France Fun

When we arrived in Paris the weather was overcast and windy. We were able to take the train to our hostel just north of the downtown centre without a problem. I was at once fascinated with the language and excited to start using my French. It’s been over a year since I last got to speak it! We spent the majority of our time in Paris walking everywhere. One would assume this would be a great weight loss program, but since the French seem to exist solely on carbs in the solitary form of bread it was a blessing that we did have to walk! We feasted on crepes, galettes, baguettes, French bread, pastries, tartelettes, croissants and every single form of bread known to the French man. In order to wear off some of the carby goodness we walked to Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph, Champs Elysees, Ile de la cite, Eiffel Tower, La Seine and the Louvre. I was most blown away with the Louvre and could have spent two days wandering through the old palaces looking at artifacts and art from ancient and medieval times. I also enjoyed the Eiffel Tower with its gorgeous view of the city, but more importantly I enjoyed the bottle of wine, brie and crackers that we enjoyed at the park in the shadow of magnificent “tour.” With the weather being windy and chilly, three days in Paris was more than enough. The third day we actually caught a day train out to Versailles where I was blown away with the bed chambers of Marie Antoinette and the King of France. We toured inside of the palace and admired the lavish décor while feeling like paupers.

After Paris we caught the train to Normandy where we spent two amazing days. The first we spent basking in the magical and surreal glow of Mont St. Michel, climbing the steep stairs and streets to the Benedictine monastery on the top of this miniature island in the sea. It is surrounded by quicksand when the tide is low, and water at high tide, and in the medieval days was a place for monks to come and work uninterrupted. During World War II it managed to escape German occupation for quite some time, but finally fell towards the end of the war. Now it is a living museum, where shops and restaurants still crowd the narrow cobblestone streets, and the old abbey perches on the top of the hill with a watchful eye. We stayed the night in the charming village of Beauvoir where a local actually picked us up from the train station and drove us the 6 kms to our hotel!
Our second day in Normandy we visited the D-Day beaches, American Cemetery, Aramanches and Point du Hoc. It was sobering to see the German trenches and huge craters in the land where bombs were dropped. Perhaps the saddest was the cemetery, where only 40% of the Americans killed rest, with 10,000 white crosses arranged in lines. The cemetery goes on and on and on, overlooking Omaha Beach below. Unfortunately the tour we booked did not go to Juno Beach or the Canadian cemetery, but it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, seeing the carnage and left over results from a battle only 67 years ago really hits home. We spent that night in Bayeux, another beautiful town.

Although we were sad to say goodbye to France, we are excited to move on to Barcelona and hopefully find some heat!

Pictured above: Notre Dame Cathedral, View from Eiffel Tower, Mont St. Michel at night, American Cemetery at D-Day beaches

London Adventures

In typical style, we arrived to London early, but minus our luggage! At this point, this was the least of our travel woes, but nevertheless an annoyance. Having slept less than four hours, we were both exhausted. I fell asleep on the tube into London, but luckily we didn’t miss our stop. As soon as we were out of the tube London hit me hard. It felt like the stone buildings, corner pubs and double decker buses had worked their way out of my imagination and onto the streets! I hate to say it, but all of the stereotypes are real. One of the perks of staying in London is that we get to crash at Blake’s old friend Tyler’s flat. We found his work easily and got the key to his place. Once we had stowed our stuff we were on a mission to find some extra clothes so we didn’t have to wear the same clothes four days in a row. Upon our clothing hunt we stumbled upon St. Paul’s Cathedral, and then meandered beside the Thames, eventually catching a tube to Picadilly Circus, where we met some success at a bargain clothes store. After we blew 75 Pounds on British Airways’ tab we saw the National Geographic’s Headquarters. Inside there was some sort of art exhibition, and free wine was flowing. We perused African animal pictures and downed some free vino, until we realized that somehow we had been mistaken as actual guests to a closed event! Oops, we snuck out the door!
The following day we hit the streets a little later than intended due to some much needed sleep. We checked out Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace (the Queen was in, but didn’t invite us over for tea???), St. James’ Park, Green Park and a few other stops along the way. We returned to Tyler and his girlfriend Liv’s place in time for some truly English fish & chips. That night Tyler and Liv wanted to take us out for a night on the town so we walked to the trendy Hoxton district and I sampled some English Lemonade and vodka. At 10pm, when things we starting to wind down and I thought we would head back to the flat, we took a cab to the Hoxton Hotel. It was a modern boutique hotel filled with sophisticated types. We ended up staying on until 1am!
The next morning was a later one, for obvious reasons. Since the weather was gray and rainy (much like the previous two days) we decided to start the morning at the Museum of London. Some neat displays included fashion through the ages and a history of London from the dawn of time. After two hours I was more than saturated with English knowledge and in need of some retail therapy, so we hopped on a tube to Harrod’s. There are no words to describe that place. I don’t find it remotely odd that it was the beginning of Christian the Lion, and that other strange and fabulous things have happened there. A room devoted entirely to chocolate and tea had me enthralled for a half hour. Blake took to the ice cream parlour and deli. I was also humbled by the fashion on the upper floors. Labels I had only dreamt of and seen in movies were right in front of my eyes. A whole year’s salary could be spent on a pair of pants! After the opulence got to us, we returned to the street and strolled through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace, and then back again. An ambitious walk which left me with some seriously sore feet! On our last night we went out for a delicious curry at a local Indian house, a great way to end three nights in London.

Travel hiccups

So with summer coming, and Blake having 2 months off for the first time ever, we decided we had better go big, or go home (which we are doing anyways... but still). We settled on doing a 6 week European adventure, since I have never been to Europe, and since we have met so many wonderful people from Europe during our time in Cayman. We planned to leave at the beginning of July, and were actually excited when we realized that we could make my cousin Heather's wedding in Toronto if we left on July 1st. Rather than tell my parents that we will be meeting them in Toronto, we decided to surprise them by showing up the night before the wedding. I spent weeks planning this surprise and was so excited. Once I had bid farewell to my students, moved out of our flat and sold our car I was ready to go. July 1st arrived and we headed to the airport for our flight to Miami and then onward to Toronto. The boarding of the plane went smoothly and it was not time until we were on the tarmac ready for take-off. However, after a few minutes of waiting, the pilot told us the left engine wouldn't start. We returned to the gate and tried two more times to start the engine, both times were successful. Then we returned to the tarmac for take-off. After a 5 minute delay, the pilot mentioned he was having problems with the fuel actuator valve, and we returned to the gate again. Upon contact with their head office the plane was taken out of commission until a part was flown in on another flight that afternoon. So we had to return to the lobby and wait while a single attendant called out the names of every single passenger on the airline, and one by one we had to shuffle up and retrieve our entry card and return to the ticket booths to try and reschedule a flight off the island. As time passed, I managed to get Blake and I onto the only other flight off the island that weekend, which was on Saturday at 1:00p.m. Once our tickets were booked we learned that there was going to be a flight out that afternoon, they anticipated that they could fix the fuel actuator valve and have everyone out by 3:00. I had to return to the desk and cancel the flight out the next day and rebook a ticket on our original flight. By the time I got this done it was time to re check in our luggage, go through security a second time and wait for the flight to board. By 4:00 we were on the plane, however, it turned out that there was a slight problem and the mechanic who had fixed the part on the plane had forgotten to use a silicone seal, so we had to wait for that to be applied and dry. Once dry, we were ready for take-off, but this time a ticketing agent from inside forgot to count the people on the plane, so she had to come up and re-do that. When we were finally ready to go we headed out to the tarmac. Once there we waited and waited. I noticed that the plane was beginning to roll backwards. After 12 hours in the airport without anything to eat, I was going to lose it if we returned to the gate. The pilot came on the speaker and told us that once again, the left engine wouldn't start and the plane was unfit to fly. An angry group of us trudged back to the lobby, waited through the excruciating process of receiving our entry cards and returning our duty-free items and then returning to the main ticket booth. By 6:00 we were still waiting to hear if there would be another plane sent from Miami to take us over. At 6:30 we found out there wouldn't be, so Blake and I booked another flight out the next morning on Delta. By 7:00 we learned that American Airlines was going to charter a plane for us first thing in the morning, so we had to go back and cancel our Delta tickets and rebook on the AA flight out in the morning. We then had to wait another hour for hotel and food vouchers, as we hadn't eaten anything all, and we had given up possession of our flat.

The next morning, at 5:30a.m. we headed back to the airport AGAIN. Luckily this time we got to Miami, where we had to catch a connector through Air Canada. Needless to say, when the Air Canada flight was delayed by and hour and then the pilot told us there were computer problems I just about screamed. Thankfully the problems were fixable and we got to Toronto at 6:00p.m. We raced to the hotel, threw on our party clothes and grabbed a cab to my cousin's beautiful reception venue. We snuck in just in time, as dinner hadn't been served and everyone was sitting at their tables. Mom and Dad did still get the surprise of their lives when I snuck up behind them! I'll never forget the looks on their faces!

The rest of the Toronto trip went well. It was so nice being able to have some vacation time with both my parents, aunt and uncle and Melinda and Mat. We spent most of our time walking around downtown Toronto. We did make it to the top of the CN Tower, where Melinda shocked us all by lounging on the glass floor, and Blake managed to get both feet (or rather heels) on it too! At the end of the weekend we were sad to leave, but super excited to start the next leg of our trip to London!!!!