The Best Laid Plans...

Well, Things today did not go quite as planned. We woke up on time this morning and made our way down to the train station to book reservations on the trains that we wanted to take from Paris to Nice and then to Rome. The ticket agent basically started laughing at us when we got up to the window. I knew that booking tickets at this time of year would be difficult, but I had no idea that absolutely everything south of Paris (as in Spain, Cote d'Azur, and Italy) would all be booked solid for at least the next week. It made our rail passes basically worthless because there were no trains to use them on. I spent about five minutes freaking out about how we had no way to get to Rome and no place to stay for two nights and then we got ourselves together and figured it out.
After a couple hours and some time at the Internet cafe, we were able to change our reservation in Rome to begin tomorrow and booked a flight on Air France to Rome for tomorrow morning. The only thing that was a little dicey was where we were going to be staying tonight. Our hotel was completely booked, but the receptionist called around and found us a room at a very reasonable price down the street. In fact, the hotel that we are staying at tonight is much nicer than our previous abode. Their prices are usually higher than I would consider, but since they hadn't booked this room, they gave it to us at a more reasonable price. So, despite some setbacks, we were able to work out our plans satisfactorily. In fact, this is probably better than our plan for two overnight trains between Paris and Nice and Rome and we get to spend a whole extra day in Rome. I had been thinking we wouldn't have enough time to see everything I wanted to get in before leaving Europe. It's too bad we won't get to see Nice, but at least we aren't stuck permanently in Paris (seeing as our plane takes off from Rome and at 12:30 today we had no way of getting there).
After working out all of our plans, Ben and I wandered around Sacre' Couer again and looked at some of the art painted in the area. I picked out a couple of paintings by an artist I really liked, which hopefully will survive my packing job. Now we're just chilling out and enjoying our first day with Internet in a good long while.
Love,
K

'A Paris!

Today was quite a whirlwind of a day but so very much fun. Ben and I had decided the day before to try to get over to the Louvre early so that we could actually get in this time since we had heard about the long lines and since they had closed earlier than we had expected the day before. We woke up a little late, so we wandered over to the McDonalds for a spot of breakfast and hopped on le Metro.
We got to the Louvre with a solid 20 minutes to spare before the museum opened and we were right near the front of the line. We had almost no wait at all when they opened the doors, although I have never seen as much jostling as I have with the tourists in Paris. After buying our tickets, we decided to head straight for the Mona Lisa since that was likely to get crowded first. On the way, I made Ben stop at the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This is possibly my favorite piece of art that I have ever studied. It was even more magnificent in person. To give some impression of the impact of this piece, my art history professor, Dr. Sadler, once told us in class that when she first went to the Louvre, she saw the winged victory and was so overcome with awe that she fell down two flights of stairs and broke an arm and a leg. For a statue that's missing it's arms and head, that pretty good. When I was done ogling the art, Ben and I continued through the maze that is this museum over to see Mona. It was pretty cool to see it up close and we got there before the huge crowds had formed, but Ben and I were both left a little underwhelmed by the experience (for me, especially after Victory). We continued through the Italian, French, and Spanish painting, of which there were several hundred and which took up maybe 15% of the museum. On the way I got to see my Carravaggio and Valesquez, the latter of which I had actually seen in Atlanta when it was lent to the High Museum of Art last year. After that, we travelled over to Greek sculpture and saw the Venus de Milo. The skill in these artworks is just amazing. We saw art from most of the first half of my semester of art history. Along with all of those paintings, we saw ancient works from Egypt, Iran, etc. We barely got through a sliver of the museum, but I was exhausted after an hour and a half.

It took us a really long time to get out of the museum (it seems to have been designed to keep you in) but when we did, Ben and I decided to go on down to Notre Dame to see what was shakin' down there. Notre Dame is on the Ile de la Cite' (the Island of the City), which is the location of the original city, but is now just a tiny little island in the middle of the city. We went to the courtyard outside of the cathedral, but decided not to go in because the line was too long and we had already seen the inside of Sacre' Couer and really didn't want to part with our Euros, but we could wee some of the stained glass from the door. The whole thing made me really want to watch the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame.
We got our fill of yet another Paris landmark and then decided to go down to the Pantheon. This was a cathedral built by Louis XIV (I think), but God was ousted in favor of Victor Hugo after the revolution, so it's less of a church and more of a big building with statues, paintings, and a crypt. Some of the most famous Parisians are buried at the Pantheon including, well, Victor Hugo of course, sharing a crypt with Alexandre Dumas. Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, and a whole slew of political leaders as well. In the center of the Pantheon, there is a giant pendulum which the Earth rotates around once daily. Overall we were pretty pleased with this sight.
The Pantheon is located in the Latin Quarter (and yes, we passed the Sorbonne and yes it was huge), so after finishing up there, we wandered over to a Peruvian restaurant that was recommended in our guide book. This definitely fell into the foreign food in a foreign country criterion and I enjoyed it very much. It was the first time that Ben and I had eaten South American and Ben didn't care for it too much, but he made a valiant effort.
After lunch, Ben and I wandered over to the Palais du Luxembourg, which is know for it's gardens. The garden is full of these beautiful statues and has a pretty little pond in the center of the garden. They had little sailboats to rent that kids were pushing around the pond with sticks. We had intended to go to the public catacombs after the gardens, but apparently catacombs have their day of rest on Mondays, so we continued on to our next stops.
Ben and I hopped on the Metro and took it up to the Champs-Elysees. On the way we came across some musicians playing in the station.




We stopped by the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, but didn't go in. Instead, we strolled up the Champs-Elysees. It was a little windy, but otherwise, our stroll was quite nice. I even stopped for a cup of espresso, because when you stroll up the Champs-Elysees, you should stop at a cafe. At the end of the avenue is a traffic accident just waiting to get started. Between twelve and fourteen streets collide into a roundabout that goes around the Arc de Triomphe without any lane markings! My favorite was watching this guy on a motor-scooter going full speed while texting - now that's talent! Ben and I stood under the Arc and admired all of the artwork and the sheer size of the thing. It was pretty cool, but we decided not to go up it since we went up the Eiffel Tower yesterday.
OK, so by this point, we were both totally pooped. We decided to head back to our hotel in Montmartre to take a nap.
For dinner, Ben and I went straight uphill to a lovely little bistro called Le Maison Rose that was recommended in our book. The food was excellent and I got to have creme brulee for desert. The atmosphere was perfectly 1920s Bohemian. Just call me Sommerset Maugham. They even had these really cute half size bottles of wine. It was all tres jolie.
That pretty much wraps up our super busy second day in Paris. Bon soir!

London on our second day, although we've now been in Paris 3 days

Sorry to have not updated in a while. Our hotel in Paris did not have any kind of Internet access.

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On day two in London, I wasn't feeling very well (why do I always get sick when I go out of the country) so Ben and I decided to take a slow day so I could nurse my cold. We had booked passes on a London hop-on hop-off tour bus, so we went down to Paddington Station and met up with the bus there. On the ride on the big red bus, we passed most of the major London sights, including the Marble Arch, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and St. Paul's Cathedral. The complete tour took about 2 hours, but we decided to hop off and take a rive cruise about half-way (it was included in our pass) at the Tower of London and took the cruise down the Thames. It was a great ride and a good chance to see more of the city. When we got off the boat, we stopped for lunch and a spot of tea. Unfortunately, Westminster Abbey was closed by the time we got over there since it was a Saturday, but we got to see all of the beautiful carvings and statues on the outside. From there we went over to Buckingham Palace and were just in time to see the changing of the guard. We picked up the bus again and rode it around to the National Museum of Archeology and the Science Museum. We toured around those, avoiding screaming children when possible, and saw some pretty interesting things. I was getting pretty tired by the end of that though, so we went back to the hotel.
In the evening, Ben and I went to a perfectly wonderful Italian restaurant for dinner. It was one of those places that makes their own pasta and all that. Afterward, we popped over to the pub next door for a quick drink before wrapping up our day.
We saw so much of London on Saturday and I don't think we missed anything.

London Bridge is Fallin Down... wait no thats Tower Bridge

Photos of yesterday are up at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135396&l=3a9bd&id=12803909

7/4/08

So, we woke up at 3:15 to get in a cab at 4 to make our 6:40 flight from Dublin to London. It was so early that a couple said "good evening" on our way out of the hotel. Everything went very smoothly - couldn't have asked for better. We touched down 15 miles outside of London and took a short train to Victoria Station. From there, we took the underground to our hotel near Hyde Park. Once again, we arrived long before check-in, so we left our bags at the counter and started our sight-seeing. First we strolled through the park, saw Kensington Palace, and took some pictures with the swans. There were tons of them.


Ben was none too impressed with the exterior, since it was more "giant house" than "palace." We skipped going in and instead hopped on the Underground and made our way over to the Tower of London. DUN DUN DUN! (aaaah!) Our guide was fabulous. They use retired British Army soldiers called Yeomen, who act as the Queen's personal bodyguards and joke-telling tour guides. They are also known as Beefeaters. We got to see where all the good history comes from and saw the crown jewels to boot. Frankly I've never been all that interested in gold flatware, but some of the cut jewels were very impressive.

After we got done walking around the Tower of London, we hopped back on the Underground and made our way over to the British Museum. I thought my feet were going to fall off they were so tired, but we had a good time walking around the ancient wing of the museum. It's amazing how much stuff one country can collect from a whole lot of other countries. I feel like I should make some joke about pack rats and imperialism, but I just can't find the words.

On the way back to the hotel, Ben and I stopped into a lovely Indian restaurant for dinner. The food here is really expensive, but we've managed to find some great places that weren't too pricey. In the evening, we were able to watch an episode of QI on tv, and even if it was an episode we'd already seen, it was super exciting.

So that pretty much wraps up our day. It was a lot of walking, some good food, and long waits at the Underground.

Day 2 in Dublin's Fair City

This morning we woke up bright and early to catch the bus at St. Stephens Green at 9:30. We still had some time left on a 24 hour hop-on hop-off tour ticket that we bought yesterday, but we needed to get on the bus by 10AM. Ben had missed most of the second half of the tour last time around because he was catching some zzz's in the back of the bus. These things happen when you don't sleep on your overseas flight. Anyhow, we took the tour bus all over the city and hopped off near the end of the line. That put us up at the Dublin City Gallery, where we saw some 19th and 20th century paintings from Dublin, England, and France. From there, we wandered over to the garden of remembrance, a very nice little park with a fountain and a statue that was set up by Eamon de Valera, Ireland's first president. At the end of the park is a lovely statue of the Children of Lir, an old Irish story about the king's children who were turned into swans by their jealous stepmother.
After leaving the park, Ben and I continued down O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. We saw quite a few of the important national monuments, most of which you can see in the pictures linked in the last couple posts. There were statues of Parnell and O'Connell, two national heros; a huge stainless steel spike called the Millennium Spire officially but also called the rod to God, the spike in the dike, the spire in the mire, and the pole in the hole; the general Post Office; etc.
From O'Connell, we wandered our way over to some lunch and then to Christ Church Cathedral. Right next to the cathedral is an amusement type museum called Dvblinia. It's a viking and middle ages exhibition about what life was like in Ireland during those times. Very cute and very interesting. We decided to go there first and luckily they offered a nice student discount and a discount to the Cathedral next door. Dvblinia was loads of fun with lots of maniquines and interactive activities.
After walking through the Middle Ages, we went over to Christ Church and poked around there. It's a beautiful cathedral with lots of stained glass and carvings and pitcures and stuff. More interestingly although slightly more morbid, CCC has the most extensive set of catecombs in the isles, which are open to the public. We wandered around there for a bit, but we don't have any pictures from that because I flatout refused to be photographed next to someone's grave. Ben always insists on having living subjects (i.e. me) in his photos and that just wasn't going to happen.
We were going to go to Dublin Castle after these last two excursions but the next tour was too long of a wait, so we called it a day.
One of the things that I like to do when I go to a foreign country is eat food foreign to the country I'm in. Last night, Ben and I went out for Japanese! It's was pretty good although nothing terribly special. After that we went to a pub and listened to some Irish music for a bit.
Overall, our second day in Dublin was lots of fun and very full.

Dublin Day 2 Photos

Just to test out an alternative service, I have day 2's photos up at Facebook. Here is the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135082&l=9fcc7&id=12803909

Currently there are no annotations, but I'll add them in the morning if I get a chance.

-Ben