Paris with Tesch!

A few weeks ago our friend Tesch came to visit us in London and we decided to go to Paris for the weekend. We took the Eurostar after Jon was done with work on Friday. This was my first trip on the Eurostar and it was such a great way to travel, very easy and quick! Jon was right about going under the Chunnel...it's just like any other tunnel, but I still wanted to check it off my list! We had a great time chatting and taking in the total train experience on our ride to Paris. However, there was a group next to us who really knew how to take a train ride. They had the most elaborate spread with plenty of beer and wine to sip on(WI friends think concert on the square, ATL friends think Chastain). We were slightly jealous of their preparations, but thoroughly enjoy ourselves anyway. We took the metro to our hotel and when we exited the metro stop we were looking up at the Arc de Triomphe completely illuminated for the night. It was truly a jaw dropping sight to walk out of a metro stop and to be right in front of this iconic landmark. After gathering our wits about us we walked the few blocks to our hotel and found we were staying in a perfect location, just a block away from the Champs-Élysées. Our hotel was lovely and we were welcomed with a bottle of Champagne, so the three of us enjoyed a pre-dinner glass and headed in search of some sustenance. We got a few suggestions from the hotel and ended up at a family looking French restaurant. It was very warm and inviting, the service was great and the food was yummy too! Tesch had Hake wrapped with streaky rashers (anyone surprised??:)) and Crème brûlée for dessert. Jon and I shared a cup of soup, a salad with fried camembert, grilled fish and a cheese plate for dessert! After dinner we walked along the Champs-Élysées taking in the buzzing atmosphere of this beautiful city. We wanted to be well rested for our busy day of sightseeing on Saturday so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Saturday morning our walking tour was leaving at 11am so we met a bit early to grab some breakfast before our tour. We found our tour meeting spot first and walked around to try and find a cafe, nothing was catching our eye until we spotted a street vendor selling crepes and yummy looking grilled sandwiches. Jon and I got a crepe and a sandwich to share. The crepe was so good Jon went back for seconds! We've had several crepes on our travels and it was so fitting to have the best crepe yet from a street vendor in Paris. We were all fueled up for our 3.5 hour walking tour around Paris! The tour met at the Place Saint-Michael, a fountain in the Latin Quarter. While waiting for our tour to begin we met two girls currently studying abroad in Spain, that were from University of Wisconsin- LaCrosse (where Jon went to university!) and one of them went to high school in Stevens Point (where I went to high school!!)...such a small world! We then continued on to see Notre Dame, Ile-de-la-Cité (natural island in the Seine), Pont Neuf (oldest bridge standing across the Seine), The Louvre, Palais Royal, Eiffel Tower (from a far), Tuileries Garden (a beautiful public garden by the Louvre), Les Invalides (a large complex of building containing museums and monuments relating to the military of France as well as a hospital for veterans), Académie Française (basically established to preserve the language), Palais Garnier (Opera House), Musée d’Orsay (mainly French art museum), Pont Alexandre III (a very ornate beautiful bridge across the Seine), Assemblé Nationale (lower house of Parliament), Champs-Élysées (a beautiful retain haven-one of the most famous and most expensive strips of real estate in the world), Arc de Triomphe (honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars), Grand & Petit Palais and finally the Place de la Concorde (a major public square). I feel tired after just typing all this out and remembering our whirl wind tour of Paris that was so packed full of information it was hard to digest it all. Our guide was great and even recommended the perfect cafe to re-energize and plan the rest of our day. At the cafe we all shared a meat and cheese spread and a yummy plate of frog legs! If you're wondering...they do taste similar to chicken and I thought they were good, but they were a lot of work for a very small treat.

We decided to spend the rest of our afternoon exploring Moulin Rouge, Montmartre and Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. We took the metro to Moulin Rouge and took a few pictures of the famous theater. We then began our trek up Montmartre, this consisted of several long stretches of steep stairs through the streets, and it was a good thing we're used to walking! Montmartre is a hill about 420 feet above the city with the beautiful basilica Sacré-Coeur on the top. It has stunning views of the city, including the Eiffel Tour and tons of cafe's and street vendors selling artwork and such. After tromping around Montmartre we thought we'd rest up at one of the cafes with a table on the street with more cheese and wine:) After a relaxing evening of great conversation, amazing food and spectacular people watching we headed back to our hotel. We decided to take in a more up close and personal view of the Arc de Triomphe before we turned in. It was unbelievable to be surrounded by so many iconic monuments that I've seen countless times in photos and movies.

Sunday morning, Tesch took a train to Rennes to visit another friend for a few days and we headed out for more sightseeing before our train left in the afternoon. We headed straight to the Eiffel Tower to try and beat the crowds (not sure if that is possible) and there was already a really long line for the lift to the 2nd level (the very top level was closed that day). We saw another much shorter line that was to take the stairs to the 2nd level and over 700 stairs later we made it to the highest viewing point of the Eiffel Tower open that day. This was a magical experience for me, I absolutely loved it!

We walked through the beautiful Champ de Mars, a park behind the Eiffel Tower and headed straight to our sandwich/crepe shop from the day before...it really was that good! After a quick lunch overlooking the Seine we headed for a closer look at Notre Dame. We took in the views from all sides and snapped some great pictures. Next, we headed to Sainte Chapelle. Our tour guide on Saturday told us about this church, it has one of the most extensive collections of 13th century stained glass anywhere in the world. Upon arrival, we found another really long line and since our time was short on Sunday and with so much yet to do we decided to keep moving.

We then headed along the Seine to the Musée d’Orsay to take in some of the impeccable art work featured there. Guess what??? ...more long lines. I know this probably shouldn't have surprised us this much, but it was the most lines we've faced on any of our travels so far. We re-routed ourselves again and headed to the Louvre to the "secret" entrance our tour guide had told us about. Typically, the Louvre has long lines as well, but our guide had showed us an entrance from a far that was apparently not well advertised so not many people knew about it and you can get right in. Well, we found this entrance to be so under advertised that it did not exist...well it was physically there, but it was an exit only! We had a good laugh over this "secret" entrance and continued on a beautiful stroll through Paris and down the Champs-Élysées.

We were pretty beat by this time and headed back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and head to the train. On our way, we stopped at a local grocer to pick up some items (meat, cheese, bread and chocolate!) for our train ride home...we figured we'd do it right this time!

Our trip to Paris was spectacular! It was more beautiful than any photo or movie can portray. As you can tell by our whirl wind visit, we only scratched the surface (albeit a fairly deep scratch:))...I guess we'll just have to make it back there at some point! We had a fantastic time and were so glad Tesch was up for some travel companions!

The Edney's come to London!

Our great friends Ashley and Bryan came to visit us in the beginning of February for a week. It was a week full of laughter, friendship and wonderful memories! They got in on a Friday afternoon and I met them at the airport. We were so excited to see them! They got off the plane exhausted from the 8 hour flight and I knew the buzzing energy of the city would pick them up. Once we arrived at the flat they showered and freshened up and I was on coffee patrol...then we headed to a proper pub where Jon was meeting us after work. After introducing them to a proper pint we headed in search of a place for dinner. We ended up at a little seafood restaurant right by our flat called Applebee's...very different from the American version! We had a fantastic meal and we were all so happy from the excitement of being together again! Friday night we turned in early to help Ashley and Bryan get on the London schedule.

Saturday morning we got up to get ready for the Edney's first football match! We only have one tiny hot water heater here at the flat so it took some planning for the shower schedule. We can usually get two showers in and then the hot water heater takes about 30 minutes to refill. I got up and showered 1 ½ hours before the Edney's would have to get up and had Jon shower right away as well. The hot water heater had plenty of time to refill before I gave the Edney's their wake up call, but unfortunately they only had ICE COLD water! Jon and I felt terrible! We thought we were being nice by getting up early and ended up taking apparently the only hot water left for the day. Jon and I went to the market while they waited in hope that the hot water would soon appear...it didn't:( After an icy cold shower Ashley and Bryan were wide awake and ready to take on the day. We took the train to Charlton (we had tickets to the Charlton Athletic match) a few hours before the game to get the full football experience. We went to a pub near the stadium, had lunch and hung out for a while. About 30 minutes prior to game time we made our way to the stadium. As we approached the stadium we thought it was awfully quite with very few people around being so close to game time. We got up to the gates of the stadium and they were all closed and everything was quite, clearly a game was not about to start. We were all very confused and went to the gift shop to get some answers. It turns out the game was cancelled due to a frozen pitch; it was around 30 degrees that day. We were in shock! It didn't even cross our minds that the game might be cancelled. In true Edney/Kent fashion we had fun anyway! We took the train back to London and spent the evening in making one of the most delicious market meals we've had! We started with an assortment of cheese, dried meats, olives and bread from the market and then had fresh bass that was caught between 12am and 4am that morning!! Holy smokes, it was sooo good. While we were making dinner we realized we didn't have any white wine, which we all wanted with our meal so Ashley and Jon went to solve that predicament while Bryan and I cooked dinner. It had started snowing by this point...it was so awesome to experience snow in London. Ashley and Jon got in a snowball fight with some locals on the way home, great story! Ashley even caught one of the snowballs thrown at her and she threw it right back...don't mess with ACE! After our yummy meal we hung out and Skyped with Claire and Reese (their girls). We showed Claire the snow and Ashley made a snow angel for her on our deck!

Sunday we let the Edney's shower first, so they actually got a warm shower! We spent the day freezing our tails off walking around the west side of London...Harrods, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, SoHo and Chinatown. Chinatown was decorated beautifully for the Chinese New Year, great timing! We had to take them to our "London Rasa" since they're the ones to introduce us to the Rasa by our home in GA...once again, it was great! After a long day of walking all over the west end, we were cold and tired and ready to warm up and relax at the flat.

Sunday evening we planned out our itinerary for the rest of their trip. Being the planner that I am, I checked out all of the spots we wanted to hit and checked the opening hours and such. I thought I had the perfect plan for our sightseeing extravaganza! In the winter months The Changing of the Guard is every other day. I knew this, so I checked on the website and it said it was on even days in the month of February, Monday was the 6th so we put it first on our list Monday morning. It starts at 11:30 but we wanted to be there in plenty of time to get a spot so we arrived just before 11. I walked up to one of the guards on the outside to ask where the best spot to watch it was and he informed me that it was not taking place that day, but would be on the following day. In true tourist style we shook it off and moved on! We walked down the mall and happened to see a bunch of uniformed guards riding their horses down the mall, it was really cool to be that close to them. We walked to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery to take in the amazing art there. After that, we spent a relaxing afternoon full of laughs strolling around the Covent Garden picking up various London souvenirs and making life long memories. It was a terrific day! When Jon was done with work we met him back at the flat and went to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner, The Wright Brothers Oyster House. We had a terrific meal and just enjoyed our time together. Back at the flat the guys settled in to watch the Super Bowl that we had recorded from the night before and Ashley and I snuck of to the bedroom to watch Breaking Dawn!! We miss our girls’ nights so much and had to sneak one in on their trip...we saw our opportunity and took it! Perfect end to a great day!

Tuesday we headed back to Buckingham Palace to try and catch The Changing of the Guard...mission accomplished (finally)! We got a great spot right at the top of the stairs to watch all the action. Although it was a slow and drawn out process it was great to actually witness it. There was even a marching band that played "Hey Jude" and the theme song to the A-Team among others. Ashley even saw someone peek out one of the windows of the palace (right where Prince William and Kate kissed) and we like to think it was the Queen giving us props for visiting Buckingham Palace three days in a row! From here we made our way past 10 Downing Street and gave a shout-out to the Prime Minister on our way to Westminster Abbey only to find out that it is closed on Tuesdays! This was my second scheduling debacle….but the website does not mention this, in fact it says it is open on Tuesday from 9:30-4:30...I was still pretty bummed about this. It actually worked out well because we were all pretty tired and thought it would be a good idea to head home for a quick rest before we headed out to the theater that night. After our short rest, we met Jon at his office and headed to the theater district for dinner before seeing Dreamboats and Petticoats. The show had great music and the actors had great voices, perfect combo for a night out at the theater!

Wednesday was their last day with us and I was determined to pack in as much fun as possible. We started off our day back at Westminster Abbey. This was truly incredible! We all loved it! The history here is almost overwhelming; you could actually feel it. I think all three of us were in utter awe throughout our entire visit there. After visiting the Abbey we went to meet Jon for lunch, but stopped off at St. Paul's Cathedral first to get a few quick pictures out front. Jon took us to a delicious Indian restaurant by his office. It was the best Indian meal I've ever had! From here we headed to the Tower of London to take in the loads of history at this site. We got there about 2:30 and they weren't giving anymore organized tours, so we did our own quick speed tour because they closed at 4pm. We went to view the Crown Jewels first; I've never seen so much bling in my life!! There were some incredible pieces there. We also toured around some of the exhibits until our time ran out there. We walked home via Tower Bridge and got some great photos on the bridge and from the riverbank as well. We decided to spend their last night at home and Bryan treated us all by making dinner, yummy!! Although the Edney’s arrived for our coldest week in the UK to date, we had an amazing time with them! Thank you for coming to visit!!!