Europa recap: Days 1-3.5
DAY 1 - IN TRANSIT
Robert came and picked us up from my house close to 9 am. Our flight wasn't until 12:45, but we didn't want him to be too late for work so we opted to get there earlier than necessary. Unfortunately, due to procrastination with regards to Anran's med school applications, cleaning, and packing, we pulled an all-nighter before leaving. Sleep deprivation makes napping on flights even easier, although we were surprisingly awake for most of our airport time. We had a good three hours to kill between flights, as we flew first to NYC and then to London. Time was passed with books and crosswords. We arrived at Heathrow Airport close to 8 am and made it to our hotel around 10.
DAY 2 - LONDON
Our original plan was to drop our luggage, freshen up, and head out to see all the touristy sights. Instead we passed out until 3 pm. When we woke up, we decided to go sightseeing the next day and instead head to the Piccadilly Circus stop and wander around for the rest of the night. To get a tube stop we strolled through Kensington Garden, where we got frozen yogurt with a flake bar. After a lot of wandering and a snack of a lamb pita, we stopped in an internet cafe and dropped some emails and facebook messages, then headed to Covent Garden for a dinner of pasties and mead wine. During our wanderings I also stopped into a grocery store to pick up some Crunchie, Double Decker, and Aero bars for Ashley. Basically it was a casual day for getting a feel of the city.
DAY 3 - LONDON
We actually managed to get up early and headed over to see Big Ben, London Tower, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Buckingham Palace. Westminster Abbey wasn't actually open to tourists, so we didn't get to see the stained glass windows from the inside. Walking along the park we also discovered that birds in London are giants. Giant pigeons, giant ducks, giant geese...it's a little frightening. For lunch we headed over to a pub called The Lamb where Anran had fish and chips with honey beer while I had some sort of meat pie with a Guinness. To finish up our sightseeing we checked out the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and the London Bridge, which is the most anticlimactic sight ever, seeing as how the original was sold anyway. By today my feet were already starting to fail, so we got an early dinner of more pasties, with two extra pasties to go in case we needed a late night snack, and returned to the hotel where we watched British comedies for the rest of the night.
DAY 4 - LONDON TO PARIS
To get from London to Paris we took the Eurostar, which was extremely comfortable and roomy. I sat across from an older British man with a charming accent who laughed with me about the "absurd amount of cutlery" that was provided with breakfast. Both Anran and I napped for the majority of the ride. We arrived at our hotel, which was situated a few blocks from Place de la Concorde and surrounded by chic boutiques whose clothes I'd never be able to afford, around 2 pm.
MORE TO COME DUN DUN DUUUUUN!
Robert came and picked us up from my house close to 9 am. Our flight wasn't until 12:45, but we didn't want him to be too late for work so we opted to get there earlier than necessary. Unfortunately, due to procrastination with regards to Anran's med school applications, cleaning, and packing, we pulled an all-nighter before leaving. Sleep deprivation makes napping on flights even easier, although we were surprisingly awake for most of our airport time. We had a good three hours to kill between flights, as we flew first to NYC and then to London. Time was passed with books and crosswords. We arrived at Heathrow Airport close to 8 am and made it to our hotel around 10.
DAY 2 - LONDON
Our original plan was to drop our luggage, freshen up, and head out to see all the touristy sights. Instead we passed out until 3 pm. When we woke up, we decided to go sightseeing the next day and instead head to the Piccadilly Circus stop and wander around for the rest of the night. To get a tube stop we strolled through Kensington Garden, where we got frozen yogurt with a flake bar. After a lot of wandering and a snack of a lamb pita, we stopped in an internet cafe and dropped some emails and facebook messages, then headed to Covent Garden for a dinner of pasties and mead wine. During our wanderings I also stopped into a grocery store to pick up some Crunchie, Double Decker, and Aero bars for Ashley. Basically it was a casual day for getting a feel of the city.
DAY 3 - LONDON
We actually managed to get up early and headed over to see Big Ben, London Tower, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Buckingham Palace. Westminster Abbey wasn't actually open to tourists, so we didn't get to see the stained glass windows from the inside. Walking along the park we also discovered that birds in London are giants. Giant pigeons, giant ducks, giant geese...it's a little frightening. For lunch we headed over to a pub called The Lamb where Anran had fish and chips with honey beer while I had some sort of meat pie with a Guinness. To finish up our sightseeing we checked out the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and the London Bridge, which is the most anticlimactic sight ever, seeing as how the original was sold anyway. By today my feet were already starting to fail, so we got an early dinner of more pasties, with two extra pasties to go in case we needed a late night snack, and returned to the hotel where we watched British comedies for the rest of the night.
DAY 4 - LONDON TO PARIS
To get from London to Paris we took the Eurostar, which was extremely comfortable and roomy. I sat across from an older British man with a charming accent who laughed with me about the "absurd amount of cutlery" that was provided with breakfast. Both Anran and I napped for the majority of the ride. We arrived at our hotel, which was situated a few blocks from Place de la Concorde and surrounded by chic boutiques whose clothes I'd never be able to afford, around 2 pm.
MORE TO COME DUN DUN DUUUUUN!