I'm fully awake now. I wake up Suzy and tell her that it's 8 am. We had planned on being at the Louvre at 7 am, and now we're already an hour late... We each take a shower (with no shower curtain - only a bath tub and a shower head that is on a long metallic hose!) and pack our bags. We decided we didn't have enough time to go to the Louvre and then back to the hotel before going to the train station, we decided we would have to haul them all the way out there!
So we got on the train and headed over to the Louvre. As we arrived, there was a huge building and we went through a portion of the building to get into the "courtyard" - the building is actually U shaped. In this large area, there were glass pyramids and triangu
lar fountains. Neat.... and we could see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance! In the photo it's the building in the distance you see through the monument that takes up this photo. I know it's kinda hard to see... There was a long line outside of the entrance... I thought we were doomed. If they opened at 7 and had a long line now, we'd never make it inside.So we stood in line and waited a while... we then realized that the line wasn't moving at all and then all of a sudden people were going in the building, and the line was moving quickly. We realized that the Louvre actually opened at 9
am on Sundays! The photocopy of the pages from a book that the couple we asked for information on the metro last night was WRONG! I was quite nervous about having our backpacks, but saw that there were a few other people who had suitcases! We weren't the only ones who had to leave the city, directly from the Louvre.So, we went in, and checked our bags in - for free! Then followed all signs towards Monna Lisa, after all it's the "must-see" item in the entire museum. Suzy or someone warned me that the painting is small, so I was prepared to see something that was maybe about 1 foot wide or something like that. Much to my surprise, it was bigger than I thought! The area in front of the painting, behind the ribbon was swarmed with people taking photos and such, and I was stuck to the right side of the viewing area... I could not walk around to see if her eyes followed you as you moved! Shucks! At least I can say that I've seen the real painting... (is it? the movies, especially "The Thomas Crown Aff
air" have tricked me enough, now that I doubt the authenticity of paintings and such)So we were satisfied with seeing the Monna Lisa painting and decided to check out some of the other paintings. Some of the rooms actually had large paintings - so big that it could practically be a mural on a wall somewhere in your house! Can you imagine a large piece of canvas with a fancy frame taking up an entire wall in your home? I most certainly cannot! But they seemed really fitting in the rooms they were placed in throughout the Louvre. I decided I wanted to see some sculptures, and we walked almost all over the entire building just to find that they were in the atrium of one section... Wonderful... But, hey, I'm glad we went through a lot of the parts in the Louvre - it allowed me to see a variety of things that are considered art, from different parts of the world.
We saw a gift shop or something and I saw a post card of a sculpture that I really liked and wanted to see... after searching all over for it, I could not find it, and I was completely bummed. But I saw plenty of awesome sculptures all across the place... I was still satisfied.
So, we didn't eat breakfast because we rushed out of the hotel, and it was late in the morning, we were starving so we had ourselves a muffin and some healthy OJ before heading to the train station.
I'll spare you with the details on our trip from the Louvre to the train station, as well as to London. So, we got to London at around 2 in the afternoon. We grabbed ourselves some lunch and used the free wi-fi at the train station to check our email/facebook, to meet up with some deaf people from London - we just had to meet them at Silver Cross (a pub) but we had no clue what time we were supposed to meet, so we had to send Suzy's friend a
message... We also looked on the internet to find out where we could find Platform 9-3/4. Turns out that the train station we were at was a different station than the notable King's Cross as noted in the Harry Potter series - so we had to trek over to the next building for King's Cross. We went in and looked for Platform 9-3/4 and as we went there, to the area where the actual platforms for 9 and 10 were, only to find that they were remodeling the station and had temporarily relocated platform 9-3/4. So we didn't really see the "real thing". It was still worth the side trip anyway!We then headed over to Picadilly Circus via the subway, which was pretty neat - there were a lot of advertisements all over the place, small posters and at some stations TV's on the walls where the escalators were. There were also several ways out of the subway station at some stops, and as we were finding our way to the Hostel, our instruction said to take exit 1, I think, in order to go in the right direction. That was neat, which acutally saved us a lot of time from walking/searching for the right direction to go! So we got ourselves checked into the hostel, this time we got a "private" room with beds for 2 (or 3 people for we had a bunk bed that had a double and a single bed!). We chucked our bags and headed for the London Eye.
At the Westminster/Parliament subway stop, which was one of the closest stops to the London Eye, the exit stairway was amazing. You could see Big Ben right there in plain sight, and it was indeed big!
We got our tickets for the London Eye at the Hostel, so we were able to skip the LONG line for ticketing at the London Eye... within minutes after getting our tickets we were in line for the actual "ride". The London Eye is like an extra-large ferris wheel - the wheel is larger, and the buggies for the riders are egg shaped, and is indeed larger for they fit about 15 people each. People can actually walk around in these things - you're safe from falling because it's an enclosed egg-like thing. Not like the 2-seaters on your regular ferris wheel, or those bigger ones that can seat 6? people.
We got to the top in about 15 minutes - you can't even tell if the thing is moving, except for the view! You're definitely seeing things from a higher point of view! We checked out where all of the different sights were and it was neat. Doesn't compare to the Eiffel Tower though - not even close.
After our ride was done, we saw a souvenir store and checked out the jackets and such... we found one that was totally neat, and we both wanted it! The jackets were quite small for the sizes they claimed to be. We decided to skip it and check out other stores while we were in London. We still had another day to find a better jacket or shirt, or whatever.
We (at some point in the day) found out that the gathering with the local Deaf Englanders was at 1 pm! We were on the EuroRail at that time! So much for meeting deafies in Europe! We decided we wanted to go and check out that pub anyway - if they were going to meet there, it must be real good. So we headed in that direction. I don't remember the name of the area it was at, and the landmarks there. It was getting late when we got there, and we were disappointed to find that they had stopped serving dinner some time ago. We were starving! So we saw another pub across the street and sat down at a table. They don't have hosts that bring you to your table, you just go and grab one. Suzy then noticed that the table had a number on it, and we figured out that we had to go to the bar and order our food, and it would then be delivered to our table! I had fish and chips, while Suzy had a burger... yum. We were satisfied after a long day.
After taking more photos of the area, and Big Ben in the background down the street, we called it a night and headed over to our Hostel. On the subway there was a dog. A DOG! Yes, I kid you not! There were also signs in various places before the entrances of the subway stating that you need to carry your pets, or children under a specific age. I never imagined I would see this...
a Jaxon look-alike! He actually has a brown spot on his other ear, so he's not entirely white, like my baby. I realized right there and then that I had missed Jax!I had sweet dreams of him that night in our hostel!
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