Blisters in the Sun

For our time in London, all we really did was run around and see as many famous sights as we could on foot. We saw Russel Square (where our Hostel was), the rarely mentioned but very imrpessive British Museum, my favorite sight in london: Trafalgar Square, St. James Park and its resident pitbull and pelicans, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Waterloo, and the Tower of London. In the 24 hours we had to spend in London, I feel that we did about as well as could be expected.

Well, we are now in Paris and after walking around with our suitcases for an hour, and with 5 blisters total (Collin 4, Whitney 1) we are just glad to be at our hotel. We went to the two biggest cities in Europe back to back (London, Paris) and experienced the negative sides of such big cities. In London, it was being charged for every little thing from storing our bags at the hostel in which we stayed, to using the toilet. In Paris it was visiting (extensively) the not so nice parts that every big city has.

We walked on dirt roads, saw gypsies digging through trash cans, and when we asked a girl how to get to the street we were looking for she told us "you'll see a fire, then take a right," (quick note: the word for street light is fire, which was temporarily lost in translation) and neither one of us batted an eye at the thought that a random bonfire/housefire could be used as a landmark in this part of the city.

Through all this, we came to the hotel which is the nicest place we stayed so far, and the only one with a TV in it (just in time to see France lose in the world cup!!). I went to McDonalds because we were blistered, sweating and it was 20 feet away, and for anyone who has seen Pulp Fiction, they do indeed call it a "Royal with Cheese" and not a quarter pounder, due to the metric system. We hope to see the nicer side of Paris tomorrow when we venture into city center.

We knew it wouldn't be all guided tours and shining monuments, so in a sense it feels more authentic now that we've strained ourselves a bit, but we hope it is pretty much uphill from here.

Thanks for reading and tomorrow we should have a better view of Paris and a few interesting stories to keep you tuned in.