Euro Travelogue Days 1 and 2
Day 1 April 2, 2007
We got to the airport with about 2 ½ hours to kill before our flight. Dan and I hadn’t eaten all day so we checked in, went through security and grabbed some food. I had what I thought would be my last burger for the next two weeks. Then we boarded our flight to London around 3:30 pm. We flew on Air New Zealand and I can’t say enough good things about that airline. The staff was so friendly and helpful and the food was pretty good for airline food.
The best part was the in flight entertainment. Embedded in the seat in front of you was a small 8 inch screen that had 100s of movies and TV shows for you to watch. You got your own headset and remote control which let you pause, rewind, and fast forward the movies. I was so excited I was worried I wouldn’t have enough time on the plane to watch everything I wanted to watch! I made a list of what I wanted to see on that flight and the return flight.
On the way over I filled my time watching For Your Consideration which was entertaining but not one of Guests’ best. The next movie more than made up for it, Little Children. I had seen the trailer for this when I saw The Science of Sleep in the theaters, but the trailer didn’t motivate me at all to see it. It looked like some drama about adultery. Well when it got all the Oscar recognition I decided I would check it out. In fact the clips they showed on the Oscars intrigued me. Well I am glad I got to see it, it was very, very good. What was nice is that they didn’t censor the films at all so I got to see the whole thing, unlike most in-flight movies.
After that I put on Forrest Gump hoping I would fall asleep to it, but it had been so long since I watched it that I ended up staying awake through the whole thing. I forgot what a sweet movie that is. After all those movies there wasn’t much time left in the flight so I watched a few episodes of How I Meet Your Mother and The Simpsons. I hadn’t slept at all on the flight when we landed in London.
Day 2 April 3, 2007
Our first impression of London was that it was loud. This impression was caused by a string of noisy coincidences starting with a squeaky escalator and framed posters that rolled every few mintues to show a new poster. But the icing on the cake was found in the customs line. There we met the worst fashion accessory ever created! A small child was wearing a pair of soft sneakers that had squeakers in them. So everytime he took a step they squeaked LOUDLY! I dunno why any parent would think that would be a good idea. After a 10 hour flight with no sleep and it was about 2 am my time, I was ready to kill the kid and the parents and burn the shoes.
London has the least intimidating customs line. It’s just a podium with a nice person sitting behind it. They stamped my passport (on the first page in the first box which made me so happy!) and send us on our way. We collected our baggage and checked in for our next flight to Paris. We went to the terminal and ate lunch in a little café. I had the most delicious panini. It was fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. It was so good. Afterwards, my exhaustion hit me and I was a bit cranky so I retreated into the comfort of my MP3 player. I had checked out The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon from the library and burned it onto my player so I listened to that. We boarded the plane and I passed out pretty much the entire way.
When we got to Paris I felt much better. We grabbed our things and took the train from the airport to the center of the city. The train ride was long and boring; the outside of Paris didn’t leave a good impression on us. It was pretty run down, dirty, and full of graffiti. Getting out of the train station was a bit of a challenge, it seemed to wind all around and figuring out where to go when only three of us spoke very, very basic French was definitely test of our patience. But we climbed out of the station and onto the streets of Paris. My first thought was that I was not dressed warmly enough, Paris was cold! We walked down about 4 blocks to our hotel and put down our bags. We freshened up and I changed into jeans and a long sleeved shirt, then we went out searching for a place to eat.
We tried asking at the desk for restaurant recommendations, but I don’t think they understood because they told us there were a lot of restaurants but didn’t name one in particular. We tried to find something that was definitely French but not too expensive so we chose a small restaurant that looked like it would be good. Most of the menu was in English so we were able to order. I had a salmon dish which was dry but good. Dan had this weird stew thing. It looked like they literally dumped a little of everything from the menu into a small metal pot and cooked it. He loved it though. Our traveling companions Josh and Tyler had the lamb which they couldn’t eat because it was so fatty. Oh! I almost forget, before the meal Tyler ordered escargot. I asked him if they served it in the shell because I have issues eating things that look like they did when they were alive and he said the one time he had them, they weren’t in the shell. Well when the waiter brought them out we all laughed. Not only were they in the shell, but they were so covered in pesto that they looked as though they were freshly plucked from an algae covered pond. But we each bravely tried one. Its not something I’ll probably ever order but they weren’t that bad. They tasted similar to calamari. We ordered dessert which I am so glad we did because I had the best Crème Brulee I’ve ever had. It was the perfect consistency and flavor. Then we went back to the room and passed out.