Jenni and John Guest Post #3

(Pics to be added this weekend by J & J).
Monday, January 11th - LONDON
We were up at 5am in order to make the 6am train to get to Brussels and to London.  Our train didn’t have any issues and we were in London in just over 2.5 hours.  John and I were so tired from the weekend/getting up early that we slept the entire train ride.  So don’t ask us about the ride…or going through the chunnel – because we have no recollection!  Monday in London was cold…but not snowing or raining.  We were thankful of that!  We had breakfast and our waitress was from Minnesota – it’s a small world!  We signed up for the bus tour and rode the bus to St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London – both were really neat.  That night we went to Harrod’s.  Who knew you could buy a dog in a department store!!  Harrod’s was awesome.  Wish I had more time to shop.  :-)  We were in bed really early Monday night…exhausted!  Did you know that St Paul’s Cathedral has one of the largest domes in the world?!!?  (and John illegally took a picture of it?) and that the Tower of London has the crown jewels of England in it which includes a 530 carat diamond?  Now that is a rock!!

Tuesday, January 12th – LONDON part 2
After a very solid’s night sleep John and I were ready to go on Tuesday.  We were up for breakfast and off to meet up with the walking tour for the Changing of the Guard ceremony.  Our tour guide was probably in his 70’s and hilarious.  He spoke several languages and was very proud of his country.  The ceremony is very interesting – it left John and I asking lots of questions and we have some research to do when we get back…lots of guards in different places, some on horses, couldn’t keep it all straight.  After this, we went to Big Ben, Parliament and the Westminster Abbey.  Westminster Abbey was really neat – the churches in London are very different from the churches in Germany and Belgium.  London’s churches are extremely ornate – the ceilings are carved out of marble.  Crazy.  There was a lot of history in this building…including the tombs of many kings and queens.  After this we walked over to the London Eye only to find out that it was closed for maintenance.  We were bummed.  Oh well – gives us another reason to go back! :-)  We went to a pub for fish and chips…they were very good.  Can’t go to London and not have that!  Tuesday night we went back to Parliament and Big Ben to take night pictures on the Thames river…it was very pretty.  And very cold! 

We really liked London – not having the language barrier makes everything seem more comfortable and it a great city with a great history.  The thing that amazes me about Europe is everything has been around for hundreds of years…and the cities are still beautiful and amazing.

Wednesday, January 13th – LONDON BLIZZARD
Did I mention yet that this is London’s worst (cold and snowy) winter in over 30 years?  Yep – and we were right smack in the middle of it on Wednesday.  We only had a few hours before needing to catch the train and it was a few hours too many to be outside.  It was snowing and quickly turning to mush, by the time we reached Hamley’s toy store and Trafalgar Square it was a blizzard.  We were happy we had a train to catch!
We arrived in Paris via Eurostar train around 5pm.  We used an app on my ipod for the subway there and it took us right to our hotel – it was very handy.  We were a couple blocks from the Eiffel Tower, it was a great location.  We were excited to get out and see some sights.  We walked down a street just off from our hotel and found tons of cafes…it was very cool.  We stopped to have dinner and our waiter spoke very good English and was very happy to serve us.  He was cute.  We then thought we were walking to the Eiffel Tower – but ended up walking the wrong way.  Luckily for us the tower is tall and we could find our way!  We were very disappointed when we realized we could only see ½ the tower due to the haze and fog.  :-(  We then decided to walk to the Arc de Triumph – around the crazy traffic circle.  It took us about an hour to get there.  John spent time getting some really cool pictures with traffic whizzing around us.  After that, we decided to call it a night.

Thursday, January 14th & Friday, January 15th – PARIS
Today was a very busy day, we woke up and saw blue skies so we wanted to get the Eiffel Tower before the clouds rolled in.  We thought the breakfast buffet was included in our room fee so we stopped for a quick bite to eat on our way out.  We later discovered we didn’t have free breakfast and it ended up costing almost $30/person for a bowl of cereal and a croissant.  OUCH.  Oh well…makes for a good story.  We walked to the Eiffel Tower to get there just as the sun was coming up…it was awesome.  We went up into the tower, but only the 2nd floor because the top was closed for renovation.  We still had really good views.
After the tower we looked at the map and thought that we could walk to the Notre Dame cathedral.  Well…the map makes it look a lot closer than it really is!  It was a loooong walk, but we made it.  We stopped for a nutella crepe along the way.  I wasn’t a huge fan, but John loved it.  Notre Dame was neat…similar to the cathedrals in Belgium and Germany.  Next up was lunch at a café and then off to the Louvre.  We spent 2 hours in the Louvre and probably only saw 25% of it.  Crazy big.  We did see the Mona Lisa and some other famous paintings and sculptures that John knew about, but I had no clue.  Apparently I should have paid more attention to those classes!  When they began the excavation in the 90’s to build the pyramid, they discovered that the Louvre was built on top of an ancient castle.  The basement of the Louvre is a dedicated to what they found and you can see some of the actual pillars from the castle.  That was really cool – because it was tangible.  Looking a something someone painted or sculpted just doesn’t do too much for me!
After the Louvre we walked back to towards the Eiffel Tower for sunset pictures, had some delicious pastries and then took pics at night of the whole tower.  There is just something about it, I could stare at it for a long time.  There were so many cute streets full of cafes and pastries, we never had to walk far to find food.  It was super cute.  Friday morning we went to the Catacombs – where they took 6 million bodies (well bones) to be ‘properly’ buried in the 1700 and 1800’s.  Apparently people were getting sick from the deceased not being buried properly so they built these limestone caves and lined the walls with bones.  It was certainly very interesting.  Once we had lunch we were off to the train station and back to Brussels.