DAY 3: PARIS

Friday, July 28^th, 2006

After another English breakfast in the morning, we head out on the Contiki coach toward France! I caught up on some sleep on the way to the ferry that would take us across the English Channel. The coach is pretty pimped out…it has comfortable cushioned seats that can lean back, air conditioning, big clean windows to take pictures out of, and a built-in stereo sound system.

Before getting aboard the ferry, we could see the famous White Cliffs of Dover. They were pretty sweet. Fortunately, the ferry was as big as a cruise ship, and I didn’t get sick. The ferry even had a casino on board!

It was a long bus ride from the border of France to Paris. One thing I noticed was that this trip made me tolerate much longer periods of time while driving. Three hours seemed like nothing. I got more sleep and when we were almost to Paris, my slumber was disturbed…how dare they!? I heard this noise…it was actually one of our Contiki “day songs”. It was, surprisingly, a great song to wake up to because it pumps you up, but gently. Not many people on our trip were morning people, so it helped to lighten up the cranky ones…;) If you want to listen to/watch our day songs, go to: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5827711531508302539&q=feel+the+love+generation+bob.sinclair and http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6954619326052556824&q=move%2Cyour.feet+junior%2Fsenior.

Hope you enjoy those!

That night, we had dinner at the hotel, which was soooo amazing!! We all had pizza on a croissant, chicken with noodles, and a strawberry sponge cake. YUM! Right after dinner, we headed out on the coach for our Paris “Illumination’s Tour”. This is the part where I get really excited because I am in Paris! It is so unbelievably beautiful at night with all the city lights. We saw a lot of the sites including the Louvre, the Opera House, Notre Dame, and Champs de Elysees.

We all kept seeing the Eiffel Tower in the background, making sounds of awe, and Pete (our Tour Manager) said that we would have time to take pictures of it when we passed by. As we pulled up near it, everyone had their cameras ready to drive by it AND THEN…Pete says, “Well, look at the Eiffel Tower, isn’t it beautiful, now get your stuff ready because we are going up the Eiffel Towerrrrrrrr!” I don’t think anyone really understood what he was saying until a few seconds later and everyone started screaming, some people even crying. I never expected this. I couldn’t believe I was going to actually go up the most symbolic monument in Paris!

Pete had gotten us special tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower, what a man. We got to go in the special “group” line and the sun was just setting when we got to the second tier of the Eiffel Tower by elevator. It was gorgeous! I was a little sad I didn’t have a boyfriend because it was such a romantic place, but I didn’t think about it too much because I was too excited and just in utter shock that I was where I was. Eiffel tower at sunset…what more could a girl want?

The views were amazing, especially because I saw the views when it was both light and dark. Such an incredible feeling. Then, when I got back to the base, I had just enough time to take a video of the sparkling lights (they turn on for an hour each night). It was truly an unexplainable feeling of goodness.

And, before we left for the hotel, Pete told us there is one last surprise. We are thinking…what else could he do?? He tells everyone to buckle their seat belts (they are supposed to be worn at all times, but no one wears them usually). So we go up the famous street in Paris called Champs de Elysees, and, directly in front of us is the Arc de Triomphe.

For those of you who don’t know, the Arc de Triomphe is in the center of a roundabout. A roundabout is the coolest thing that they have in Europe, and is a way for traffic to flow without traffic lights.

So there are 12 streets coming off this roundabout and in this particular one, the traffic is opposite of every roundabout I experienced in Spain. All the vehicles exiting the roundabout yield to the cars coming on the roundabout. This means that it is hardest to get off the roundabout. Pete cranks up the song “Woooohoooo” (Listen to it here.)

So it is blasting…real loud. This song is the perfect song for this roundabout because the traffic situation is so crazy. We go around about three times, which takes a good four minutes. We are going a fairly good speed, and the coach feels like it is almost tipping over. We are going around and around the Arc de Triomphe! Such a great rush.

DAY 2: LONDON

Thursday, July 27th, 2006

At the hotel’s English breakfast, I was just happy I was ok with eating eggs…because they had a lot of them. Scrambled egg whites, regular scrambled eggs, dunken (sunny side up) eggs, and hard boiled eggs. They did have a variety of meat such as patty sausage and regular sausages, but personally, I don’t prefer eating red meat. All it does is cause heart disease! So basically that left me with eggs, bread, and cornflakes. It was an ok breakfast, but I was partially glad when it was over.

Next, we went on a sightseeing tour of London. A few of the major sights we saw included Buckingham Palace, the Parliament Buildings, Big Ben, and Trafalgar Square.

I hadn’t heard about the history of any of these sites before the trip so it was nice to have Pete (our Tour Manager) explain some of the exciting tidbits behind the places. Pete informed us that the most common misconception about Big Ben is that “Big Ben” actually refers to the 13 ton bell inside of the tower, not the clock, as most people believe. oooh aaah.

A small group of us decided we wanted to ride on the London Eye. After walking for a while, we got to the central square. There were performers in the square trying to get people to listen to their corny jokes, and also people that had costumes and their faces painted who would move or dance everytime someone tipped them. Otherwise, they stood completely still except for blinking.

It was a nice sunny afternoon, a little cooler than yesterday, thank goodness. We saw there was a huge line to get on the London Eye, but we decided to see how much it cost…30 POUNDS!!! AHH!! No way were any of us going to pay $60 for a trip on a Ferris wheel. Everyone just about ran from there, and we enjoyed another long walk back to the hotel.

We entered a restaurant called Porter’s and ordered. This was our first group dinner and everyone began socializing. The waiters even asked our group to tone it down a little because our group was talking too loud, but we didn’t really care because we’re loud American tourists…what can you expect right?

After the alcohol started to kick in, everyone started to open up even more. A guy from our group named Geoffrey started singing around dessert time, and everyone thought he was extremely drunk. The funniest thing is…he had only had one drink, and the next day, he announced he was sober and he is just naturally extroverted. That is just the beginning of my fantastically enjoyable encounters with Geoffrey.

Overall, I would rate the food in London a 5/10, much worse than the food I eat in the U.S, much more expensive too. I am hoping the food will get better once we arrive in FRANCE! The best part about London was bonding with everyone and having fun at the same time. It was a great couple days in London!