Saturday, May 4, 2013
The City of Light
Honeymoon Day 5 - Paris Day 2
So today was our first full day in Paris, and boy did we pack it full of adventure! The day started off with a tour of the Louvre. I planned ahead and made sure we had twice the amount of time I thought we needed to get to our planned meeting spot near the Louvre. Holy cow did I underestimate that one! We walked to the Louvre yesterday afternoon and I swear it was only a 15-20 minute walk. Nope! Try a 40 minute run/walk! Luckily these tours plan on tourists showing up late so we actually ended up waiting about 10 minutes for our tour to start (which allowed us to catch our breath), but we were a good 15 minutes late for our arrival time. And all of you know how crazy I am about being on time, so just imagine me saying "we're not going to make it" for the last 10 minutes of our run/walk to the tour. Not fun.
But we made our tour and it was amazing. We only got to see parts of one of the 3 wings to the Louvre but we saw some pretty amazing pieces including the Venus de Milo statue and the Mona Lisa. We were both really glad we did the tour but decided we'd had enough in the Louvre and we wanted to make sure we weren't late for our next tour (which wasn't for 2 hours) so we jumped on the Metro and made our way to the meeting point for the Eiffel Tour tour.
We climbed up the metro stairs and found ourselves in front of a rather large building. As we came around the corner I looked up and there it was. The Eiffel Tower. OMG that thing is amazing and beautiful and captivating. Just awesome. Our tour took us to the 2nd observation deck and then left us to explore some more or go to the summit if we wanted. Of course we got in line for the summit and were not disappointed. The views of the city were breathtaking from the 2nd observation deck and were unreal from the summit. So amazing. We worked our way back down (which required several waits in line for elevators) and decided to head back to the hotel.
After a quick rest we decided to head out again in search of a nearby garden. Of course the gardens here aren't just gardens, they're gardens surrounding palaces. We ended up at the garden and palace de Luxembourg. Once again it was amazing. Such beautiful grounds and another grand palace. It has yet to get old. And Trent marveled at this one because not only were the trees surrounding the palace in perfect lines, they also formed perfect diagonal lines.
After the gardens we headed back to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show at night. Our tour guide told us that there is a contract between the operators of the tower and GE to light it up every night on the hour for a few minutes with twinkling lights. She noted that the contract run outs in a year or two and then it's possible that the tower will no longer twinkle at night. So we grabbed a few sandwiches and crepes (numbers 4 & 5 if anyone is wondering) and popped a squat with the perfect view. We sat for a little over an hour waiting for the show to start at 10pm, but it was well worth it. Once I get back to the states I'll post a video of it that Trent took on my phone. So amazing and incredibly romantic. :)
One final note for the day, we found 3 people today that spoke "American" English (as we've started calling it) and it was so nice! Our tour guide at the Eiffel Tower was a Masters student from Philly and was super nice to talk to and a couple from California sat next to us to watch the Tower light show tonight that were super nice. It was the first time since we left the states where we have been able to talk about home with people we can understand completely and who understand us. So wonderful!
We are headed to Versailles tomorrow morning and then I think we're going to tourist it up and get on one of the big double decker buses tomorrow afternoon. With all of the walking today, we're ready for a more relaxed tour of the city.
Love you all!!
Kristen & Trenton
P.S. Heather, I can totally 100% understand your absolute love of this city, it's absolutely intoxicating!!
Friday, May 3, 2013
Ah Paris!
Honeymoon Day 4 - Paris Day 4
So many things happened today that I don't even know where to start. The beginning I guess makes the most sense. But I must say that the absolute highlight of the day was mass at Notre Dame. With everything else that happened today, this brought me back to calm and reminded me how wonderful Trent and I have it to be in Paris together (no worries, nothing bad happened, it was just a long, trying, crazy day).
The day started off early with no problems getting packed up and to Saint Pancras Station in London. Kings Cross was somehow connected (with the famous platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter movies) and no we didn't get to see it, but we were near it. :). We made it through customs and security and soon found our train to Paris. Other than the screaming, crying 2 year old behind us on the train, the ride wasn't too bad. It was my first ever train ride and was pretty fun. It would have been so much better without all of the screaming, but c'est la vie as they say in Paris (that's life). We got in line for a cab once we arrived (which was eerily similar to Vegas) and made our way to the hotel. The ride was bid odd as our cab driver got a call halfway through our ride and put it on speaker so he could talk to whoever called him. We got checked in and made it up another teeny tiny elevator to our almost as teeny tiny room. It's actually not too bad, but it certainly is not the 2 story room we had in London and the A/C does not seem to work.
We were starving so we headed back up the street to Notre Dame which we knew we passed just a few blocks before getting to our hotel. It was quite the site, so we found a table outside at a nearby cafe and ordered a couple glasses of wine and a pizza (yes, we ordered pizza in France...we were tired and hungry). We knew we needed to pick up our Paris Passes so we could ride the metro/buses and get into all of the museums so we headed to the nearest place to get them. I might add that of the 4 places listed that we could pick up our pass, all 4 were within 3 blocks of each other and were no where near our hotel. But we were feeling adventurous so we headed out on foot. On our way we walked through the Louvre's courtyard, spotted the Eiffel Tour and the Arc d'Triumpe. Needless to say we were both in awe. Such a magical place.
And then we proceeded to get lost. And take wrongs turns. And get lost some more. We finally found the metro station that were supposed to be able to get our pass from and the two ladies working there had no idea what were asking for. The language barrier became very real for us. Instead of listening to them telling us to get on the metro and go a long ways away, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe, which we thought was a few blocks away (and actually was) where we thought we had the best chance of getting our pass. We arrived soon after and got our passes without any problems. And then took a nice long break at the bar to get our bearings back. It was at this point that I had my first freak out. Poor Trent didn't know what to do, but I was exhausted from walking so much and getting lost so many times and now I wasn't sure we would even be able to use our pass on the metro and get back to our hotel. Being the good husband that is, he went and talked to the lady and found our metro passes in the stuff we got with the pass and then led me back to the metro station where we worked our back to the hotel.
We had our metro pat all mapped out, but of course the station we needed to switch lines at was closed so instead of just one change we got to go way out of our way and made 2 line changes. But we made it. and got off the metro back at Notre Dame. We decided to find a place to sit and relax, but instead ended up inside the Cathedral. I can never come close to explaining how amazing that place is to anyone. We walked in and heard the organ playing and beautiful singing. And of course there was incense burning. It was a magical place. So calming and comforting and wonderful. We walked all the way around the church and ended up sitting down to enjoy part of mass as it started sometime as we were walking around. Of course neither of us had any idea what they were saying as it was all in French, but it didn't matter. We sat through the first reading, listened to the Gospel and then listened to the homily, all the while in awe of this amazing Cathedral.
On our way out of the church we decided to walk around it, to see if we could figure out how to get up to the top of it (we never did, but are planning to go back for a tour and hope to figure it out then) and as were passing through the gardens behind the church, I saw the bridge of locks just beyond the gardens. Sadly, I saw this bridge on a reality tv show that I will never admit to watching and thought it was pretty neat and really wanted to find it. You buy a lock, write your names on it and then attach the lock to the railings of the bridge and throw the keys in the river. The railings are completely covered with locks and it was quite a task to find a free spot, but we found one, bought a lock and locked our names and wedding date on the bridge. We took a few pictures and even noted which lamp post we hooked it by in hopes that we will be back some day to find it again.
We then found a amazing cafe for dinner. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, escargot, lamb and chicken and of course crepes (Heather this was the second crepe of the day and was even better than the first!). The meal was amazing and we were both so excited to be in a place known for their amazing food and wine to enjoy and to be together on this adventure together.
So yeah, it was a long, crazy day, but we're back at the hotel and Trent is currently enjoying a game of rugby on the tv. Tomorrow we have a tour of the Louvre in the morning and a tour of the Eiffel Tour in the afternoon, with more sightseeing in between.
Love you all!
Trent & Kristen
So many things happened today that I don't even know where to start. The beginning I guess makes the most sense. But I must say that the absolute highlight of the day was mass at Notre Dame. With everything else that happened today, this brought me back to calm and reminded me how wonderful Trent and I have it to be in Paris together (no worries, nothing bad happened, it was just a long, trying, crazy day).
The day started off early with no problems getting packed up and to Saint Pancras Station in London. Kings Cross was somehow connected (with the famous platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter movies) and no we didn't get to see it, but we were near it. :). We made it through customs and security and soon found our train to Paris. Other than the screaming, crying 2 year old behind us on the train, the ride wasn't too bad. It was my first ever train ride and was pretty fun. It would have been so much better without all of the screaming, but c'est la vie as they say in Paris (that's life). We got in line for a cab once we arrived (which was eerily similar to Vegas) and made our way to the hotel. The ride was bid odd as our cab driver got a call halfway through our ride and put it on speaker so he could talk to whoever called him. We got checked in and made it up another teeny tiny elevator to our almost as teeny tiny room. It's actually not too bad, but it certainly is not the 2 story room we had in London and the A/C does not seem to work.
We were starving so we headed back up the street to Notre Dame which we knew we passed just a few blocks before getting to our hotel. It was quite the site, so we found a table outside at a nearby cafe and ordered a couple glasses of wine and a pizza (yes, we ordered pizza in France...we were tired and hungry). We knew we needed to pick up our Paris Passes so we could ride the metro/buses and get into all of the museums so we headed to the nearest place to get them. I might add that of the 4 places listed that we could pick up our pass, all 4 were within 3 blocks of each other and were no where near our hotel. But we were feeling adventurous so we headed out on foot. On our way we walked through the Louvre's courtyard, spotted the Eiffel Tour and the Arc d'Triumpe. Needless to say we were both in awe. Such a magical place.
And then we proceeded to get lost. And take wrongs turns. And get lost some more. We finally found the metro station that were supposed to be able to get our pass from and the two ladies working there had no idea what were asking for. The language barrier became very real for us. Instead of listening to them telling us to get on the metro and go a long ways away, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe, which we thought was a few blocks away (and actually was) where we thought we had the best chance of getting our pass. We arrived soon after and got our passes without any problems. And then took a nice long break at the bar to get our bearings back. It was at this point that I had my first freak out. Poor Trent didn't know what to do, but I was exhausted from walking so much and getting lost so many times and now I wasn't sure we would even be able to use our pass on the metro and get back to our hotel. Being the good husband that is, he went and talked to the lady and found our metro passes in the stuff we got with the pass and then led me back to the metro station where we worked our back to the hotel.
We had our metro pat all mapped out, but of course the station we needed to switch lines at was closed so instead of just one change we got to go way out of our way and made 2 line changes. But we made it. and got off the metro back at Notre Dame. We decided to find a place to sit and relax, but instead ended up inside the Cathedral. I can never come close to explaining how amazing that place is to anyone. We walked in and heard the organ playing and beautiful singing. And of course there was incense burning. It was a magical place. So calming and comforting and wonderful. We walked all the way around the church and ended up sitting down to enjoy part of mass as it started sometime as we were walking around. Of course neither of us had any idea what they were saying as it was all in French, but it didn't matter. We sat through the first reading, listened to the Gospel and then listened to the homily, all the while in awe of this amazing Cathedral.
On our way out of the church we decided to walk around it, to see if we could figure out how to get up to the top of it (we never did, but are planning to go back for a tour and hope to figure it out then) and as were passing through the gardens behind the church, I saw the bridge of locks just beyond the gardens. Sadly, I saw this bridge on a reality tv show that I will never admit to watching and thought it was pretty neat and really wanted to find it. You buy a lock, write your names on it and then attach the lock to the railings of the bridge and throw the keys in the river. The railings are completely covered with locks and it was quite a task to find a free spot, but we found one, bought a lock and locked our names and wedding date on the bridge. We took a few pictures and even noted which lamp post we hooked it by in hopes that we will be back some day to find it again.
We then found a amazing cafe for dinner. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, escargot, lamb and chicken and of course crepes (Heather this was the second crepe of the day and was even better than the first!). The meal was amazing and we were both so excited to be in a place known for their amazing food and wine to enjoy and to be together on this adventure together.
So yeah, it was a long, crazy day, but we're back at the hotel and Trent is currently enjoying a game of rugby on the tv. Tomorrow we have a tour of the Louvre in the morning and a tour of the Eiffel Tour in the afternoon, with more sightseeing in between.
Love you all!
Trent & Kristen
Thursday, May 2, 2013
A Day at Kew Gardens
Honeymoon Day 3 - London Day 3 (Final Day)
Today we braved the Tube to travel to the largest botanical gardens in the world, Kew Gardens. Riding the subway is kind of like riding a bike, it's a bit scary at first, but once you get on the first train it all comes back to you. Two stations line changes and only about 5 minutes of being completely lost on one of the platforms later, we arrived at the Kew Gardens stop. As we departed the Tube we found ourselves in the most adorable little town. We wandered down two blocks among adorable old houses and crazy expensive cars (Land Rovers, Aston Martins, Audis, etc) and found ourselves at the gates to Kew Gardens.
Needless to say, the next 6 hours were spent wandering, taking pictures and Trent oohing and aahing over the amazing plants. And I have to say that even for this non-crazy plant person, that was place was truly amazing. It was over 300 acres of gardens, trees, and fountains. I can't really describe it very well, but trust me, we have enough pictures to show everyone to give you an idea. :)
After a long day at the gardens, we for some reason decided to get a little more use out of tube pass for the day and headed to see Saint Paul's up close (we had seen it yesterday on our bus tour, but just in passing). What we did not factor into our decision was that it was rush hour on the tube. I didn't know you could stuff that many people on a subway train before, but holy cow do the British know how to squeeze into tiny places. People were literally hanging out of the train doors we they closed. Once we arrived at the Church, we were completely amazed at the size and beauty of it. Unfortunately we were not able to go inside due to a "celebrity organ concert" (whatever that is) but we were able to walk around and get some good pictures.
It was a very long, tiring day, so we retired early to our room. We're off to Saint Pancras station first thing tomorrow morning to catch the Chunnel to Paris. It's hard to believe our time in London is over, but I know I am so excited to get to Paris.
Until tomorrow...Cheerio Pip Pip!! (for you Debbie!)
Kristen & Trent
A Few Photos From Wednesday
The first picture is on top of the bus with Big in the background. The second is from our afternoon tea.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Pinkies Up!
Honeymoon Day 2 - London Day 2
The day started off a little rough. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get either the hairdryer (and converters) I brought with me or the hairdryer provided by the hotel to work. It turns out there are 3 different power plugs ins in our room. One in the bathroom that uses a little converter with just two round prongs (and does not have enough power to run the hairdryer), another plug that is all over the room and powers the lamps, and finally, a strange looking plug hidden behind the desk with its own switch that finally turned on the hairdryer. So needless to say by the time I figured out how to use the hairdryer, my hair was mostly dry. So it was straight today. :)
We started off our day with breakfast at the hotel. It was mostly a cold breakfast of toast, croissants, some cold meats and cheeses and excellent coffee. We then headed down the road to the bus stop for the Big Bus Company tour. Once we found our bus we climbed to the top level and settled in. The bus took us all through city and included headphones for a recorded tour as we traveled along. We saw all the major sights of the city including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the London Bridge, and Saint Paul's. We also got brave and "hopped off" at Harrods Department Store. That place was amazing. Everything from top designer clothing, shoes and watches to freshly made foods spanning the globe to a vast collection of cigars, wines and whiskey. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches and hopped back on the bus to enjoy. We arrived back at our hotel after 5 hours on the bus and took a nice nap before part 2 of our day.
Fully refreshed from our nap, we cleaned up and put on our "smart casual" attire to head for afternoon tea at Browns Hotel. The hotel called us their cab (which was a Mercedes) and arrived just in time for our reservation for tea. We stepped into a beautiful old hotel that turned out to be the first hotel built in London almost 200 years ago. We were shown to a corner couch with a table and our tea adventure began. Neither of us knew exactly what to expect, but we can both say that it was a great time and we highly recommend it to anyone visiting London. We each picked our tea (I chose lemon verbena and Trent got Browns afternoon tea - both were very good) and then they brought us a tower of finger sandwiches, fresh scones and desserts. We also splurged and got a glass of champagne to go with our tea. The food and tea were amazing and never ending (they just kept bringing out more food whenever we would clear a plate). After almost two hours of sipping on tea and snacking on the yummy food we decided we needed to get moving again and headed out.
The rest of our day was spent wandering through another part of Hyde Park across from our hotel and nearby shops.
Tomorrow is the day that Trent has been looking forward to since we booked this trip...the day at Kew Gardens. Tomorrow will be our first attempt at the Tube (subway) so wish us luck!
Love you all!
Kristen & Trent
P.S. Turns out we can't post photos to the blog from the iPad. We will be able to post from the iPhone later, but as we can only get wifi on one device at a time, no pictures yet. Sorry! I will try to find some free wifi tomorrow before we hit Kew Gardens and post a few. Otherwise I promise to post some when we get to Paris and the hotel wifi is free.
The day started off a little rough. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get either the hairdryer (and converters) I brought with me or the hairdryer provided by the hotel to work. It turns out there are 3 different power plugs ins in our room. One in the bathroom that uses a little converter with just two round prongs (and does not have enough power to run the hairdryer), another plug that is all over the room and powers the lamps, and finally, a strange looking plug hidden behind the desk with its own switch that finally turned on the hairdryer. So needless to say by the time I figured out how to use the hairdryer, my hair was mostly dry. So it was straight today. :)
We started off our day with breakfast at the hotel. It was mostly a cold breakfast of toast, croissants, some cold meats and cheeses and excellent coffee. We then headed down the road to the bus stop for the Big Bus Company tour. Once we found our bus we climbed to the top level and settled in. The bus took us all through city and included headphones for a recorded tour as we traveled along. We saw all the major sights of the city including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the London Bridge, and Saint Paul's. We also got brave and "hopped off" at Harrods Department Store. That place was amazing. Everything from top designer clothing, shoes and watches to freshly made foods spanning the globe to a vast collection of cigars, wines and whiskey. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches and hopped back on the bus to enjoy. We arrived back at our hotel after 5 hours on the bus and took a nice nap before part 2 of our day.
Fully refreshed from our nap, we cleaned up and put on our "smart casual" attire to head for afternoon tea at Browns Hotel. The hotel called us their cab (which was a Mercedes) and arrived just in time for our reservation for tea. We stepped into a beautiful old hotel that turned out to be the first hotel built in London almost 200 years ago. We were shown to a corner couch with a table and our tea adventure began. Neither of us knew exactly what to expect, but we can both say that it was a great time and we highly recommend it to anyone visiting London. We each picked our tea (I chose lemon verbena and Trent got Browns afternoon tea - both were very good) and then they brought us a tower of finger sandwiches, fresh scones and desserts. We also splurged and got a glass of champagne to go with our tea. The food and tea were amazing and never ending (they just kept bringing out more food whenever we would clear a plate). After almost two hours of sipping on tea and snacking on the yummy food we decided we needed to get moving again and headed out.
The rest of our day was spent wandering through another part of Hyde Park across from our hotel and nearby shops.
Tomorrow is the day that Trent has been looking forward to since we booked this trip...the day at Kew Gardens. Tomorrow will be our first attempt at the Tube (subway) so wish us luck!
Love you all!
Kristen & Trent
P.S. Turns out we can't post photos to the blog from the iPad. We will be able to post from the iPhone later, but as we can only get wifi on one device at a time, no pictures yet. Sorry! I will try to find some free wifi tomorrow before we hit Kew Gardens and post a few. Otherwise I promise to post some when we get to Paris and the hotel wifi is free.
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