On Dec. 27th, I flew out of Evansville to London Gatwick (I would just like to say that I love to fly into Gatwick. It's SO easy!). I connected in Cincy with Delta where we were delayed an hour & a half because a plane carrying 44 of our passengers was late. I did not think this would be an issue once I got into London. Of course, I was wrong.
Arriving in London, I quickly collected my bags, made it through passport control, & into London city centre. The only problem with London is that they are ALWAYS working on their blasted tube system. And TODAY of all today's, they chose to close the Victoria Line which would take me directly to London St Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris where I would meet travel buddy Ashley Koch. I waited FOREVER to top up my Oyster card because the card machine broke. Once I got on the tube, I had to change once. At noon, I was heading around London. At noon, I was supposed to be at St Pancras, checking in. I got to St Pancras at 12:30. My train was leaving at 12:30. I was able to get another ticket for the next train free of charge, luckily. Ashley was also running 2 hours behind thanks to the French rail system.
I finally made it to Paris 2.5 hours later after a pleasant Eurostar, under the English Channel, journey. And I would just like to state, right now, that I LOVE THE PARIS METRO! It is SO easy to get around & it doesn't take 45 minutes to get where you need to go! I arrived at Gare du Nord, quickly found the metro, & headed to the hotel. But alas, another problem. When I made the hotel reservation, I made it for checking-in on the 27th & out on the 29th. Not checking-in the 28th & out on the 30th. Ashley, Mom, nor I caught it. Luckily the hotel I was originally booked at had a room available for the night. I took it, texted Ashley the news, & hopped in the shower. When she got to Paris, she sent me a text & I headed to the metro to meet her - along the way I also stopped at every hotel on our street until I found one with a room available for the next evening.
Ashley & I were thrilled to see each other! After getting back to the hotel, we toasted one another with a bottle of wine (tradition) & then hopped the metro to the Latin Quarter. Ashley is a vegetarian & I knew of one of the few vege restaurants in Paris, which happens to be run by my dear friend Riadh (Tunisian guy who keeps proposing to me). Riadh was working, so he waited on us & gave us free drinks (gotta give the guy credit - he is trying to win me over!). He even tried to pay for dinner, but Ashley & I would hear nothing of it. He got off work about 30 minutes after we finished eating, so we walked around the Latin Quarter for a bit & then met back up with him so we could hang out. We ended up going to the metro stop because I had been awake for 36 hours (remember, I had JUST arrived from the US!) & was completely exhausted.
The next day, Ashley & I decided to do some sightseeing. We took the metro out to La Defense where we visited the French version of the Christmas market, the Marche de Noel. We also went shopping at H&M because Ashley did not have a New Year's outfit! We ate lunch on the steps of La Defense, looking out at the Champs Elysees & the Arc de Triomphe. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to check-in to the other & dump out purses (neither of us are really fond of carrying purses). Ashley had never been to the Rodin Museum (now christened Mr. Rodeo, thank you Ashley) so we headed that way. We spent a good hour wandering around the house & gardens & collectively decided we wanted to steal the house & live in it. We then got the bright idea to walk to the Eiffel Tower where we presumed we would go ice skating. Once under the Eiffel Tower, we realized there was no ice skating! (Come to find out it was on the FIRST floor of the tower & the lines were too long to wait.) Though we were a little disappointed, we decided to walk along the Seine. It snowed/rained on us but we kept on. We walked to Place de la Concorde then up past the Musee d'Orsay & the Louvre. From there we crossed over the quay & went to find dinner. Dinner of choice tonight was Italian, so we went to Sammy's Italian restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Sadly, Sammy was not working. :-( After dinner of delicious pasta, we enjoyed a crepe. (How I miss those!) We had intended to take an evening cruise on the Seine, but we were both too tired of walking to even remember.
We headed back to the hotel where we thought we had crash. Instead, we stayed awake most of the night because the hotel was so noisy. At 8am, we got up, checked out, & headed to Gare du Lyon to take the TGV train to Cannes, France (where the Cannes Film Festival is held). Our goal was to find cute, rich men to either be our sugar daddies or our husbands. We arrived in Cannes around 2pm, quickly found out hotel, & made ourselves at home. We had stayed in this hotel chain previously & knew we liked the set up with a kitchen & WiFi. We strolled down to the beaches & saw a gorgeous sunset. For dinner, we ate at Mister Pizza - it was so amazing, we eat there twice!
The next day, New Year's Eve, we did more of the same. We walked down to the beaches, ate lunch on the rocks, talked to the local French guys, tried to figure out what to do that night, climbed up to the church that sits halfway up the "mountain" for nice views of Cannes, & headed back to the hotel. We made dinner - vegetable soup - & enjoyed our baguette. We got dressed - even spent an hour a piece to curl our hair ... who knew we needed to feel girly! After mixing our drinks (rum & coke as cocktails in any bar are UBERexpensive!) we headed out. By this time it was 11pm. We walked down to the beaches again & started walking towards the expensive yacht area (presumably where our rich husbands would be hanging out). We did run into some really fun French guys who spoke English really well (especially when they were drunk). We ended up watching the fireworks as we walked back to the hotel to use the bathroom (the stupid public toilets were not working!). Back at the hotel, we grabbed our bottle of cheap champagne (hey, we're poor college students) & headed back to the beach to celebrate the British New Year (when you've lived there a year, you feel a little obligated). Two creepy guys joined us, so we polished off the bottle pretty quickly & then headed back to the hotel for sleep. At the hotel, I called Mom on her cell to wish the fam a Happy New Year. She & Dad were at Brent McCarty's, so I got to talk to him as well. We went to bed about 3am.
The next day, Ashley bravely got up for a run whereas I chose to sleep in until noon. Today we chose to people watch which is SO much fun. We found a great little spot on a bench & just sat. We tried to pick out the people who had money, the people who didn't have money but dressed like they did, those people who had money but didn't show it, & those people like us - the tourists. You tell by the shoes. Ashley & I would make up stories about the different people we saw - how they made their money, what they liked to do, etc. I have to say, we're pretty good. The best was when the cute guys would walk by ...... those stories were the best.
The last day we were in Cannes, we decided to visit St. Marguerite Island which lies about 15 minutes from the coast. On the island, there is a fort where the Man in the Iron Mask was held for 11 years (I think) until he was transferred to the Bastille & subsequently died. There are many rumors as to who the man was - Moliere, Louis's twin brother or half brother, etc. But no one seems to know the truth. Ashley & I decided that it had to have been a brother or half brother because of the mask - the man's characteristics were so distinct that they could have linked him to someone, & who better than the king???? So that is our theory. It started to rain while we were on the island, so we were thrilled when the boat came to return us to mainland France. That night we dined on Mister Pizza while we packed.
Oh, I should add that while in Cannes, we watched many movies - some in French, some in English with French subtitles, & 2 that I brought. Master in Commander is a lot better in English ... Man in the Iron Mask is quite fun in French ... the animated Robots movie is hysterical in either language ... August Rush (thanks Dad) is amazing (I must get the sheet music for it!) ... & Flicka (with Tim McGraw) has some great guys to just oogle over.
On the 3rd, we checked out of the hotel bright & early at 630am & headed to the train station so I could catch the 7am train to Paris. I arrived in Paris with 45 minutes before my train to Germany left. As I said before, I love the metro. It's so quick! It took me 20 minutes to get from the Gare du Lyon to the Gare de l'Est & that was AFTER I took a wrong turn! God love Paris!
I got into Frankfurt (can I just say that I loved the car I was in from Paris to Frankfurt as well!) with 15 minutes between trains. Dagmar called me to make sure I had made it & we made plans for her to pick me up in Bremerhaven-Lehe instead of taking the train all the way to Otterndorf which would have gotten me home at midnight instead of 10:30. We got home at 10:30, only to find Leena still awake ... apparently awaiting my arrival. She came down & snuggled with me until I made her go to bed. I called mom to check-in with her & then unpacked.
I'm back & settled. I still need to do laundry though. Went to Tanja's today to ride Dirk, but found out that Susanne has taken him back home, so Tanja is having me work a half-crazy lesson horse for the time being.
The girls are calling ... Larissa got Wii for Christmas. I've already beaten them in tennis ...
Will post pics when I can. Mom gave me our camera over Christmas break, but the PC-Camera cords are not working, so I cannot upload my pics yet.
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