges to look at the displays that had been created to advertise the Shoe Gallery. Popular fairy tales had been illustrated using shoes for some windows, others had shoe boxes that had been turned into dioramas that were created by the designers of various shoes, and others had sculptures of household objects shaped to look like shoes. It was like being at a museum, not a department store. After lunch we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, peeked in but didn't pay the entrance fee, and then walked across the Millenium Footbridge, which is featured in the Harry Potter 6 movie. We walked over it to get to Shakespeare's Globe Theater and Tate Modern. Then it was back for another home cooked (i.e. microwaved frozen dinners) meal and to bed early(ish) so we could get up for the flight home in the morning.

The last leg of our journey began with our flight from Paris to London being delayed 2 and a half hours. We enjoyed ourselves at a cafe, sharing wine and a donut and hardly noticed the wait. When we arrived at the London Luton airport at 1 in the morning, Ariel's friend Tim was waiting to pick us up and take us to his home in Kidlington, just outside of Oxford. It was such a relief to just be taken care of and not have to worry about getting ourselves to a hostel for the night. When we arrived at Tim's family's house his mother had prepared us two little beds in the cozy living room. I slept in the one with the Winnie the Pooh sheets. Tim asked us when we would like to get up and we, optimistically, said 10 but when 10 rolled around, and Tim got up for us, we were not ready. After two 20 hour days in Paris it took us until 11:30 to be up and ready for breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast of whatever Tim could find in the cupboards we managed to get ourselves out of the house to see Blenheim Palace, a couple minutes from the house. The only things Tim could tell us about this palace that had been in his back yard for his entire life were that Winston Churchill had been born there, and that it belonged to the Duke of Marlborough (he was pretty sure). We did some research when we returned home for lunch and learned that it was built for the 1st Duke of Marlborough to celebrate his military triumphs at the Battle of Blenheim but that the building of it cost so much and took so long that it actually led to the Duke's fall from grace and his exile. We didn't go in because the entrance fee is 50 pounds or something, so we just walked the grounds, which were beautiful, and, led by Tim, ended up walking through a field of sheep and having to jump an electric fence. We went back to have lunch with Tim's younger brother Peter and sister Rachel. Any meal with that family is an adventure. Tim put the pizza and the chips (fries) into the oven at the same time which was quite upsetting to Peter because the fries needed two more minutes in the oven than the pizza did, which meant that we would have the pizza for first course and the chips for the main course which was just unacceptable and embarrassing for him as a host. The drama was concluded with Peter calling Tim a moppet and we all sat down to eat the first course.

After lunch Tim, Ariel and I went into Oxford and walked around the town and the university grounds. Many of the university colleges charge entrance fees for visitors but we realized we looked like students so we just walked into one to have a look around. The courtyard was lovely, with tons of flowers and a perfect lawn that no one was allowed to walk on except for the dons of the college, who are allowed to cross it to save time. Everyone else has to go around. We then walked to a river that Tim thinks was the Thames and saw the university boat houses. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant in town and then Tim took us to the train station to go off to London.

Paris was mad. We had to get up at 4 am to leave Dublin to catch our flight. We finally arrived in Paris around 10, checked into our hostel and headed out. We started at the Louvre, which of course was fabulous, but there were a couple snags. We arrived on a Thursday which is the day for strikes in Paris, which meant that parts of the museum were closed. Also, as can be expected, there were so many tourists it was difficult to see much. Both of these problems continued at our next stop, the Arc du Triomph. We got a chance to look around quickly before we were kicked out by armed police officers because of the strike. We at least got to see the grave of the unknown soldier which was nice.

For dinner we went to a cafe near our hostel and had absolutely wonderful service. So far, Parisians were wonderfully friendly and welcoming, far from the stereotype. After a leisurely meal we headed to the Eiffel Tower. It was after dark and raining by the time we got there, and the view was perfect. When we got close enough I stopped to take a picture, but there was a pole in the way, so I said out loud "I don't like that." Several people were walking past as I said it, and one man stopped and said, "You don't like THAT?" thinking I meant the Eiffel tower...

We stopped at a cafe for some wine and a creme brulee, which was burnt, before heading back to the hostel. We got to bed by 2 am, which meant we had a 21 hour day. Phew.

The next day we met up with Ariel's friend Sandy, who was visiting Paris after a conference in Rome, and went to Versailles. There was a long line for tickets, and a long long long long line to get into the palace. While Ariel waited in line for tickets I saved a place in line to get into the palace. This plan ended up not working because the ticket line went much slower and I ended up at the front of the entrance line without tickets so I had to leave the line and get back in at the end once I met up with Ariel and Sandy. This was only the beginning of a massive amount of shuffling through lines. Once we got into the palace, we were completely packed in with a mob of tourists, so thick I could hardly move or breath. The palace was beautiful, but it was hard to really see anything at all until we got outside. Once in the palace gardens it was a different situation. The gardens were beautiful and peaceful, until it started raining. We found refuge in a cafe, where we got crepes and Irish coffees and waited out the rain. Once it stopped we were refreshed and ready to continue to Marie Antoinette's "peasant" hamlet. Compared to Versailles proper it was tiny and under-furnished, but it was still large and opulent compared to my house. They still had sheep in the fields surrounding this house, something Marie Antoinette had delivered to her hamlet to create the right atmosphere.

From Versaille we went straight to Montmartre. We got off at a terribly shady Metro stop where there were people everywhere trying to sell us anything they could possibly get their hands on, mainly cigarettes and knock-off purses. Once we escaped that, we made our way to a cafe outside Sacre Coeur. We had a perfect view of the church while we ate a quick dinner of crepes and a salad that was on the house, courtesy of our lovely waiter.

Then it was off to pick up our bags and head to Oxford, England.