London to Las Vegas

Jan. 7

This day went on forever! We got a few hours back traveling from east to west which made it even longer. Unfortunately, we could not have breakfast at out hotel since we had to leave before 7am. We took our backpacks and headed to St. Pancras Station. This time it was not the Underground, but another rail line called First Capital Connect that would take us WAY out to Gatwick Airport. The train leaves every 20 minutes or so, and we hopped on one that would get us there in plenty of time for an international flight. The train is surely the way to go to Gatwick. Shuttles are really expensive and a cab is out of the question. This train ride was only 10£ a person.

One we arrived at Gatwick, I was surprised at the security. In particular, the drug dog and crew. We were at the British Airways check-in area and the police were going about searching for scents with the dog. Ok, that's normal in an airport. The dog had it's master holding the leash, but what was shocking was the 3 military security behind the dog and master. These 3 young men stood behind the dog, about 10 meters apart with machine guns. As they moved around the area, they stood in the same defensive position. Watching them was interesting. Sorry no pictures. I don't think it would have been a good idea. The man with the dog finally made his way over to us. The little pooch sniffed my leg and it's master said good morning. I was friendly and at the same time checking out their gear. I like to check, just to be sure that everyone is safely handling their firearms. Fingers were off triggers, but their muzzles swept across civilians a few times, which caught me by surprise. Never do that! Point that thing down. And for real? Are you really going to open up with full automatic fire in a crowded airplane check in area with 3 machine guns? This was surely a scare tactic and must work pretty well in the UK.

Once through security, we made it to our gate. We never got stamped out of the country and that was strange. In France, no one stamped us in, but we did get stamped out on our UK arrival on the Eurostar Train border crossing. Oh well.

The flight was a little bumpy over Greenland. Food was typical and I was able to get some blog entries done. The movies on board were a nice treat. My feet fell asleep a few times, even with walking a few laps around the plane. The passengers on the flight were a little weird. The CES (Consumer Electronics Show) was about to begin in Las Vegas, so our flight was filled up with 25-50 year old men on a business trip. There were only a few women. Seriously, there were only about 10 women on the entire plane. When we were approaching Las Vegas you could sense the excitement with these guys. I am thankful these guys are coming to our city. Please, go spend your money!

Upon arriving in Vegas, it was reverse culture shock even though we had only been gone a little over 2 weeks. Big cars. Big bodies. And, big mouths. Ahhhh. We were home. We arrived at about 1:30pm and all my friends were at work. We waited in the line for a cab at Terminal 3. Finally, one came to take us home.

Our France and England trip was now over. Tomorrow it's a work day for us and I can't wait to share our experiences with my students. I will have to whittle down the 1,300 pics I took into 100 or so. I find that to be a difficult part of the trip, as well as typing this blog. In the end it's all worth it. We're not sure what's next for travel, but whatever it is, it's going to be awesome! Another great trip. The memories will last forever.

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London, England Day 4

Jan. 6

This morning's breakfast was downstairs again, in the basement of the hotel. The Polish crew has done a great job making the food and listening to their British English is quite funny. Each country has its own immigrants, and London gets a wide variety. The streets are extremely multicultural except in the financial district. How funny.


We took the Underground to Monument Station. Right outside the stop is a giant monument for the fire that destroyed most of London in 1666. We got off here because we wanted to walk across the London Bridge. Luckily, it was not falling at the moment. I don't know what the future might bring though. If you keep singing the song, it might fall.

Once across the bridge, we were in the old market area. Unfortunately, the markets were closed, as it was Sunday and early in the morning. It was not a total wash, since the quiet streets had their own ambiance to offer. There were some shopkeepers out cleaning the storefronts and a lot of people out exercising. Londoners like their morning runs and they were all out and about each morning. I guess when it is so gloomy and dark, you gotta do something to get the blood flowing. I was fighting my instinct to just stay inside and sleep the whole time.

This area of town is extremely old. It's right on the water front and the streets are winding and narrow. We soon came across an old galleon ship under restoration. The ship is normally open for tourists to visit, but it was closed and a lone man was working on it this morning. I watched him for a while and was able to walk around most of the ship. It was resting on an interesting type of dry dock. There were some gates used to keep back the water until the boat is finished. I don't think that it will ever see the open ocean since its mast is too tall to fit under the bridges. Most likely it will be just for tours and to remind us what the pirate boats used to look like on the Thames.

We tried to walk along the river as much as possible. The pub scene here must be pretty wild since there are so many of them. But being the morning, all was still and quiet. I figure that in the evening, all this would change! We passed in front of the new Shakespear's Globe Theater. It's a reconstruction the original Globe that was destroyed hundreds of years ago by fire. The project was started by an American who wanted to build the theater as close to what the original must have been like as possible. The tour was really expensive and we already had plans for the day, so we decided to move along. It's right on the riverfront very close to where the original was located, so seeing something here in the future would be pretty cool. Since it is open air, I guess we'll have to come back in the summer.

Soon, we came upon the Tate Modern Art Museum. You can't miss this one, as the art is housed in a gigantic renovated power plant. There is this HUGE smokestack that can be seen from miles away. The main generator room is bigger than an airplane hangar. We took our time in the museum and saw some really, to put it lightly, "weird" stuff. There were video displays, sculptures, paintings, and even a little music. The museum is 6 floors with a basement where the oil tanks used to be, so we took a few hours just to walk through it all. Children were everywhere. It was cool to see some of their responses to the strange things they saw. Many things were scary to them, and some were very inappropriate.

After the museum, we headed to the London Eye. Since the fog was so thick, we opted out of going for a ride. We have to leave something to come back to. Also, we heard that Las Vegas will be getting an giant Ferris wheel. If it's like anything else in Vegas, it will be smaller and cheaper. So, that might be our only way to ride the Eye.

The London Eye is right across the river from the Parliment and Big Ben, so we crossed the Waterloo Bridge and made a right. This took us by some really fancy buildings and into an area with lots of pubs. We settled down at the Silver Cross Pub. We were pretty hungry, and were looking forward to a traditional British meal. I went to the bar and ordered 2 different frothy beverages on tap, which were amazing. I had the fish and chips and Katherine had a meat pie. We just took our time and enjoyed our time in the pub. The food was so good it made us feel sick.

When we left the pub, the sun was down, so we started the long walk back to the hotel. The bad news was all that frothy beverage was needing to be released from our bodies. This romantic walk back had now turned into a mission to find a restroom. The cold air and the urge to go made this walk seem longer than it really was. I think we made record time from Trafalgar Square back to King's Cross!

Once back at the hotel with our fluids drained, we went out in search of toothpaste. There were many little markets around. We thought that finding a little tube would be easy. Nope! We could not find any small sizes and the large ones cost 2.5£. No thanks. With the exchange, that's almost $5 for a tube of toothpaste. I figured our teeth could miss out on a quality brushing until we get home. We salvaged a tiny amount that night, and luckily found out that British Airways has a mini tube in the back of the seats. I guess the British are taking this "bad teeth" thing seriously.

The night ended with us packing our bags and preparing for the return flight back to Vegas.

 

 

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London, England Day 3

Jan. 5

We woke up early and took a long Underground ride to the Westminster Abby stop. Once out of the tunnel, we were greeted with more fog and chilly temps. The surrounding area was quite interesting, especially since we were early and crowds were minimal.

The entrance to Westminster was not even open yet. We stood in line for just 5 minutes and were some of the first people inside. From the outside the Abby is massive with flying buttresses and an impeccable restoration. The stones on the outside have visible patchwork, but inside, things look untouched. We discovered many tombs and monuments to some of England's finest scholars, writers, musicians, and political figures. I knew that this was a massive church, but did not know that there was this huge amount of history inside. Some of the names and monuments that stuck out to us were Purcell, Handel, Newton, Churchill, Wilde, Dickens, all the kings and queens, Jane Austin, and Chaucer, just to name a few. The Churchill site is right when you enter the main doors to the church in the center of the floor. This stood out to me as maybe the most important place to be buried. I guess if he failed in WW2 the whole place might have been leveled by the Nazis? We didn't enter this door as a tourist, but as a formal procession, this is how you would enter. On the right side of the main entrance, there is a prominent FDR monument as well. Pretty cool.

After taking our time in the Abby, we walked onto Waterloo Bridge to get a good view of Big Ben and the Parliament building. From this different angle the sights were impressive. I took a few pictures and we headed to Buckingham Palace. I'm glad we didn't hurry for the changing of the guard, because it did not happen today. But, we still saw a few door guards with the cool furry hats. We took a long walk through St. James Park and found a place to sit and eat. Surrounding us were several types of birds. Some I had never seen before. They were all causing quite a racket and it was cool to watch the people interact with them.

From Buckingham Palace, we went to a Trafalgar Square. We took a little break here just to people watch for a while. I found the security guards entertaining. They had to continually ask people not to feed the pigeons and climb on the giant lion statues. On the north side of the square is the National Gallery. We thought it would be a great idea to go in and see what it was all about. This is another "free" museum with a recommended donation. Nice. We were able to see some paintings by Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, and many others. Amazingly, you could get very close to these impressive pieces of art. After 2 hours in there, we decided to skip out on a real lunch and wait for dinner. By doing this, we had some time to hit up the British Museum once more.

We walked from the National Gallery to the British Museum. It's not exactly close, but we didn't want to pay another 2.60£ a person to go a few blocks. Once inside, we went upstairs to catch a glimpse of the stuff we missed out on the previous visit. I wanted to see the early European and Greek displays. There is WAY too much to see. We ended up in the clocks and coins areas, which I found intriguing. The displays were first class with great lights and were not cluttered. I have been trying this new museum technique that doesn't always work. I find a cool area and know that I can't read everything, so I just slowly cruise through and stop at only a few things. It's OK to miss some items. You just have to know that someday you will come back and check it out again. Or, at least tell yourself that.

We were feeling exhausted after all this walking and museum touring and were in search of dinner. We didn't want to go all out on a pub quite yet. That was something we wanted to do tomorrow, so we settled for McDonalds right by our hotel. McDonalds restaurants were all over in France and in London so far. We normally don't eat McDonalds at home, but like to eat at them in other countries because of the weird items on the menu. Maybe this was a good idea to try one of them? It turned out to be a strange experience. I ordered a Big Tasty burger, which used to be sold at home. I never had one in the USA, since we eat at McDonalds maybe once every year or two. I have decided the burger was discontinued in the USA for good reason. The sauce on it is a fake chargrilled flavor and it is giant. I had problems understanding the cashier, and he spoke English. The music was loud and had a tinny sound. It was difficult to get the burger down, but at least the fries were good.

The evening was spent typing blog posts in the room. I found this a much needed thing to do while letting my stomach settle from the bomb I put down the hatch. Rumble. Rumble. Then I couldn't sleep and ended up watching an entire Nicholas Cage film. That was proof I could not sleep. Once again, good story, horrible actor. I needed the rest, but it just wasn't in the cards. Tomorrow, we plan to hit up the Tate Modern and walk all over the city. Then, the next day will be travel back to the States.

 

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London, England Day 2

Jan. 4

Our hotel is 2 minutes south of the Kings Cross / Saint Pancras train station. We are a 25 minute walk from the river Thames putting us in a great location for the underground and International travel. The Bloomsbury neighborhood where we are staying is quiet and has many stores a street away. There are no large markets like in Paris with fresh everything, just little Indian run operations like mini 7-11's. Of course people drive on the "wrong side of the road," but there are many other things to get used to with the traffic. People walk on the righthand side of the sidewalks, mostly. And up the escalators, they stay to the right religiously, and passing is on the left. Surely, I thought this would be different in a country with driving reversed, but it's not. They have painted on the ground at intersections, "look left" or "look right." I found that quite comical thinking that it is there for tourists crossing the roads. Or do the locals need help as well?

Our hotel, called Hotel Montana, has a nice British breakfast from 7-9am. You feel like you are getting up very early, since the sun doesn't brighten the place up until 8:30am or so. All three mornings we were down in the basement for a "full fry up." This included: cereal, coffee, tea, orange juice, eggs, bacon, toast, baked beans, sausages, and cooked tomatoes. It's a lot different than the small, bread only breakfast in France, yet only across the Channel. How weird.

Our mission of the morning was to get an early start at the Tower Of London. This place has so much history dating back to the year 900! It was very impressive to see the many enhancements and changes that different kings implemented. We started right off with a tour of the Crown Jewels. Sorry to say, I was not allowed to capture any pictures. We entered right through the door, bypassing the corrals for when it gets crowded later in the day, and went right to the vault. We entered through a door 4x the size of any bank door I had ever seen, and there we were, right in front of us were the Crown Jewels from the year 1600 and on. Unbelievable! Priceless. I'm not one for jewelry, but if you a going to do it, this is the way to go! I think there were 4-6 crowns, orbs, scepters, gold serving platters, and chalices. They were displayed with excellent lighting and impeccably clean. No dust, prints, or smudges. The crowns had a moving floor to cruise the crowds past them in an organized fashion. I could only imaging what this might be like in the summer with large crowds. We took our time passing by a few times to get a second and third look.

After the Jewels, we went to the artillery museum in the white tower. This is where the armor and swords of the years past are kept. I liked the horse armor the best, knowing the horse would have to carry his armor, and the weight of the king with armor as well, into battle or tournament. The displays were first class and even had some History Channel clips accompanying them. From there, we toured the corner towers and perimeter walk. Outside were some large canons, including a ceremonial 25 pounder from WW2 that was used until recently.

After 4 hours at the Tower of London, we walked east through the financial district and decided it was lunch time. Young men in suits flocked the streets in search of food. I found it funny that there were not many women, at all! Also, they looked very young, as if just out of college. Is this who is running London as a financial Capitol of the world? We met a dive master in training on Koh Tao that took some time off from working here, and now it all makes sense. After living in a cold, dark city, I would want to shoot off to the islands too. The dive master in training loved the island work, but decided he was going back to the City even though he said he hated his other job. He said the money was just too good. It was nice of him to slum it with the rest of us commoners for a couple months. Maybe the old guys around here eventually just take all their money and move out to the islands. Everyone knows, England sure has enough of them! Anyway, we got some sandwiches, chicken parts, hummus, and drinks and found a bench where we could sit to eat. It was chilly, but we were out of the wind and had a peaceful lunch in front of one of the many really old churches.

After eating, we walked around St. Paul's cathedral, crossed the Millennium Bridge, and headed east.

Tonight, we had tickets to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The play was in the West End theatre district, not far from Trafalgar Square, north of the National Gallery, and south of the British Museum. We had some time to kill and saw a few more sights on the way. Dinner was in a small pub on Kingsley Street. I found it strange having to order everything from the bar and not get any service except for bussing the table afterwards, and yet the guide book said to still leave a tip? No way. The Brits don't leave tips, so I'm not leaving a tip. Hahahha. Below, is not the Apollo Theater, but I thought it was a cool pic.

The play was in the Apollo theater, and when we entered, the actors were on the stage getting ready, putting on makeup, and getting dressed. The first thing that drew my attention were the musicians up above the stage warming up. There was a lute player, 4 recorder players, a drummer, and 2 SACKBUTS! For real, SACKBUTS! A sackbut is a smaller bore, smaller bell precursor to the trombone. I have never played one or seen one live, but in front of us I would hear them in a play. How cool! They sounded nasally, and slightly out of tune, but the entire ensemble was playing on period instruments. It really made me appreciate what we have today, but also gives me an appreciation of the past. I was just thinking, I will probably never see this again. The play was entertaining, but all the British humor, I must say, did not make me laugh out loud. The British people, on the other hand, were dying of laughter.....snorting, cackling, giggling. I was amazed at what the audience found funny. Hey, they didn't even have to fake their accents! No photography during the performance, but I did get this one below.

It was another long day. When the play was finished, we got on the Underground and headed back to King's Cross. It was an endurance day of walking and our feet needed a rest. Tomorrow will be a another grueling day of walking. Rest up!

 

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Paris to London, Day 1

Jan. 3

This was a sad day for us. We had to leave our friends in Paris until another trip. Anne set up a nice breakfast for us and we talked a little bit. Anne and Thomas both wanted to go to the train station to see us off. We left only a few minutes late, which would have a drastic consequence for us at the train station.

We took the metro to the Paris Nord train station. This was our portal to the Eurostar Chunnel line. I remember the tunnel being built when I was younger and seeing it on the TV. Today, I would finally cruise through this engineering masterpiece. We said our uncomfortable good byes and then joined the security line. It was uncomfortable since none of us wanted to part after a great 12 days. I could only think that this is the beginning of a very great friendship. Out next travels together will only be better.

With our goodbyes in our heads and talking with Katherine about how great of time we had, we made it through the security line only to approach a closed gate. We had missed the train! For real? It looked like we had 10 minutes until departure, but the woman would not let us board. Unlike other trains we have been on and ones that you see on TV you better be early for the Eurostar. Ok. What do we do next? We have to get to London. The attendant took our tickets and told us to come back to the counter in an hour. Katherine was a little bothered by this. We asked another attendant what to do, just to be sure. We sat in the waiting area for another hour, then went back to the counter. There was a group of about 15 people that had also missed the last train and wanted to get on the next one. The gate closed and the attendant called our name. We were on this train, only an hour behind. With no plans in London, this was not a problem.

The Eurostar is something serious. You are under the English Channel for 20 minutes on a 2 hour ride and the train hits around 180 mph at times. I could really tell the speed since the outside was mostly a blur. I could only focus on distant features since the foreground was just streaking colors. It was smooth, and we did not make a single stop until London. This train was quite a change from the trains in Eastern and Central Europe and SE Asia this summer.

We didn't have a fire, but I thought this was a good image of the Chunnel.

Once we arrived in London, we walked through the Saint Pancras station just to look around. It was strange being somewhere where everything was in English. However, to hear some of the accents from the locals mumbling about you might not have known it was the same language. Our mission was to find our hotel. This was an easy task since it was directly across from the station. Katherine had done well in finding a place close, but also nice. The price was somewhat fair, especially considering that a full hot breakfast was included, even with the British Pound killing the dollar. The exchange rate is 1.7 to 1. Arghhh!

We dropped our gear off at the hotel and headed straight to the British Museum. Egypt and a early Greece were on my mind, and I had to see this stuff right off the bat. When we got there I was totally amazed. I saw things that I had seen on TV programs and when in Greece read that "all the other stuff is in the British Museum". Indeed it was, but kept under mostly bad lighting inside and not in the natural sunny skies of Greece. All of this stuff had been ripped off from distant lands and brought back to Britain as a souvenir. I was amazed at the quantity of items and the shape that they were in. The mummy exhibit was giant and there must have been 20 sarcophagi in one display! The Greek exhibits were amazing with a broad collection. I couldn't believe it.

After so much time exploring the antiquities, the walk back to the hotel seemed long. With fatigue setting in I wasn't paying as much attention as I should, and I walked in front of a moped as he flew around the corner. As he passed he called out "Wanker!" Yeah, for real. In the USA, I look at that having the same power as calling me "poopy pants" or something. I took note and never crossed again without looking for angry mopeds. When you cross the street, you have to look in the opposite direction for cars. This took some getting used to. With street crossing in Hanoi, Vietman under our belts, this wasn't a big problem.

This was a long day for us, saying goodbye to our friends, traveling, the British Museum, and walking all around London. Whew! We were ready for bed. Tomorrow will be another action packed day.

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Paris, France Day 7

Jan. 2

We woke up, had breakfast, and then Anne started furiously cleaning the house. Thomas said his mom was coming for dinner. Anne wanted the apartment perfect.

Katherine and I headed out for our last walk in Paris just by ourselves. We had to get some stamps, make a few stops, and get one last glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. It was much more crowded than the day we went up. The weather was a bit nicer, and the sun even came out for a little bit. I started to forget what that yellow thing in the sky looked like. I had to snap this shot of an Asian woman setting up her camera. She was using the tripod to get the perfect shot, then she set the timer, and ran around to be in the picture. We have seen quite a few females all dressed up like her, but I think she gave me the best photo opportunity.

We stopped for lunch at Le Pierrot. Little did we know, we had already eaten here with Thomas and Anne. Katherine and I entered from the other side and I only figured this out when I went down stairs to go to the restroom. The floor looked familiar and then it hit me. Hey, we had been here before. The food was once again good and we had some priests next to us. It was weird, they got popcorn, drank alcohol, had impressive cell phones, and smelled really bad. I think they thought we were just as weird by the looks they were sending our way. We walked around a bit more and had to get back. Thomas was making dinner.

Dinner was awesome! Anne had some canned seafood spreads sent in from the island where her parents own a vacation home. We opened 4 and were amazed. Typically, she brings things like these to work for lunch, but now we were eating them as an appetizer. Anne was out for a workout session and I thought she would kill us when she got back seeing us eating her lunch food. Instead, she came in and just wanted to be sure that we had left her some. How nice. Thomas served baked salmon with fois gras mushrooms. It was another mouth watering experience.

But there was more... When Anne came back from working out, she stopped by the escargot shop right by their apartment. She got us 2 types of the snails and all we had to do was put them into the oven to warm them. Wow! We munched these guys down slowly and thoroughly enjoyed them. I prefer these snails to the sea snails we had in Deauville. The escargot were laden in garlic and butter making them quite tasty.

Tomorrow will be our departure to London in the morning. Being treated so well, and having such great friends, we really don't want to leave. All I can do is think of our next trip with them. I sense a diving trip in the Caribbean happening in the near future. We'll see.

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Grisy-Suisnes, France Day 2

Jan. 1

I guess this day was split with the day before. We were up so late, we actually started this day the night before. It was a blast! We woke at noon at the Cochet house and started to slowly pack our gear. Then we went downstairs to see Anne, her sister, and brother cleaning the entire house. They wanted it to be perfect for when their parents got home in a few days.

Anne's 18 month old niece, Louise, was in the front room playing with some toys. Thomas was entertaining her for a bit and it was neat to watch him play speaking French. She only says a few words, but it's still funny.

We all gathered at the table for breakfast. Me, Katherine, Anne, Thomas, Amelie, Eric, Louise, Adrien, Sandrine, and Anne's 2 girlfriends were there too. It was a loud, joke-filled breakfast. Anne pushed the French press coffee maker too hard spilling coffee all over the table. We let her off easy and cleaned up. They also had some bread with chocolate inside as well as some biscuits that tasted exactly like Egg Mcmuffins. We then cleaned up and did a thorough cleaning of the house, caught up on the blog, and Thomas vacuumed out Anne's little Saxo car.

Once we got back to Paris we had a little trouble parking the car. We searched for spots for a while and then found a great one. It was a tight fit, but Anne squeezed the Saxo in without a problem. Nice work! We left the gear in the car and went to a local pizza place that they had been raving about. The place was about 10ft wide and only had room for 3 tables, cooler, and a brick oven. The pizza guy whipped up some calzones and pizzas for us to take back to the apartment. When Thomas and Anne first arrived at their current apartment in Paris, this pizza guy helped them out with some local know how about the area. They frequent this place since the foods is spectacular. Another great meal.

Back at the apartment we did some laundry. I put up a line in Anne ane Thomas's bedroom and hung the clothes to dry. While checking my mail, I turned on the Skype app and saw that my dad was online. Cool! So, I got ahold of him and was lucky to see Alexis and Margaux (my nieces), my sister Suzanne, and my mom and dad. As they watched, I took them on a tour of the apartment, introduced everyone to Thomas and Anne, and showed them the view of the Eiffel Tower from the bathroom. During the conversation, the Tower went into the light show, so I was able to hold the iPad out the window to show them. Yeah!

Before going to bed, I showed Thomas how to use the program Handbrake to rip DVDs. It was a long day.

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