A brief summary on the trip so far (I apologize if it is unorganized and full of grammatical errors, since I don't have much time to type this):
After a long, 6-hour flight from Minneapolis, MN to London, U.K., we arrived in London on the 15th at 9:00 AM. We checked in at the London Elizabeth Hotel, a small hotel located near Hyde Park in London. Later in the day, we went over to the Westminster area of London and visited the Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the London Eye. Afterwords, we headed over to London Bridge and Tower Bridge.
For dinner, we wanted to eat at at traditional English restaurant, but it took us a while to find a good one that was open. We finally found one over at the St. Katherine harbors at a restaurant at the Ivory. We had lamb shanks with some wine.
The next day, we went to the London Science Museum, Natural Museum of History, and the Victoria Art Gallery. Afterwords, we came back to our hotel, checked out with our luggage, and headed over to Waterloo Station to take the train trip to Paris, via the chunnel (underwater tunnel beneath the English Channel that separates the U.K. from France). The train trip took roughly 3 hours, but it was pretty comfortable.
We got into Paris about 7:00 PM. The place we are staying in Paris is a condo owned by a friend of a friend of my brother's, close to the Gare d'Austerlitz station. We met with Marie (the condo owner) and Frank (Marie's assistant), both who were very nice people who did their best to make it a comfortable stay for us while in Paris. The condo itself was really nice; it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms and was in a fairly new building.
Since we did not have dinner, Marie made us a reservation at a nearby French restaurant. We then went to the restaurant with Frank (Marie already had dinner that night). The restaurant was small, but the restaurant had a very distinct French feel to it. The meal we had was excellent; we had duck, chicken, foie gras (traditional French delicacy) with French wine. It was probably the best French meal that I ever had.
After dinner, me, my brother, my sister, and Frank parted ways with my parents (who went back to the condo), while we headed towards some wine restaurants. Apparently on that night, there was a special French event (forgot name) always held on November 16th, where restaurants serve the newly made French wine of that year. We headed to some wine restaurant to try out the new wine. It was pretty good, except that the area which Frank brought us to was practically dead; still, it was pretty nice of him to guide us there and explain all the little differences in French culture. We headed back to the condo afterwards and went to sleep.
The next morning, we all woke up to Marie's cooking, who was very kind to make a French-style breakfast for us. She served us freshly baked croissant, bagettes, and French-style omelettes. It was just... excellent.
After breakfast, we went out to the Versailles Palace and toured the palace grounds for about two hours. After Versailles, we went over to the Eiffel Tower. We decided to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, although there was a very long wait for the elevator to the top. The view from the top of Eiffel was impressive, as you could see much of Paris. After Eiffel, we took a 1-hour river boat trip on the Seine River to see all riverside sights along the Seine. We passed by historic sites such as the various French bridges built in the 19th century, Notre Dame, the Louvre, French Parliament, and so on. After the boat ride, we headed over for a quick stop by at the Arc de Triomph and then headed back to the condo.
Overall, the trip has been excellent, as we have been able to see so many historic English and French sites, explore London and Paris, as well as eating excellent English and French cuisine. Again, I apologize if the trip summary was unorganized, but I didn't really have much time to type it.
Will update again later.
cya when you get back.
cya when u get back
