March 24, 2002
We took our time getting ready and going down for breakfast. We had until noon to meet Mark. For those who don't know, Mark is a friend that I met through my Sliders groups. I've known him online for about three years.
Breakfast sucked. Kim and I could find nothing that we wanted to eat. Mom didn't have a problem. She isn't as picky as we are about food. I paid for Mom's and mine and it cost about $36 (converted). It was very expensive considering I didn't eat anything but two croissants!
I didn't have a hard time spotting Mark when he came in. He looked exactly like the pictures I'd seen of him. It was so cool getting to meet him. He was so nice and ended up being a great tour guide for us. We put him on the spot by telling him we wanted him to take us somewhere. It was our first day and since we hadn't seen anything yet, it didn't matter where we went. The first thing he did was get us accustomed to the Tube (underground). "Our" station was Hammersmith.
We saw A LOT thanks to Mark. We saw Big Ben (well, the tower where Big Ben is located...since it's actually a bell), Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, Tower of London and my favorite, Tower Bridge. It was all so amazing. We had dinner near Tower Bridge before heading back to the hotel. The day went by fast. We did more walking than I've done in a long time. Mark had a two and a half hour trip back home so he had to head back early. I hated to see him leave. It would have been great to have him as our tour guide for the rest of the week. LOL
We were tired and still getting use to the time so we headed back to our room. Kim and I found a Hagan Daz ice cream machine in the hotel that we got addicted to. It cost two pounds for an ice cream though. It was expensive but worth it!
March 25, 2002
Today we went down to Piccadilly Circus. All of the expensive name brand stores are there. I loved the the way the buildings there curve around as the streets do. The architecture of the buildings was amazing. The area was very busy with a lot of people. Our main goal was to find the Hard Rock Cafe. We found it and bought souvenir shirts there. We didn't do too much because we had to be in bed early due to our Paris trip the next morning. We ended up having dinner in the hotel lounge so that mom could try another "Fish and Chips" meal. Afterwards we set our wake up call for 2am and headed to bed.
March 26, 2002 Paris!
We got up at 2am and started getting ready. Mom went for ice while I was drying my hair so when we got a knock on the door, I thought it was her. Instead it was hotel security telling us that the other guests thought we were too loud. All we were doing was talking. The walls are way too thin!
A taxi picked us up at the hotel since we heard the Tube didn't run that early and we couldn't be late to board the train to Paris. We were tired and it was early but we all got to stretch out in our own two seats once we got on because it wasn't that full. Once the sun started coming up we got to see some of the England country side. I've never traveled by train before and it was kind of cool. Mom compared it to one she had been on before and said it wasn't as nice as far as the comfort of the seats though. The trip took three hours and we were told that the part that took us through the Chunnel only lasted twenty minutes. That's if I heard it right. That was the part where we went under the English Channel. We were in Paris before we knew it.
Paris was quite different. First of all the language barrier was very frustrating. Now I can see the other side of those who come to America and can't speak English. It took about twenty minutes to find the bathroom and then find a way to get change to use the bathroom since it cost to get in there. Afterwards we headed to the Metro to take the train to the area we wanted to go to first. A family from South Africa thankfully spoke English and directed us to where we needed to go to catch the Metro. Then it happened....what pretty much ruined my perception of Paris. Two teenagers attempted to pick pocket my purse. They didn't get anything since I caught on and they ran off. We immediately bought new purses to put our back pack purses in and carry so that we could have them on our side towards our front for more protection. We put our passports and money in the neck wallet things we had bought for added protection. The man we got the purses from told us which Metro station to go to and we finally made it to Arc de Triomphe and Avenue de Champs-Elysees. We saw the Arc the moment we walked up the stairs from the Metro station. What a sight. It seemed so unreal. We did most of our walking there.
We had a hard time finding the tour bus to see the sights. We knew we only had one day there and that was our best bet at seeing a majority of the land marks. We gave up at one point and had lunch at a Pizzeria. No one there spoke English but after playing around with mom's language converter we were able to order. The problem came when they brought the pizza out on one plate. We noticed that most get that pizza for one person but we wanted to share it. We didn't know how to ask for more plates and a lady sitting next to us who had overheard our conversation and understood English was kind enough to tell them what we needed. We were very lucky she was there. Lunch was nice and I felt a little more relaxed at that point.