Paris has eclipsed HSU as the "hills and stairs" capitol of the world

We got back to our room late last night, and it has been so hot here that I didn't feel like firing up the computer for a blog post. I know, I know- you were all waiting so patiently, right?
Anyway, here's a summary of what we've been doing for the past few days. I'm afraid I can't post any more photos until we get to our next hotel. For some reason, the internet access works here for everything except uploading photos to the blog. I even went all the way down (and back up) the 108 steps between the lobby and our room just now to check if the wireless signal would be stronger down there and allow me to post photos, but it didn't work.
Yesterday we started our day taking a quick tour through the small Musee National du Moyen Age-Thermes de Cluny (Museum of the middle ages, and Cluny baths- from the Roman times), which is just two blocks from our hotel. It was our first stop because it is an uncrowded location to purchase our four-day Museum Pass, which will gain us free admission into over 60 museums in and around Paris. For me, the only lure to actually go into the Cluny was to see the Lady and Unicorn tapestries. A few years ago I read The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier, which is a historical fiction novel about the making of the tapestries. After reading that, I couldn't miss the chance to see them for myself.
After visiting the Cluny, we took the metro to the Louvre and spent most of the day there. It was quite an experience- way more art than anyone could possibly take a meaningful look at in one day. Even just to walk through all of the rooms without stopping to look at anything would take the majority of a day. It's an amazingly huge building and, like most of the museums in London and Paris, the building itself would be an interesting museum even if there was nothing in it. We saw all of the big ticket items: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, etc. Of course, there was a huge crowd of people pushing and shoving to get a close look at Mona Lisa. They really don't allow anyone to get much closer than 10 or 15 feet, and it's behind a huge thick pane of glass. After it being stolen and vandalized several times, they're not taking any chances.
Our feet were really sore after all of our walking in the Louvre. We went back to our hotel for a simple dinner of salad, cheese and a baguette before venturing out again to visit the Arc de Triomphe. The views were great from the top- once we had climbed the 234 steps to get there. We just kept climbing and climbing and climbing! The most interesting thing to watch at the top was the traffic below. The biggest round-about I've even seen goes around the Arc de Triomphe, and it's amazing to watch the cars jockeying for position, with tons of little motor-scooters darting in and out beween the cars.
After getting back to our room late last night, we slept in a bit this morning. After breakfast we headed to Notre Dame, where we toured inside the church (free to everyone). We were going to head up to the bell tower directly after, but the line was huge! They only allow a certain number of people up at one time, since there is only one stairway, and there is a long wait between when each group is allowed up. We decided to come back later, and instead visited the Paris Archeological Crypt next, which is in the same plaza. It was really interesting to see the remains of the original Roman city that existed before modern Paris. After that we walked a few more blocks to visit Sainte-Chapelle, which is a church with gorgeous stained-glass windows. We had to wait quite a while in line to enter, since Sainte-Chapelle is located in a courtyard in the middle of the Palais de Justice (French judicial headquarters). This means high security, and we had to put our bags through an x-ray machine.
After our visit to Sainte-Chapelle we were hungry. So we took the metro to the Marais neighborhood and got take-out from L'As du Fallafel. It was SO good! And very reasonably priced for Paris. I got their signature dish- the vegetarian falafel special- and Logan got the schwarma (I think it was lamb.) We wandered around while we ate and then took the metro back to try again to enter the Notre Dame tower. This time the line was shorter (although it still took us over 30 minutes to move about 30 feet in line), and we finally made it up to the top (387 steps- thus the title of this post). Logan made friends with a nice young Australian guy in line, so that made the wait more enjoyable. There are lots of Australians here on holiday right now, and they're all wilting from the heat since it's winter in Australia right now!
Our finaly sight-seeing stop for the day was the Pantheon, where we spent an hour looking at the crypt (where Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Louis Braille are buried, among others), admiring the wonderful statues, and watching Foccoult's pendulum swing. It's close to our hotel, so we walked back- past the Paris University- when we were done looking.
Our next stop was the hotel again, for dinner and a rest. I went to the market and tried to get a vegetable quiche for us, but the one I bought ended up containing scallops- they looked like pearl onions on the box! Now I know- always take my menu translator book to the market. So Logan enjoyed the scallop quiche and I had a large salad and cheese. I wasn't upset about not having something more substantial for dinner, because we were going out to the small island of Ile St-Louis after dinner to get some ice cream. We found ourselves on a street lined with ice cream shops, and decided to go to one that I had seen recommended by Rick Steves: Amorino Italian Gelato (sorry, the site doesn't translate into English, but if you click on "nos boutiques" you can see the one we went to- 47 rue Saint Louis). I used my limited French to order two medium ice cream cones- coffee and dark chocolate for me, and pistachio and dark chocolate for Logan. It was so wonderful and creamy. We walked down to the Seine to watch the boats go by while we ate. Then we took the metro back to our hotel, trudged up our last 108 steps for the day, and showered before collapsing onto the beds to relax.
Tomorrow, we're off to Versailles and then a nice dinner out on the Ile St-Louis.

Portsmouth and Paris- Day 1

(I just added photos to this post- I was unable to include photos from our Paris hotel.)
We've been in Paris for over 24 hours now, and I'm finally taking a few minutes to write about what's been going on. Today went much better than yesterday- we actually ate a real dinner today!
But I'll back track a little first to talk about our trip to Portsmouth in England.
I'll insert the photos and add commentary...
(fifteen minutes later.)
Okay, I guess I won't be inserting the photos tonight. I must be too far from the wireless signal for the memory-dense photos to upload. So I'll just say what we've been doing, and hopefully I'll be able to add them tomorrow.
View of the Waterloo Train Station in London: When we got to Portsmouth on Sunday morning, we were met at the train station by Joanna and her dad Nigel (I hope I'm spelling his name right.) They took us home, where we were greeted by Joanna's mom, Claudia. After touring the house and garden, we left to drive to the Portsmouth waterfront. There we strolled along the water and saw some of the little town until it was time for our lunch reservation at a historic pub called the Still and West Country House: The Reeds had reserved a table upstairs overlooking the water, and we watched the boats and ferries go by while we ate. Logan had the traditional fish and chips, and I had vegetable skewers with strawberries and cream for dessert. Yum!
After lunch we walked over to a busier shopping center area- it reminded us of Santana Row. In that area is the Spinnaker Tower, which is a tourist attraction that takes people 70 stories above the ground to get a bird's eye view of the area. Joanna took Logan and me up to the top, and it was clear enough for us to see quite far.
Spinnaker Tower: Next we walked around in the shopping area before leaving to take a drive down some country lanes in the Portsmouth area. It was a nice sunny day, and we admired how green everything was.
In the evening we had a wonderful dinner that Claudia cooked for us, and then sat talking and sharing photos of our house renovation until late.
The next morning (Monday) we had breakfast and took a few photos before we needed to go to the train station to go back to London.
Logan, Joanna and me: Joanna and her parents: When we arrived in London we took the tube to the St. Pancras station, where we got on the Eurostar to Paris.
The Eurostar is a fancy train- much nicer than the coach class airplane seating. Logan had enough room for his legs, and we were served a very nice lunch during our voyage.
This is what Logan's lunch looked like. He had beef with potatoes and carrots, a roll with butter, and mixed green salad, and a sort of sweet cheese flan for dessert. We were also offered wine: When we arrived in Paris we waited in line to get our Carte Orange, which allows us unlimited access to the metro and buses for the week we're in Paris.
We managed to find our hotel okay, and then left to see the Eiffel Tower.
Here is the view from our sixth floor hotel window: I needed a snack when we got to the hotel, so I ate the package of tarts I had bought in London. They were called "Naughty Strawberry Tarts"! The owner of our hotel is making improvements to the property, as shown by the partially finished door frame of our room: The teeny tiny bathroom was so small that Logan wasn't able to shut the door with him inside! A self-portrait in front of the Eiffel Tower: A few hours later (about 11pm), the Eiffel Tower in the dark: After a late night with shortbread for dinner (see yesterday's post), we slept very soundly and were happy to get up and shower this morning. We had a nice breakfast in the hotel salon. The owner of the hotel asked Logan to help carry a door from the 3rd floor to the 5th floor (they're doing quite a bit of remodeling here), and as a thank-you he gave us two tickets to ride the Bateaux-Mouches, which are the guided tour riverboats that go up and down the Seine.
After breakfast, we went to the Montmartre neighborhood, and visited the Basilica Sacre-Couer: It's a really lovely church on top of a hill (more stair climbing- of course!), and we were able to hear the nuns singing while we walked around inside. After stopping for some lunch from a crepe and sandwich vendor, we came back to our hotel to take a nap and do some laundry.
This evening we braved the cramped supermarket around the corner for some dinner ingredients, and had a salad with some bread and cheese for dinner at the hotel. Then we took the bus to the riverside and used our tickets for the Bateaux-Mouches. I was really happy not to get sea-sick on this boat like I did on the Thames. This was a very smooth ride, and we took it just as the sun was starting to set. We had such a lovely view of the sunset over Notre Dame, and Logan took lots of pictures.
In this photo, the clock reads 10:05pm, and it's still quite light outside. We were amazed by how much daylight we got every day in Paris! This is what the Bateaux-Mouches boat looked like, with lots of seating for everyone on top of the boat. The recorded commentary would repeat in about 8 different languages: The Bateaux-Mouches sign with the Eiffel Tower glowing in the background: After a stroll along the Seine for a few minutes, we took the bus back to our hotel to get ready for bed. Now that it's after 1am, I need to get some sleep so I can visit the Louvre tomorrow!

Shortbread at midnight

So this is going to be a short, picture-less post. We had a wonderful time with Joanna and her parents in Portsmouth yesterday, but I'll have to write more on that later. It's just after midnight, Paris time, and I ended up having Scottish shortbread (thank you, Joanna!) for dinner tonight- about ten minutes ago. We had a long day- leaving Portsmouth just after 10 this morning to take the train back to London, then getting the 1:30 Eurostar from London to Paris, then navigating through a subway system where we don't speak the language, and finally finding our hotel. Our hotel doesn't have elevators, and we're on the sixth floor, so by the time we lugged our bags up 70 or 80 steps we were exhausted. We rested a while, then took the subway to see the Eiffel Tower, and climbed yet more stairs (350 more...whew!)
Anyway, by the time we saw the tower, we realized it was too late for us to shower at our hotel (we're sharing a shower on our floor, and it closes at 10:45) and all of the restaurants were closing down for the night. So now we're going to bed dirty and eating shortbread for dinner. I'm hoping tomorrow goes better than today- everything should be better after a good night of sleep. And at least we know where we're getting breakfast tomorrow- downstairs at our hotel. We just have to be careful not to forget anything in our room when we go downstairs. It's a LONG way back up! Until tomorrow...

London- Day 3

We started today the same as yesterday, with the exception of waking up early because it was about 85 degrees in our room by 8am. The sun came out early this morning, and the large wall of windows let all of the heat into our room. We got ready fast and went to Tesco to grab some breakfast to take to Paddington Park. We saw some large magpies this morning, so that was kind of fun. I had never seen what they looked like before. Kind of like crows, but with some white on their wings and shoulders. Here is the park's flower garden: Instead of coffee this morning, Logan had the drink shown below. In case you can't read the small writing, it's a chocolate fudge brownie drink, kind of like chocolate milk. Mmm- the breakfast of champions, huh? I like how they feel the need to caution on the label that it "doesn't contain real brownies."
After breakfast we took the tube to the Notting Hill neighborhood to browse around the Portobello Road market. Here's a teeny-tiny car we saw on the way there. It makes the Mini Cooper look huge!
When I read about Portobello Road market in the London guidebooks, I was excited to go. I always love flea markets, and this market is featured prominently in the old Disney movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." The market today was very similar to what was shown in the movie, even though it was made probably 40 years ago. There were even guys playing steel drums! I think one of the signs said that the market is the oldest continuous outdoor flea market in London. Here's one of the street signs:
After walking around for a few minutes, it became clear that this wasn't going to be a nice relaxed stroll through the market. It was very crowded (with lots of tour groups who moved like herds of cattle) and very hot. Here's a photo Logan took of the crowd- and this was not the most crowded area:
After grabbing a snack, we headed back to our hotel. The heat was too much for us, especially since we've been walking all day for the past two days and since, when it's hot above-ground, the underground is stiflingly hot. I finally remembered to take a photo of the Sherlock Holmes statue outside the tube station entrance:
Our afternoon was spent trying to keep cool. I wrote postcards and checked e-mail while Logan read and napped. Then we showered and left for some shopping at Marks & Spencer, which is a big department store. We didn't find anything we wanted, and when we went outside to walk back to the hotel we found that it was pouring. In hindsight, I should have gone back inside and bought an umbrella for us. But we thought, "it'll let up soon- we'll just get a little wet." No, it poured the entire 15 minute walk back to our room. When we got back we peeled off our soggy clothes, put on dry ones, and waited for the rain to stop so we could figure out where to go for dinner. We ended up taking the tube to Piccadilly Circus, which is a very touristy area with lots of restaurants and theatres. It was okay, but not a lot of good food to choose from, and lots of people out smoking on the sidewalks. We ended up finally choosing to eat at The Spaghetti House, which has been run by an Italian family in London for the past 5o years. It was actually really good. Here's what it looked like:
After dinner we were ready to come home and relax. Logan took this last shot of Piccadilly's main square. We're always intrigued by the stark contrast between old buildings and new technology in big cities:
Tomorrow morning we're heading to the Waterloo Train station to travel down to the southeast coast of England to visit our friend Joanna in Portsmouth. Then on Monday afternoon we'll come back to London so we can take the Eurostar train across the channel to Paris. Should be exciting!

London- Day 2

Today was another busy day for us, but we're steadily whittling down the "to do" list I had written for London. We started out this morning by grabbing breakfast at the Tesco market again, and taking it around the corner to the lovely Paddington Park. We ate on a bench, and noticed that the British use noisy, smelly leaf blowers just like Americans do.
Then we headed off to the tube station to go down to Westminster Abbey. When we drove by the Abbey yesterday on the bus I was amazed to find that it's in a rather crowded area, just across the street from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. For some reason, I had pictured it being off on its own somewhere, on a big piece of grassy land. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour through the Abbey. We received an audio guide when we entered, which was included in the admission price. It was a really neat little machine that looked like an early flip phone. It had audio narration done by Jeremy Irons, as well as some photos and video.
Photography isn't allowed inside the Abbey, but here are some photos we took from the outside:
I took this photo kneeling on the ground, and I still couldn't get the top of the Abbey in the shot. It's really that big.
I had to have my photo taken at the door to the Abbey Librarian's office:
An external shot, including the pretty bell tower: By the time we had wandered around the Abbey for a few hours, we were really hungry. So we found the first restaurant that was affordable and looked good. I can't even remember the name now- but it's an Italian style place. I had a pizza and Logan had a BLT with really thick slices of English style bacon. On the way to the restaurant we passed the horseguards. There are mounted soldiers outside the gates each day, and there is always a crowd gathered to take pictures and admire the horses. I don't envy these guys and their job. They have to sit there and look stern for hours on end: After lunch we stopped in Trafalgar Square so Logan could take my picture with one of the huge lions. There are four of them, each guarding a corner of the square around Nelson's Column. To give you an idea of how big and high these statues are, here's a shot from several feet away (with Big Ben in the background). It's over five feet from the ground to the lions' feet:
I had a time climbing up, especially since the metal lion was really hot. And Logan got some lovely photos of my rear on my way up... but I won't share those here. I did finally manage to get up there though! Next, we headed way out toward the edge of London to explore the Natural History Museum. As with many of the London museums, the beauty and grandeur of the building is just as impressive as what's inside!
Here's a shot of the outside of the building. You can tell it's the Natural History Museum because of all of the stone animals! It's a long building, and I felt like I was entering Hogwarts: We saw lots of great things inside, and the amazing part is that it's free, just like the British Museum we went to yesterday. I can't believe they let people wander around inside of these gorgeous buildings for free. Here is the entry hall. There is a huge long dinosaur skeleton on the ground floor: My favorite part of the museum was the hall of birds. There was a whole display on extinct birds, and we got to see a stuffed Dodo. Very cool, but it made me sad that they're extinct: After a quick stop at a refreshment stand for some Powerade, we were back on the tube again, toward Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. This also was free, which meant that we got to spend a few hours (it was open until 9pm tonight) looking at Botticellis, Monets, da Vincis and van Goghs without having to pay a penny!
Our last stop this evening was the Covent Garden area. We went to a restaurant called Belgo Central (http://www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk/), which I had read about in the Rick Steves guidebook. It's an underground Belgian beer hall and restaurant. Logan had a Belgian amber beer called Palm, and wild boar sausages with mashed potatoes, which he enjoyed. I had a house salad and mashed potatoes. They were wonderful, with bits of carrots, cabbage and leeks mixed in. Defintely a place to go again if we get the chance! Here's what the outside of the restaurant looked like: After all of that, it was time to come back to our room, shower, and relax. We're ready for day three tomorrow!

London- Day 1

I thought I'd try to do a post a day during our trip- I'll see if I can keep it up. That way I can let everyone know what we're up to, and it'll be a nice record for Logan and me to remember everything we saw and did on our adventure.
Today was our first full day in London. It was a busy day, and I feel like we really saw a lot.
But before I get into that, here are a few photos of our room. We're staying in the residence hall of the Marylebone Campus of the University of Westminster. It's a nice quiet room (which is apparently difficult to find in London), and a good price too. Here's a shot from our third floor room looking out at the garden and street below. There is a hospital on the next block, so we know where to go if we need medical attention!

Here is our door and closets on the right: Here's my bed (we have two twins. Not long enough for Logan, unfortunately.) Here's my desk- Logan's desk and bed are to the right of the shot. The room is divided down the middle by the blue bulletin board beneath the curtains, and each side is a mirror image of the other. It looks like a typical dorm room. Nothing fancy, but it's clean, close to the Underground (Baker Street station, with a statue of Sherlock Holmes out front), and it's a good price.
When we got up this morning we stopped in Starbucks for some coffee (I know, not very British of us...) and then went a few doors down to the Tesco Express market for some breakfast- a chocolate croissant for Logan and a blueberry muffin and fruit for me. Then we headed on the tube down toward the Thames to try to find a tourbus that we could take. We ended up getting the Original Tour company bus. For one price you can hop on and off their buses (with commentary- some live, some recorded) for a 24 hour period, as well as free walking tours and a Thames boat cruise. We saw a lot of London that way today- hopping on and off the buses.
Our first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral. Such a beautiful HUGE cathedral with a large underground chapel and crypt. We walked the 300+ stairs to reach the whispering gallery, which isn't a place for those who are afraid of heights.
After touring the cathedral we got some pre-made sandwiches and potato salad from the market across the way and ate on the steps of St. Paul's. It was really nice weather today- almost too warm sometimes.
Here's the front of the cathedral: Here's Logan's sandwich at lunch- he had Oak smoked Scottish salmon and soft cheese on wheat bread. He said it was good...Here's me feeding the pigeons at lunch. I usually don't feed the birds, but I had to in this case. In the movie Mary Poppins, St. Paul's is the cathedral that Mary Poppins sings about in the song "Feed the Birds" when she takes Jane and Michael to visit their father at the bank where he works. So, I had to feed the birds myself. I knew my sister, a big Mary Poppins fan, would appreciate this! (Sorry you have to turn your head to see the photo- for some reason the computer wouldn't rotate it for me. There are a few more like it below.) We saw this ice cream truck parked outside St. Paul's, and we had to take a photo. Gotta love the British signs: Mind That Child!This is what our bus looked like. We rode on top most of the time for a good view of the sights (and for the cool air!)
In the afternoon, we saw the front of Buckingham Palace. The palace isn't open for tours now, since the Queen is in residence right now, so we couldn't go inside. But we did get to see the guards out front, and they're only there when she is, so it worked out well.
Here's Logan at the monument across the walkway from the palace: (By the way, Logan wore his Humboldt State t-shirt today and got two comments on it from people who actually know where it is! One of the people went to HSU herself.) Guard in front of the palace- I took this with my big zoom lens. I was actually probably about 150 feet away. There are several more things we saw today that I won't include photos of: we crossed the Tower Bridge twice (once on bus, once on foot), saw the outside of the Tower of London (decided not to spend the money to go inside), saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, saw the original Hard Rock Cafe, went on the Thames Cruise (where it was my turn to get motion sick...), and drove by Westminster Abbey (we'll probably go inside tomorrow).
One recurring theme of the day was lion statues. We saw lots of them- all different styles- but they were all beautiful. This lion is at Trafalgar Square next to the statue of Admiral Nelson (you can tell how big it is by looking at the little girl sitting between its paws): This one was my favorite of the day. It's on the eastern end of the Westminster Bridge near the London Eye. His facial expression reminds me of Clark when he's nervous! Our last stop of the day was the British Museum. It's free to the public, and was open until 8:30 tonight (nearly everything else closes by 6pm), so we decided to look around. The most famous exhibit in the museum is the Rosetta Stone. It's the first thing we saw when we walked into the first exhibit hall. It's lovely, but almost looks fake- it's hard to believe it's so old! We also saw lots of ancient Greek statues and ruins, and lots of Egyptian mummies too. Here's a picture of the outside of the museum.
We stayed at the museum until just about 8:30, and then went off in search of some dinner. We ate at a place called The Ultimate Burger. It was really good, and was our first real English dining experience (although our waitress was Russian!) Here's their website: http://www.ultimateburger.co.uk/
Lastly, a few random photos from the day. Logan and I agree that the best part of travelling to another country is just seeing the differences in daily life. How everything works and how it looks is so fascinating. Here is what the "don't walk" sign looks like on the streets: Here is a mailbox (it was BIG!): I'm off to shower and bed now. It's almost 11:15, and I'm tired. I want to be able to get up for more exploring tomorrow.