World Tour

July 23 Sunday Paris and England Final day of Tour de France - Floyd Landis wins! Mary didn't bring a watch and we weren't interested in a wake up call so we kept sleeping in all weekend. We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower while it was still relatively cool outside. We had gotten a hold of Jon up in Liverpool to see when we would meet him in London at the studio Mary had booked for us to share for the week. He wouldn't be back until late and planned on meeting up with us the next day. He had told me briefly about the woman whose room he had rented for the weekend, Helen, and how well he was being treated for only £50/night. "something smells really good down there" - J I couldn't get a hold of him last night and figured he was up late talking with Helen. Sure enough, they stayed up chatting about her family history which sounded very interesting. Jon went on to tell me more about his stay with Helen which turned out to be pretty lucky as he had called the information center and they told him the hotels were all booked up. The woman at the information desk had her son check the local community board for villagers willing to take in boarders for the weekend of the Open which is how Jon got to stay with Helen, who apparently, is a fabulous cook. He described how she made him dinner and when he sat at the table it was formally laid out with dinnerware and linen. He said there was a menu of the night's meal printed out for him "and I was the only one staying here." - J Tomato soup for a starter, Salmon cakes as the main, homemade lemon ice cream topped with Scottish raspberries. Oh, and she also picked him up from the train station. "Helen's calling, I need to go down for breakfast." - J I can't remember what we had for breakfast but I suspect it wasn't nearly as good as whatever Jon was having! None the less we made our way to the Eiffel Tower at first walking along the Seine until it got to warm which is when we walked amongst the buildings for some shade. When we finally reached the Tower it was nearly noon and there was lines snaking out from the ticket windows. Mary said that she had prepared herself for the inevitable wait. There was the option of taking the stairs which I decided to go for since it had been a week since I last did any exercise. I only planned to go to the first level anyway. Mary figured that if she was going to stand in line she was going all the way to the top. So I left her in the elevator line where there was easily 100 people in front of her and went and stood in the stairs line which had about 50 ahead of me. We had agreed that if we didn't see each other on any of the viewing platforms we would meet near some designated benches by 2pm. I was on the first level by 1230. Walking up the first level of stairs was a piece of cake. I thought I would have a bit more trouble but I guess the last few weeks of bicycling have paid off. Once I did a walk around the viewing deck I found the stairs going to the second level and decided to go for it - again, no problem and the view was even better. Once I had seen all sides of Paris from the second level I started looking for the stairs to the very top. I had made it this far, why not go all the way? Granted, the distance to the top was considerably great than the distance between the first and second level but by now, I was unstoppable! I looked up at the bottom of the third viewing level and had to quickly look down again as I was overcome with dizziness. I have a very mild fear of heights but so long as I didn't look straight up as I climbed the stairs I figured I would be ok. Round and round I went until I finally figured out that there was no stairway leading to the top viewing level. That sucks, I had totally psyched myself up for the exercise and it wasn't going to happen. Well then, I would head back down. No sign of Mary yet as I looked around and then down at the teeny tiny little people standing in the now even longer line below me. I walked around and around and around, not really expecting to see Mary but just killing time before heading down again. I walked down to the first level and did the same thing - no sign of her. I looked over the railing again just in time to see Mary walking up to the ticket counter to by her ticket for the elevator! Well, she wasn't coming down anytime soon so I just slowly walked down to ground level and did some people watching. Mary came around 2pm as agreed and we sat in the shade for awhile. She had only gone up to the second level too and had the same dizzy feeling when she looked at the top and decided against taking the elevator all the way up. It was as hot as it had ever been and neither one of us was up for walking back to the hotel so we decided to take the boatbus along the Seine that would drop us off near our hotel room. A fabulous idea, slightly cooler with the occasional breeze, especially when we went under the bridges/ponts. Neither one of us was interested in going into a store or tourist site for air conditioning so this seemed like the best compromise besides, we had an all day pass. We got off at our stop and went back to the hotel to drop off some things. It was mid afternoon and we were starting to get hungry and tired so we figrured now was a good time to find a restaurant where we could sit and be served. We found a tiny little place serving crepes, we were hooked now, and went in, only to find that we were the only customers. The server asked if we wanted smoking or nonsmoking. I said nonsmoking but soon realized how small the place was with tables running along either side of the wall, an aisle in between running from the front to the back of the restaurant. It was laughable to think that there was even a designation between smoking and nonsmoking as there was only about three feet separating to two areas. I guess I should just be glad that there wasn't anyone there smoking although, sadly, I've gotten kind of used to the second hand smoke since I've come to Europe. We each ordered our crepe and a pitcher of artisanal apple cider. We weren't sure what the size was of a pitcher but we were both thirsty and had the server fill our water carafe a number of times during our meal. Well the pitcher, which really is a more sensible size, would hold about a pint. Had we ordered a pitcher in America I'm sure it would have been at least twice that size! Now I thought I had been on the most narrow staircase in the world when Jon and I stayed overnight at the room in Rigney Usse but the staircase in this restaurant topped that one. As Mary so aptly termed it, "You almost have to lift your arms above your head when coming down the stairs." The steps were just wider than my shoulders. It was almost a ladder, it was so narrow and so steep. The crepe was not crap and the atmosphere was nice a mix of american and european popular music from the eighties and nineties I belive. The décor was more old world to match the building itself with exposed beams and plaster. Mary had a fantastic cup of coffee. We spent our last hour and a half in Paris on the Boatbus riding up and down the Seine. It was late afternoon and about time to head to the train station. We gathered the luggage from the hotel for one more trip through the subway system. This time we were experienced and new what to expect. Mary's luggage had taken a beating on this trip. We got to the terminal without incident and after a bit of wandering found the direction to head for the Eurostar checkin counter. There were two signs posted for two different trains. One was for a 1919 departure and one was for a 2100 departure. Our ticket said it was a 1921 departure which seemed strange to me as it was close but not the same as the posted time. I pulled out our ticket and checked the train number - that didn't match up either. I was a little confused. We walked up to a security guard near the posted signs and asked if he could clarify. Apparently, we had read the tickets wrong and had been looking at the arrival time in London as 1921 when in fact our train had left at 1734! In other words we should have been arriving in London by now. Oh. My. God. We totally missed our train! The man directed us to the ticket counter and I put on my most "Please excuse my complete stupidity" face as I explained to the woman at the desk while at the same time praying that there wouldn't be an additional charge for new tickets AND that we wouldn't have to wait until late tonight or even the next day to catch another train. Viola! We were able to get new tickets on the 1919 train (it pays to arrive extra early) and there was no extra charge. I can't tell you how relieved I was! We quickly took our tickets and went through the gates to check in. Now that we had a guaranteed seat I was able to take the time to be concerned about whether or not we were able to keep our first class seating. I meekly asked the woman at the ticket validation desk. She confirmed that we were still in first class on the way back to London. Once again, everything works out for the Hall (or former Hall) girls. Having never experienced first class anything before I was doubley excited about the trip home. We found our carriage and seats. The seats were about one and have times as wide as coach class and we didn't have a double seat on our side of the train just two singles facing each other so it was a window and an aisle seat all at once! Things were looking better already. As the train pulled out of the station I took out the PDA. Great! I would also be able to charge up the PDA batteries during our trip too! There was an announcement that drinks would be coming around soon. Mary and I were at the very end and could see the drink carts on the other side of the glass door. "I'm going to take every advantage of this first class trip. I'm going to have wine with dinner." - S "Sherry, you can have whatever you want and as much as you want in first class although they'll probably cut you off if you start to get sloshed." - M The stewardess came down the aisle with the drink cart, "Would you like some water, champagne, wine..." Mary and I looked at each other. "Champagne please." we said in near unison. It was just a little bitty glass - just enough to enjoy and just enough to feel in a slightly dehydrated body - good stuff and SO what we needed at the time. I typed for a bit and they brought around the preprinted dinner menu written in about three different languages. It was a little confusing but I got the impression that we had a choice between starters, and mains and then a set dessert. We had mini peppers stuffed with cold scrambled eggs, goat cheese with honey, peppercorn and rosemary, we had a choice of pork of some kind or gnocchi and we both took the gnocchi for our main and then a mini peach and lavendar tartlet. I had an Australian shiraz with dinner and two cups of coffee afterwards. We even got the warm wash cloth after the meal. I could get used to first class! When we arrived at Waterloo it was nearly dark so we agreed to take a taxi. The only trouble was now that we were back to using Pounds instead of Euros and we didn't know how much it would be to get to the studio we had reserved or if we had enough money. We got into the big black taxi - so spacious and took off. Through the streetsof south London up to Northwest London area of Bayswater. I pointed out to Mary what sites I could: Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. We arrived at our destination with six pounds to spare. It was around 2200. We checked in and were so lucky to have a ground floor room - no more stairs to go up! The studio was nice but no air conditioning which Mary could have sworn she had read that there was when she checked the place out on the internet. There was a fan which we wedged into an open window and had going full blast. I called Jon to let him know where we were, took a shower and went to bed - what a day!