Paris

After our week in London, we took the train through the "chunnel" to Paris. It's a very easy ride and only takes about 3 hours. Along the way, you see some very nice French countyside.

We had (again) a very nice hotel in Paris and in a very nice (upscale) neighborhood, about 5 blocks north of the Louvre. Paris is very beautiful and very walkable. In fact, it's so beautiful that my favorite thing to do was often just to wander around. We took in the major sites and quite a few lesser ones as well. I could have stayed another week. Also, I kicked the rust off my college french and enjoyed speaking with anyone willing to speak a little more slowly than usual so that I could understand them. There were, however, plenty of people who spoke english so I don't think there was much of a language barrier.

Parisien life is decidedly later than London life. In London, the pubs are hopping every day from about 5 pm to 8 pm. The crowds always spilled out onto the sidewalk, where you are allowed to bring your drink. Anytime you saw a crowd on the street at that time, you knew you were passing a pub. In Paris, I didn't see much of a happy hour crew. But, from about 9 pm to 11 pm, the cafes were full. As they do during the rest of the day, people re-arrange the sidewalk chairs to all face the street so they can chat while watching the world go by. We enjoyed doing the same.

Paris also has incredibly good bread and chocolate! The boulangerie (bakery) near our hotel sold fresh baguettes every morning for 0.88 euros (about $1.25). I did notice, however, that in less trendy neighborhoods, a baguette was closer to 0.80 euros. We could make up sandwiches for the 4 of us with one baguette. So, we bought sandwich fixings and made ourselves lunches to eat in the park as we toured around. Eating in the park was fun as you get to soak in more of everyday goings-on (like the sand castle building contest we saw a kindergarten-age class do in the park directly adjacent to Notre Dame!)

We were in Paris over the Bastille Day holiday (their 4th of July) and caught the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. We walked back to the hotel, down the Champs Elysee after midnite, and the place was hopping! It was a long walk, as traffic was snarled and no cabs were to be found anyway, but it was so pretty that no one cared.

So, although we had to leave a few museums and a few neighborhoods unexplored, we enjoyed the visit quite a bit. And, I am told, we missed quite a heat wave while we were away!

London

No, this picture is neither a political statement nor a comment on my ability to follow directions! Last week we returned from a trip to Europe with the kids. We started with a week in London (and a side trip to Birmingham) and then went to Paris for a week. The weather was great and we got a chance to see a lot of the sites.

London was a lot of fun for the family. We have friends there who have kids around our kids' ages so they got to hang out. It also turned out that a friend of ours was there for the week (for work) in the same hotel - so we spent some time with her, too. I've been to London a number of times before so I was happy to be able to share some of the things I like about the city with the kids. The only down note of the week in London was that I picked up some kind of virus and ran a high fever. As a result, I spent the last three days there at the hotel, sleeping a lot.

But I did meet a very nice doctor who was a referral from the hotel front desk. He is in private practice in the neighborhood where we stayed (South Kensington). He also had the most elegant doctor's office I've ever been in - in a classic South Ken browstone. We got a chance to talk a little bit about medical care in the US and the States. Also, as a point of comparison, my office visit with him cost L105 which, at current exchange rates is about $170. That's probably pretty comparable to the states for a doctor visit in a large city I would think.

Since I couldn't really go out sight-seeing, I would just take a walk in the neighborhood or sit in the park (Kensington Park) and read the paper until I felt fatigued again and went back to the hotel. These lttle walks were rather interesting though, because I got to see some of the "regular" London life, albeit in an upscale part of town. One day I watched the procession of girls from a school in their uniforms (lavendar floral dresses, knee socks and matching jackets) go in groups to the church across the street for what appeared to be the end-of-year ceremonies. Each group would go in for about 15 minutes and upon return some would be carrying trophies of various sizes. In one case, a couple of girls came out crying (and trophy-less) and I wonder whether they had their heart set on some award which they did not win.

I also overheard a funny item between some American tourists. While sitting in Kensington Park near the Albert memorial, an American couple strolled by. The Albert Memorial is huge, with scenes from far off lands, like Indian elephants, African scenes and American bison, carved at the four corners of it's base. The woman stopped to take a picture when the man said "You already got that one." She replied "I did?" "Yes", he said "You know, it's the memorial to what-his-name...see, there's that college of... whatever in the background. You know the one they stopped working on back in...whenever." "Oh, yeah" she said. And she put her camera away. Now that's communicating!