The other day I was going through our honeymoon pics and couldn’t believe it’s been almost 2 years since our little adventure. We flew Virgin Airlines, upper class to London; upper class spoils you….it was a red-eye, so we were going to sleep thru the majority of the flight. Right before going to bed the flight-attendant assisted in converting my seat, from a seated position to a bed. But before bedtime, she also handed me a menu, so I could select my breakfast items for the next morning ; )…I was in heaven. She fluffed my pillow, and almost made me into a taquito (a.k.a. tucked me in).
Scroll down for pics and notes on what I loved and what I struggled with while abroad…
1st stop – London – London Eye
Once in London, we didn’t waste time. Started sight-seeing and using the Underground (rail system) to get around. That alone was an adventure, but we wanted to get the full experience, so cabbies were not on our plans. It didn’t take long before we riding the train like pros.
Pro: The Underground, train, was an easy adjustment in London. We caught on fairly quickly and was super convenient.
Struggle: Language. Every one spoke English, but their English accent was so strong, I struggled to comprehend.
Pro: Although London is known for being rainy and cloudy; we got the best weather!
Pro: Needless to say the views were mesmerizing!
…and now off to Paris. We spent about 5 days in Paris and saw only a portion of this beautiful city.
Soooo many locks, and this was only one side of the bridge loaded with locks.
Needless to say, he was more excited to go into the Louvre than I was. The museum is huge; you can easily spend 3+ hours in here…all I wanted to see was The Mona Lisa, and I did!
Struggle: Our Airbnb was horrible. We arrived late to Paris, and the lady that was going to let us in to our room wasn’t around. We felt stranded with all of our bags (I don’t pack light) in unknown territory. Our cab driver, who was AMAZING! didn’t speak any English and we don’t speak French, so communication was a real struggle here.
There was a lot of sign language, but he worked with us and let us borrow his cell phone to get in contact with our key-holder. She finally arrived and as we walk through the door, the place reeks of pee. BAD PEE smell. No elevator in the building, so we had to lug our..my heavy luggage up 3 flights of twisty stairs, while inhaling the terrible pee smell. As I’m heavily breathing through my mouth up these stairs, all I could think of was ‘This is terrible’, ‘If our room smells like this, I’m not staying’, ‘I’m so sweaty’. Rough start.
We really wanted to see all of Paris. Comfy walking shoes was a must to get us around Paris.
It was Day 3 in Paris before we made it to the Eiffel Tower. Paris is huge!
We decided to catch the sunset from the top of the Eiffel Tower, so we came back closer to sunset. Little did we know, about 1,000 other people were thinking the same thing. Needless to say, sunset occurred and we were still in line at the bottom of the tower waiting to go up : / We finally made it, it was dark, but beautiful. There was a line to go up and a line to go down. Option B…take the stairs down, so we did…alll the way down.
Major Pro: Paris is scenic!
Pros: So many bakeries and coffee shops! I swear there’s like 3 bakeries on every single block. There were so many pastries at every turn. All I kept wondering..’how to Parisians stay so thin with all these temptations?!’
Struggle: Language barrier… Now I really know how Mark feels. I felt so out of place with language here. Really wish I had French under my belt. At restaurants, the menus were primarily in French; the people only spoke French (little English, but there were some). There was a lot of pointing.
We thought this idea was a bit odd, but yet convenient. I didn’t give this potty a try (I was afraid of getting stuck in there), but Mark did and as you can tell it was a bit confusing to get it all going. The nice thing, it that it self-cleans after every use.
Barcelona…I will have to classify as my favorite city. This city definitely didn’t have all the landmarks as London and Paris, but it was so beautiful: the architecture, the little homey streets.
Pro: Spanish! After clearly lacking that French tongue, it felt so good to be able to communicate with locals.
Struggle: Honestly, there wasn’t a real struggle in Barcelona. Everything was pretty amazing.
Not much to say about the flight back…we flew coach. Rough ride back to reality, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
