After all this, I still know no French. [Mike & Sam's visit]

This was France, take two.

Me papa and brother came into England last Friday, the day we got back from Paris. After forcing them to quickly overcome jetlag, we started them off with a 6ish mile walk around Londontown. We hit all the regular sights, Big Ben, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, the Eye, Tower Bridge, Spittlefields Market, etc. It was lovely, we saw a lot, blahblahblah.

Sunday, we got up to head to France. Instead of taking the Eurostar like we did for Paris, we took a ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. On the way there, we grabbed an express ferry, so it only took us about 3 hours to travel across the channel. Upon arrival we went right to our hotel, then wandered around the lovely town of Caen. We got to see William the Conquer's lovely home, and window shopped along the small arcade-like streets. Dinner was lovely, and we all tried (and liked!) steak tartar, which is just raw meat. The room we had the first night was intersting, it was quite small and Mike and Samuel had to share a bed. (HA.)

Morning #2 we got up and went to pick up our rental car (although there was a moment of panic beacuse we had reserved a car in Cannes, not Caen) and headed on the road to Ohama Beach. We stopped at a little D-Day museum first, and I have to say, it was a little dissappointing. The only thing I really found interesting there was all of the artifacts they found while surveying the beaches and excavating. Everything else was a bit lame, they had painfully fake mannequins everywhere dressed in 40s garb with fake sound effects and flashing lights. After the museum we got to the beach. Sam immediately started taking pictures of everything random he could find...rocks, dead eel things, animal crap, the usual.

By far the coolest thing at the beaches was the American Cemetary. But, before you walked inside there was a small path you could follow that led you to the old German bunkers and concrete holdings that they occupied on D-Day. You could still see the gun rivets in the floor and the engravings of '1944' on the walls. It was awesome.

We spent the night is Bayeux and had dinner at a pretty bad French chain restaurant. Thom ordered some sausage thing, which turned out smelling like feet. It was too horrible to finish, so then Mike decided to pick it apart, and found lots of wonderful bits inside, including a huge chunk of stomach. Num. Not everyone's food was that bad, and I tried escargot. It tasted fine, but I still felt it squirming in my stomach afterwards. Blech.

Our ferry was supposed to leave pretty early on Tuesday, but once we got there and waited for a hour we found out that it was cancelled, and the next one left for Portsmouth at 11.00pm. Meaning we had to wait a long freaking time. The port is a long way from Caen itself, and since we had no car, there wasn't a way to get back into the heart of the city. So, for about 2 hours we laid on the semi-cold, windy, and shell laiden beach, then wandered around the tiny town for about another 2.5. It was beginning to get dark, so we headed back to the ferry waiting lounge, and played about 5 hours of gin. If this trip taught me anything, it's that I speak terrible french and am pretty bad at cards.

Britanny ferries gave us 2 free cabins since they cancelled our earlier ferry, so at least we got to sleep (or tried to anyway) on the 7.5 hour ferry ride back to England. For 2 days after, everytime I closed my eyes, all I could feel was the boat rocking back and forth.

So we got in around 6.30am, and it was about 9.15 once we got into Eastbourne. It was a bit rainy, so we scrapped our plans to go to Brighton and decided to walk the South Downs and up to Beachy Head instead. We ended up going 6 miles on about 4 hours of sleep. 'When I got home, I was tired.' (name the movie.)

Thursday we hit up Leeds Castle in the rain. Despite the fact we were drenched, it was amazing. It has the most beautiful grounds I've ever seen, and the tickets to enter are good for one year! There were albino peacocks, black swans with bright red beaks...waterfalls, streams, flowers everywhere....it was sweet. Ignore my minor freakout, but it's one of the coolest places in England that I've been so far.

Thursday night we made popcorn, ate some delicious chocolate, watched Black Books and went to bed. They flew out this morning. Tomorrow I'm off to London, and staying there until Monday when we fly into Ireland. I need sleep.

Pictures from Paris

Sacre-Coeur: built as a memorial to the 58,000 French soldiers killed during the Franco-Prussian War.

Arc de Triomphe

The lit up Eiffel.

Paree and me.

Just eternally eating some grapes. No biggie.

On top of the Eiffel Tower.

Paris = success.

From Paris, with Love.

Paris was lovely. Simply lovely.

We met Mineer at King's Cross, and then headed out on the Eurostar around noon. After a delightful train ride of gross packaged food and copious amounts of disney coloring book pages, we arrived in Paris. After we checked into our hostel (in the Latin Quarter...which was awesome) we got right to the sightseeing. The first stop was Sacre-Coeur, which we could see right from the terrace of our hostel. From the steps you overlooked a beautiful panoramic view of the city. After that we walked down the main streets of Paris, by the Academy of Music, the Obelisk, Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower.

By the time we got to the Eiffel Tower, the lines to take the elevator up to the top were already filled. However, you were able to take the stairs. Jane and Mineer opted out, ("If my knees could reach up and punch me in the face right now, they would." -Jane) but Tayler and I decided, hell yes, we were going to walk to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Level 1, no sweat. Level 2, hardly a challenge. Top level, oh wait, we didn't get that far. Apparently from the 2nd level, everyone takes a different elevator to the very top. We were too stupid to read the signs. AND, since it was pretty late when we got there anyway, the ticket office was closed. Not going to lie, I was pretty pissed. But, times my pissed offedness by 10, and you get how mad Tayler was. Not going to lie, it was slightly terrifying. We walked down, got on the metro, and headed back to the hostel. [Day 1].

On Thursday we got up and went down to Notre Dame right when it opened. The inside was pretty neat, although I think the inside of St. Paul's cathedral in London is much cooler. The best part though, was walking to the top of Notre Dame. From there, you can see all the best landmarks of Paris, with a side order of gargoyle. We also got to see Emmanuel, the biggest and best bell of them all. I felt a bit like Quasimodo, and it was awesome.

From Notre Dame we traveled over to the Lourve, where we spent our time in the Egyptian exibits, along with seeing the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. In the Napolean Plaza (Under the Pyramid) Tayler, Mineer and I were waiting for Jane to by the tickets, when a woman came down the elevator. She had a horrible nasaly voice, with a touch of bad American accent (I know that's hypocritical, whatever get over it.) and kept calling out RITA...RIIIIIIIIITA. Since then, we can't stop saying it. It's been the tagline of the trip.

It took us longer in the Lourve than expected, so we didn't get to go to the catacombs, which was a bummer. But instead we took a nighttime river cruise, which proved to be well worth it. We got to see all of the sights from the river we haden't seen yet, all while recieving wonderful facts and advice from our headsets. ("Be mysterious, be in love, and you will be happy."-headset "BAHAHAHAHAHA."-all of us in unison.)

After the cruise, we went up to the Eiffel again, this time on the elevator (Don't judge, we took the stairs down.) Although it sounds lame that we went up twice, going to the very top the second night proved to be well worth it. The view was amazing. Windy as hell, but amazing. After the top we all hudled over to a little cafe to grab a late night dinner. Tayler managed to polish off almost 2 plates of chips by herself, along with her dinner. That girl has some skill, let me tell you. [day 2].

Friday we headed out early so we could catch some sights before our train left. The Moulin Rouge was about a 7 minute walk from our hostel, and after we went there we just explored the expansive food markets and stores set up along the road. I can't remember a time where an entire street smelled so good, including the fish stalls. I can't keep saying it enough, it was amazing. Before we headed out, we grabbed lunch at a tiny bakery so take with us on the train. I got some real French bread, and it was everything I imaged it would be. [day 3].

I do love me some bread.

March 11th-13th Photos

Inside Choccywoccydoodah. I hate typing that.

Cake.

Tayler and the burnt down pier.

Tayler and the not burnt down pier.

Royal Pavillion.

Banksy.

At the entrance to St. Pauls.

Caaaaaaake.

From the very top of St. Pauls.

omnomnomnomnom.

So much cake...

Ugh, Blogging.

My cousin arrived here in Eastbourne on Wednesday night, and since then we've been exploring and shopping and preparing for PARIS. Since Wednesday, I've also been sick. I can't fathom how someone can produce so much mucus, I feel like I'm defying the nature of the human anatomy. Maybe I have a second gland in my nose somewhere. Whatever it may be, it's been quite miserable. I keep downing meds like candy, hoping that this shit can leave within the next two days so I don't scare the French away with my constant honking/nose blowing, but it's looking pretty bad.

Other than the wonderful head cold, things have been pretty swell. Thursday we went into London and went through Harrods, Convent Garden, Hyde Park (we tried to get to Buckingham, but ended up in Speakers Corner..oops) and got to see the wonderful Les Miserables. Les Mis was awesome. It was great to finally see a musical that I've been listening to for ages, and now three days later I still can't get the songs out of my head. We also had some wonderful cake outside of Harrods, which made us sick for the day. I'm sad to say, we didn't learn our lesson.

Friday I took Tayler into Brighton; we went down to the pier, the Laines, and Choccywoccydoodah (seriously, whoever named that chocolate shop deserves to be punched in the face). At the chocolate store we got some hot chocolate (which here is just a melted bar of chocolate mixed with milk) and..for some reason, cake. Afterwards we walked through the rain moaning and thinking we were pretty much going to die there along the boardwalk. So much cake...

Saturday we went up to London again with Jane, and hit up Notting Hill Market with her friend Chris, then we went to St. Pauls Cathedral. While at lunch with Chris, he told Tayler and I about the amazing (what else...) cakes that lined the shops in Paris. He seriously went on for about 3 mintues on how the shop windows were full of pastries and cakes. I'm sad to say that I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most now. Effing cake.

At St. Pauls Jane stayed outside, leaving me and Tayler to explore it ourselves. It was beautiful. However, I was sad to find out that in the crypts of the cathedral there are these lovely ornate marble statues housing the Duke of Wellington, shipcaptains, presidents of the Royal Academy, etc. BUT, Alexander Flemming, discoverer of penicillin, just had a lowly plaque on the wall that could've been easily overlooked. Alexander Flemming. It was sad, I was expecting a monument or something...there were animal gravestones more ornate than his.

After the crypt we went up a billion and five stairs to the very very top of St. Pauls, overlooking the Thames, Millienium Bridge, The Gurken, The London Eye, Tower Bridge, the Globe, the Tate, etc etc. I could've stayed up there all day, it's not many times you're able to get a view like that. After about an hour, we finally went out to get Jane to go home. But not before we went to a cafe and had.....some cake.