Update from France

Where am I

The short answer to that question is, no where close. I have received some emails about my absence from this blog, so here is another entry! Internet was rather expensive in London, so we spent those extra pounds on some English ales, but more on that later. I am currently sitting in my hotel in Paris, after a nice day of siteseeing. Tonight Caitlin and I are meeting a friend we went to school with who is from Paris, and possibly a couple of my classmates. Tomorrow is our last day here, and then we are off to Belgium for a day in Brussels, and two nights in Bruges.

The rest of London

So London is a pretty interesting city. Westminster seems to be running out of room to stuffy bodies, and I find it interesting that Darwin and Newton are buried on either side of an altar. I also find it interesting that the abbey was celebrating the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, this perplexed me, and may remain a mystery for years to come. On a side note, I did see the oldest door in Britain which is also housed there. Other famous people in there include Edward Longshanks, or Edward the Confessor.... Yes... the King who killed William Wallace in braveheart.

The british museum is pretty nice, it's a great collection of things that are pretty much spoils of war. My favorite stolen items, errr, just items rather are the Elgin Marbles, the Winged Lions (from Assyria), and the mummy of Cleopatra, which apparently is in some random case on the top floor of one the wings. If you aren't reading the signs next to massive number of other mummies, you would miss it. I can't imagine that the antiquities director of Egypt enjoys that wing of the British Museum.

So onto the food, which is decent. We had an interesting meal at a Japanese restaurant that was referred to as Ogonayaki I believe. It is cooked on a teppanyaki (sp?) grill right in front of you, and is rice based. The result is a pancake looking thing that is unbelievably good. The English don't really drink as much dark beer as I had originally thought, generally preferring ales and ciders. The other nice part about England is that a pint does not mean 12 oz, it means a full 16oz pint, or a "proper" pint as some of us have been referring to it. A good cider is Strongbow, and this pear tasting beverage that I can't remember the name of right now.

Our last day we did a trip out of London to Bath, Stonehenge and Windsor castle. Stonehenge is quite amazing, but much smaller than I had expected. There is literally nothing else there, and has nothing to do with druids - sorry, its true. Bath and Windsor are great, but hard to put in words, its just something to see.

Paris and Versailles

So I have to hand out an award here, to most rediculous palace. This goes to Versailles. It is my opinion there is enough gold in that palace to put the US back on the gold standard. It is literally 100 times bigger than the whitehouse in DC, and I think the gardens alone are bigger than the city of St. Louis (not the county, just the city...) I took pictures, but I don't think they describe how massive this thing is. So after seeing 2 royal palaces in Spain, and a few castles in and around London, Versailles wins. Yes I know I have more castles to see in Germany, but it doesn't matter - Versailles wins.

While on the topic of massive structures, the Eiffel tower is about 3 times as big as I imagines. When we went last night, there was a massive line at one of the legs, probably 2-3 hours in length. Accross the way, we notice a smaller line (no wait). Being the logical (usually) people we are, it was off to the short line. The difference? One line was the elevator, the other the stairs. 668 stairs later (they number the stairs as you ascend), we were on the second deck of the Tower. The top deck was closed for some reason, but we may try to go back tomorrow.

Today we saw Notre Dame, which apparently has the "crown of thorns", a nail from the cross, and a piece of the wood from the cross, but it is ony on display dueing Lent on Fridays - or for you non church goers - not now. Now are those relics real? Who knows. Do I care? Not really, because it is the idea behind them that is interesting. Later in the day we saw the grave of Louise Braille, kind of ironic huh? (if that humor fell flat or you don't get it, please move on...) That was at the Royal Pantheon, which contains a very interesting clock made from a Pendulum which descends straight from the top of the dome, far far above the floor. By my watch it was five minutes slow, but ingenuity beats accuracy in this situation. Also, we saw the Rose Line in the church of Saint Sulpice (from Da Vinci Code). We also saw a bone church, beneath the streets of Paris - made from the bones of 7 million Parisians in the late 1700's/early 1800's.

The local cuisine is pretty good, and tonight I plan on sampling some of the vino. In hindsight learning a little bit of french probably would have made my life easier, but since I am only here one more day, I think I will pass. In the meantime, hand gestures seem to be an effective form of communication. Last night while at the Eiffel tower, we witnessed the worst pickpocket ever - the person he was trying to target wound up hitting him over the head with his bag. It was pretty funny, but I have never seen a pickpocket that aggressive.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this post.

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Part of trip: Europe 2009

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