Alright so to finally finish off Monday's adventures. We had a picnic in Kensington Gardens for dinner with the entire group, which was fabulous. It was a great way to end the program and for those of us leaving the next day, to say our goodbyes. Plus, you can never go wrong with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After dinner we went to the Westminster Abbey area to have a little walk from there to Trafalgar Square. Hannah, Kaylee, Amy, Tara, and Kelly (aka Mrs. Miller) came along for the ride. It was fun to see all the sites one last time and get some last minute pictures. One of our pictures was us on the big lion statues in the middle of Trafalgar Square. We've always seen people up on them so we assumed it wouldn't be that difficult to accomplish but we were very wrong. It was extremely difficult to get up on the back on the lion because it was so big and we looked like ridiculous fools. Foolish enough that some random group of guys took a picture of us attempting to get up while laughing at us. Good times. Then it was gelato and time to get home. I was trying to speed things up because I didn't have a lot of time but things weren't very speedy at all. We ended up getting back to the centre around 10:15 and then I flew around getting some last minute things done and saying my goodbyes so I could get to my parents hotel. I didn't end up getting there until 11:30 and then 4 hours later...
...I was up and getting ready for Paris. Our (as in my mom, my dad and I) train left at 5:30 so it was an early start. I slept through the train ride, so that helped some with my exhaustion but not really. Once we got there, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, which was really nice. I had my own room because they don't have rooms with two beds. We weren't really sure where to start but we ended up at Notre Dame and found a double decker bus tour thing so we hopped on that and it took us around the city. That was cool because we got to see where things were in relation to other things and we got to see all the big sites at once and then we could decide from there which ones we wanted to go back to. So we went all the way around and once we were back at Notre Dame, we found this little street thing with all these food shops and we ended up at a bakery place. I got a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette with butter. It was AMAZING!! For real. The best ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had. Mom had a panini with pesto on it, which is great. And Dad has a three cheese panini. He ate about half of it before he couldn't take it anymore and declared it to be disgusting. He made us try it and it had some weirdo kind of cheese on it. He describes it as butt cheese. And that's pretty much what it tastes like. It was super gross but way a way funny situation because he ate so much of it before he just couldn't take another bite. After our sandwiches, we got a chocolate eclair and some small macaroons. Everyone raved about the macaroons in Paris but they were just ok. I love my chocolate eclair though!
After lunch we thought it would be a good idea to go to the Pantheon. I don't remember exactly what happened but we ended up walking there. Probably because we thought it wasn't that far. Except for it kind of was. And when we got there we realized we didn't have our Museum Passes, just our Paris Passes, which all came together in a package but the Paris Pass doesn't really do anything for you. So we decided to head back to the hotel and make sure we actually had Museum Passes in our package before buying them or paying to get into anything. On our way back to the hotel, I was having a bit of a shoe problem. The really cute flats I had bought in London for 5 pounds were wearing out. I've worn them a ton since I bought them and the sole had started to crack. I didn't think it was that bad but it kept getting worse and worse as the day continued. When we were near the hotel, Mom and I stopped at a shoe store to get me a new pair (which are also super cute and more comfortable than my London ones) and it was just in the nick of time because as we walked into the hotel the entire front part of the sole on one shoe came off. Pretty great, let me tell you.
We discovered we did have Museum Passes but they were only for two days and we were going to be in Paris for three. We decided to save them for the last two days since a lot of the first day was already gone.On one of our handy dandy maps we found a Hard Rock Cafe and we went there for dinner, which was cool because we just happened to be there on the day of their anniversary so all of the employees were dressed up as different artists. After dinner we went to the Place de la Concorde because its free and we just wanted pictures. It's basically a big square with an obelisk statue and two fountains and then at either end of the square are these two cool looking buildings that I'm pretty sure are important but I have no idea why. The obelisk statue though has a story I can tell you about. It has the story of Ramses II on it in hieroglyphs and it once was at the entrance of the Luxor Temple but it was then moved to replace a guillotine that was there during the Revolution. After we'd finished looking around, we walked home through a park that was basically in between the Concorde and our hotel and then it was off to bed.
I know I'm really far behind but I'm also really busy with the parents and really tired so this will have to suffice for now...
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