I'm home!

Hi, everyone... I arrived home in Toronto a few hours ago.  I'm super exhausted and I'm going to bed.  I had a wonderful trip and it was made extra special by visits to Heather and Dina.  

But I'm fucking knackered (as the British would say), so I'm not going to write anymore.  I might do one last blog to give my impressions of all the cities and countries I went to, but until then... good night!

Last day in London

So today was my last official day of vacation (tomorrow really doesn't count since I fly out at 3pm, so I need to leave for the airport at 12pm at the latest (will likely leave at 11:30am to be safe).  

I had dinner at Dina's house last night and she made her famous Gruyere and caramelized onion tart which was delicious (I say "famous" since I've had this when she used to live in Toronto). This morning, one of her friends that she used to work with at BBC had started his own tour company based on famous murders in London, so we decided to go.  He focused this particular tour to a neighbourhood called Soho.  His tour is called Murder Mile and he has clearly done a lot of research on his subject, is an excellent writer and is quite passionate about his subject and a good actor.  It was extremely entertaining and given that my feet are about to quit me and doing another walking tour after my Trafalgar tour was a bit of a dangerous prospect, I found this guy's tour slogan to be right up my alley... "Less walking, MORE MURDERS!"  We definitely got at least a mile or two in, but we heard about a lot of serial killers and murderers just in this area.  Since this guy happened to be a friend of my friend, he chatted with us about the fact that he plans to write other tours about other areas of London and that there are no end to interesting serial killer and other murder stories in London.  I don't doubt it.  London is an endlessly fascinating city for many reasons.

Next we headed off to Piccadilly Circus to go to BAFTA for lunch and drinks.  We couldn't go when I first arrived since BAFTA closes every August for renovations, so that is why I ended up going to The Groucho Club and Café Royal at the beginning of my trip since BAFTA has an arrangement with some private clubs (for arts & culture types) for the month of August.  Not sure if I mentioned that back then but we did.  In any case, since the end of my trip put me into September, BAFTA re-opened to their members, so we went today for lunch.  It was very very good and while we didn't see anybody famous (which I very much doubted we would because why would a famous person go there unless they had some kind of business meeting that asked them to be there?), but there were loads of people by the time we left and they must have all been industry types since that is a requirement of BAFTA membership. In fact on the way out, Dina ran into a BBC producer that she knows who was on his way in.  In any case, it was fun to go somewhere that, as Dina likes to say, "HCP's" (Horrible Common People) can't go to.  Not to be snobby, but it's just nice to go to a place where the general public can't enter in the middle of one of the biggest tourist traps in London (Piccadilly Circus).

Lastly, we hit Waitrose and Marks & Spencers one last time so I could get groceries to bring back to Canada.  Then we went to Dina's for dinner and drinks.

Now I am back in the flat and it's midnight at the moment (I've spent about an hour writing this blog) and I don't want to go to sleep since I don't want my last night in London to end, even if I'm in a flat and I can't really go out.  In any case, I'm going to sign off so I can enjoy at least one hour in this flat and I'll write one last blog tomorrow when I arrive home.

Peace out!

Back in Blighty!

No big blog tonight because essentially all day was travelling to Charles de Gaulle airport to drop off half the tour group to fly home from Paris.  Then they drove the rest of us to London and dropped us at Waterloo station at 4pm (which is right beside the Trafalgar office and, for those of you who don't know, is a very very central London subway station).  I had so many shopping bags plus a backpack, purse and suitcase that I got a black cab to my flat in Battersea because it was much easier given the weight of my baggage. 

Once I got there, I headed to the post office that I knew was about two blocks away that has mailing boxes and I bought the biggest one and started pouring out my bags on the floor of my AirBNB. At this point in the night, I have figured out what I need to ship back as opposed to put in my luggage just to keep it safe (and Tara, that is definitely the Baser Lackerli that will be in the shipping box because if it goes in my suitcase, it will be crushed), but I'm going to post it back to myself with a signature and on a fairly fast parcel service so hopefully I'll get it this week at the office (I addressed it to the office).

Anyway, it's almost midnight here in London, so time for me to go to bed, but tomorrow my friend, Dina, has great plans for me - we are going to Soho for a tour of the most famous murders of that area and then we are going to the private members-only club at BAFTA for lunch and drinks (Dina is a member of BAFTA if you are wondering how we got in).

I may or may not post tomorrow, but I fly out on Sunday at 3pm London time and arrive at 5:40pm EST.  So basically I'll be back on Sunday night.  I'll call people or text you to let you know I'm back.

That's all for today!

A day in Paris

Today, I spent the full day in Paris.  This is my first attempt at posting a video and it's from the end of the day when we took the Seine cruise.  After dark, on every hour, the Eiffel Tower isn't just illuminated - it sparkles.  So this video is from when we cruised by at 10pm.  Hopefully it will play for you - let me know in the comments if it doesn't.  

Me at the Eiffel Tower

We started the day with a bus tour that took us through all of the major Paris attractions - the Champs d'Elysée, a fancy designer street where the Plaza Athenée hotel is located (this hotel has been in many movies), the Arc du Triomphe, the "Les Invalides" military hospital/place where Napolean is buried, the Concorde square and the Grand and Petit Palais.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but there is a LOT to see in Paris.  We also took a slight break from Hitler to hear about the exploits of Napolean - another European megalomaniac with narcissistic personality disorder. 

Then we went directly to the Eiffel Tower to meet our French local guide.  She took us to the 2nd floor (we didn't have tickets to go all the way to the top) and we got about 20 minutes up there.  One thing I never knew about Paris is that skyscrapers are outlawed and there is only one (not sure why the exception).  There is a suburb called "La Defense" that is all skyscrapers and that is where my hotel is - it's apparently some kind of business/commercial centre and since it's not actual Paris, the skyscrapers are allowed there.  In any case, Paris is all low-rise buildings and fancy historical cathedrals and other structures.  Almost everything is made out of a white stone and has iron wrought balconies on every window. It really makes the city unique.

Before you go into the Eiffel Tower, there are all kinds of African guys constantly coming up to you to sell cheap Eiffel Tower statues and scarves with maps of Paris, as well as watches with the Eiffel Tower on the face (and many of my tour companions bought these, but I honestly don't know why) - and that's not even to mention the gypsies who come up to you to take a fake survey (they always start by asking "do you speak English?" and then if you take their survey, they suddenly start asking for money and/or one of their friends is helping themselves to stuff in your purse while you're not paying attention). You're supposed to just say "Non!" very forcefully and walk away.  What was pretty hilarious though was one of these gypsies approached one of the Australian guys on the trip and asked him if he spoke English, and he completely seriously turned around and said in a thick Aussie accent, "No I don't speak English" and walked away - she looked utterly confused, but it was hysterical to watch.

After the Eiffel Tower, we went for a walk around the Latin Quarter.  I had assumed this meant it was where the Spanish live in Paris.  Wrong.  It is just because in the olden days, a lot of different cultures lived in this quarter of Paris and the only language they had in common was Latin, so that is what they spoke.  Nowadays, it's a student area since it is near the Sorbonne and there are loads of restaurants from many different ethnicities. After that, we visited Notre Dame cathedral - another fancy church on my "fancy churches of Europe" tour.  

Once we were released into the wild for the afternoon, I went for lunch at a nearby café because I was starving.  I decided to be very French and order a "Croque Monsieur" (for those of you who don't know, that's a piece of bread with ham on it and then covered in cheese and toasted.  It came with fries and a salad, but the croque monsieur was so filling, I barely ate the other items.  The fun thing about cafés in Paris (and other parts of France because it was like this in Nice too) is that they have these tables on the patio that basically face out with no chairs on the other side, so you can people watch.  So if you're one or even if you're two, you all sit on the same side of the table and then people watch as you have your drink or eat your lunch.  I quite like it! I wish they did this in Canada.  It also seems to be completely normal to have lunch or dinner for one doing this method and you don't seem so lonely, although on this trip, I've met so many people that I haven't dined alone more than a handful of times.  In this picture, I had tour mates on each side.  

McDonald's menu in France

And not to disappoint, although I don't believe I reported in on Switzerland McDonald's (basically it was the same as Austria - they had fried breaded shrimp on the menu and a weird "Quinoa burger" which I guess was for vegetarians), I checked out France McDonald's, or as they like to call it there - "McDo's".  So for one thing, I love that the combo meals are called "Big Tasty Party" instead of combos and they have all the normal choices of burgers and chicken burgers, but it's a party! LOL.  They also have some fish burgers under a menu called "American Summer" which includes something called a "Hawaii and fish burger" and other variations.  They then have their 2 Euro menu which includes things such as the following - 

Le Charolais looks to be just a cheeseburger, but it's listed as being made from chopped steak from the Charolais cows which I think are the white cows I saw all over France when we were driving in.  I also love the Le Petit Hot Dog.  Hilarious.  The one thing that is missing that was there, but I couldn't find in pictures is the Croque McDo.  It's basically a small Croque Monsieur (see what I ate in my lunch pic above) and it's on the value menu.

Young people drinking wine on the left and right bank

After I ate lunch, I had about four hours of free time and I went to Le Marais and the Centre Pompidou on Isaac's suggestion.  The Centre Pompidou is a modern art museum and I got to see Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Claus Oldenberg, Mark Rothko and many others - it is always cool to see the things you studied in art history in high school live and in person.  Then I walked around Le Marais (it was a very lovely neighbourhood) and sat at another café (facing out as usual) to have a drink.

Then I caught the Paris Metro (the subway) to where the tour group was meeting.  I was quite impressed with myself for navigating a subway in another language, but I've already mastered Swiss Rail and taken the subway in Montreal (and I understand French fairly well anyway - so it's not like this was in a language that was super foreign to me), so this really wasn't that difficult (plus the Paris Metro is just as easy as the London Underground).  We had dinner and then we went on a Seine Cruise.  I have no more pictures of that since my phone was near dead and my camera WAS dead. I managed to get the video of the sparkling Eiffel tower and the picture above - there were young people lining both sides of the Seine just having a chill Thursday night drinking wine by the river with friends - I would love to do that some day.  In Ontario, you couldn't cuz of the insane liquor laws.  

Anyway, that's the end of Trafalgar's European Adventure tour.  Tomorrow we have an insane 6am wakeup call and I have to be on the bus by 7:15am.  We start by taking the majority of our group to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to go home.  Then a smaller group of us heads back to London.  I will then head over to my AirBNB (in the same place as before - near Dina) and then I am going to have a chill evening with Dina and go to bed fairly early.  I have had a great voyage this past two and a half weeks, but my feet are killing me and I need to catch up on my sleep!  Until tomorrow!