Cider and Chips
I really liked London. I felt comfortable there. Obviously, I loved being there with Brad, but it was one of the few cities I felt I could maneuver on my own. The map made sense to me, the Tube made sense... Definitely rare for me. It just felt right. If it weren't, you know, so very far away, I might consider a country switch..... But alas, we simply had a visit, and a short one at that. But I think we made pretty good use of our time!
Home base: Our hotel, the Zetter, was in Clerkenwell, basically in the City. You always hear about the ridiculous hotels in Europe, but I've actually had really good luck so far. And the Zetter was no exception! Somehow we ended up with the biggest room with the only queen-sized bed -- still smaller than the typical US hotel, but perfectly lovely. The much anticipatd "porno pink" light over the bed was hilarious and cast a nice pink glow over the entire room. It also had the best shower I've ever been in - glass encased, shower head on the ceiling. Ahhhh. Perfect for a hot shower steamer like me.
Handy tip: Don't bother trying to eat in London. What a pain! The pubs stop serving food early, the restaunts close early, and god forbid you try and eat on a Sunday! ha ha. This is how we ended up at Co
nor O'Neills' twin, O'Neills, our first night in London. Luckily we had Marla and Andrew with us, or we probably would have just starved. It was just like old times, at Conor's with M&A back in the 90s... Except now there were mushy peas involved (yuck). And, of course, it was more than fantastic to get to spend our first evening with our dear friends, and such a shame we couldn't see them for longer. But I'll take what I can get. Love you guys!
Monday night was the David Gray show at the Roundhouse. What can I say? It was awesome. And we expected no less. Nonfans may not believe it, but he rocks out! Always a great show, and we were SO excited to be seeing him in London. The venue was really cool, literally a round house. We stood about 100 feet from the stage to engage the leaning capabilities of a pole, but it was standing room, so we could have rushed the stage should the mood have overtaken us. And let me tell you, London is the place to see a show. Show says it starts at 8? It starts at 8! David Gray came right out, no boring us with some lame opening act. He played for half an hour, took a half hour break, then came back for another hour and a half. Perfect. Especially because I was clearly the shortest person there. I couldn't see a THING for the first half hour. Not a thing. Fine... Until some assy Brit came and stood on TOP of me. My mood was souring.... Luckily, after the break, the crowd shifted, and I could at least see DG's head bobbing around up on stage. And somehow he must have known we were there for our two-year wedding anniversary.
Awww. (FYI, fans, the two new singles on the best of are awesome and you can get just them on iTunes.)
Now, we definitely didn't go to London just to see a concert. Lots of sights were seen! Tower of London, the Thames, London Bridge, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus, Leichester Square, Soho, Chelsea. So cool to see the sights we've all heard so much about, and extra special knowing that these were all sights grandma Choppy grew up with. Sights my dad saw as a young lad on visits over to see grandma England. And, of course, I ate some fish and chips. And drank lots of cider!
Noteable Conversation
John (M&A's friend) to pub bartender: Are you still serving food?
P.B.: No.
John: Do you know anywhere nearby that is?
P.B.: Some other place.
Noteable Dumbass Move
Made reservations at Quo Vadis.
Wrote down address to Alister Little (or something).
Mapped directions to Alister something.
Traveled to mismapped address.
Duh.
The Eurostar rules: What we originally thought was going to be a royal pain turned out to be quite cool. The Eurostar has always left London from the Waterloo station. Well, THE day we were to to Paris, the new station opened. It turned out to be right near us, and over the few days we got quite familiar with it. So Wednesday morning we made our way over to the St. Pancras station and prepared to board the second trip ever from there. Not only did the day's journeys make it into the news everywhere, freebies were in abundance. I got a really cool cloth shopping bag (the UK is trying to ban and/or add a fee to plastic shopping bags) and a yummy fruit/water drink. Anyway, so we board, and the seats are huge. They're comfy. They have... wait for it... foot rests! Ahhh... I get motion sickness pretty bad, so I was worried, but it moved so smoothly and so quickly that I didn't have any problems. Oh, and there's a little bar with snacks and drinks. Two hours later... bonsoir, Paris!
Vin Rouge and Frites
Wouldn't you know it... The Metro went on strike. The DAY we got to Paris. No Metro? What were we to do? How were we going to get to our hotel? More importantly, how were we going to get all the way up north to see Moulin Rouge? East to see the cemetary? While our first few moments in Paris were a bit of a panic, turned instantly into annoyance (the taxi queue was on par with a Cedar Point line!), the next hour passed quickly as we visited with our line neighbors. Waiting behind us were two sweet, very British old ladies in for a weekend on the town. They were just too cute, and they made the time so much more bearable. I hope they enjoyed their time in Montmarte (I told them they weren't fooling me -- I knew they'd be hanging out at the Moulin Rouge shows!). While we did more walking over the next three days than I think I've ever done in my life, we did manage to survive without the Metro (although trips to M.R. and the cemetary were impossible) and probably saw a lot more of Paris than we ever would have otherwise. And luckily, we did finally make it to our hotel, an hour, EUR 20 cab ride later. High note: Cab driver ROCKING OUT to Lionel Ritchie. All night long... all night.... all night....
In London, we tried to be cool. We studied our route ahead of time, knew our Tube lines... Left our Frommers at the hotel. After about 20 minutes in Paris, we said eff that and pulled out our map, our guide, our phrasebook... You should see our map -- it's in shambles. But boy, did we use everything, every day, at least 100 times. Looking like a doof be damned. Thank you, sizeable purse/bag from Old Navy!
Home base: Another hotel score. The Hotel Mayet was adorable. Cute, friendly, cozy. Our room was tiny but manageable, our bathroom less modern but workable. And we had a pattiserie and a frommagerie right downstairs. Highly recommended. Right on the border of the 6th and 7th arrondismont, we were closest to the St. Germain neighborhood (and by close, I mean not very close, given we had to walk everywhere).
Way to go, Anthony Bourdain: We watched the Paris episode of
No Reservations right before we left. In it, A.B. urges... don't follow the tour books... walk around... and if a cafe beckons to you, GO IN! So our first night there we're looking for a post-dinner cafe for dessert and cafe au lait. We don't know our area well yet, so we wander and find nothing. Finally, a lit cafe on a narrow, empty street. It looks perfect! We walk by, decide to go back. Remember what A.B. said! We go in, and it's packed. Perfect! People are friendly, the dessert sounds good. We order. In French! They look at us like we're nuts. "You have to eat! You can't just order dessert." So we had to bundle back up and slink back out like losers. How embarassing! Shesh. (FYI:
Au Pied de Fouet [just happened to be in Frommers, which we saw after the fact]).
Did I mention that we walked? A lot? In the cold? I know... woe is me... :) But as a result, we slept. A lot. Which, I guess is ok, given we were on vacation. But we definitely slept -- I don't think we got out of bed before 11 am! It was lovely. Ahhh sleep. But like I also mentioned, we got to see A LOT. Even things we didn't actively DO, we at least saw (Napoleon's tomb, the Sorbonne, Place St-Michel).
What did we do, you ask? Well, the Eiffel Tower. Three times (at varying degrees of sunlight). Notre Dame, twice. Thanks to you, stupid strike, the Towers were closed and we couldn't see the gargoyles up close. The Louvre. Arc de Triomphe (couldn't go up. Yep. Strike). The
catacombs were NUTS. The Eiffel Tower was really awe inspiring. And unreal. When we went back at night, we even saw it light up and twinkle for 15 minutes (we didn't expect it, so it was a fun surprise). Pretty cool to have really been there.
This IS a food blog: The best meal was definitely lunch on Thursday at
Cafe Constant. It was everything I was hoping for in a real French cafe, and even though the waiters made us immediately (bringing a translation of the day's menu), I think it was a pretty traditional experience. We got a bottle of wine, of course, and both ordered the creme de potiron emiette de chataignes (pumpkin soup) and filet de bar a la planche polenta cremeuse au pistou (seabass and poltenta). Best. Soup. Ever. It was a deeeeelicious meal. Followed by a delicious dessert. I had no idea what I ordered (querelles au chcolat guarja), but omg. YUM. Basically, two egg-sized lumps of thick chocolate goo, covered in sweet cream. And, of course, our new favorite, cafe au lait. I could have eaten this meal for every meal all week.
Saturday night we wandered into L'alto, a tiny Italian cafe in St. Germain. After a lot of the same, we were happy to stumble upon this (Brad's choice, too!). We ordered our bottle of wine, of course, and after the very sweet and helpful determined that my meal came with fennel (feinnule), I ordered up the calamari. And get this... I even ate some of the tentacles! Me! Tentacles! And I didn't die. :) Brad got the fillet -- "the best steak ever!" It was lovely, and for dessert, cafe au lait and lemon cream with fruit. Yum. The perfect trip-ending meal.
Pain au chocolate. Cheese. 'Nuff said.
I even got to walk through a real food market once. Crazy-looking fish everywhere, cheese, bread... Mmmm! I confess I expected to see a lot more of this, but once was enough. I was happy.
PS. French TV is funny. While we saw a lot, we did spent quite a bit of time in the room. And because there wasn't a radio (the Zetter had 4,000 tracks on an in-room system!), we watched our tiny little TV. BBC news was in English. Occasionally we'd catch a Fergie video on the music channel. But mostly we listened to French. Hey! Sex and the City in French? Sure! SVU? Why not! Scooby Doo? Hilarous. But it gets old. So you can bet when we found the rare English movie with French subtitles, we watched it. One night it was A Clockwork Orange, which I hate, but hey! I could understand. Another night, it was the most ridulous 1970s American porn? I don't even know if it was porn. But it was gross! And hilarious. And totally, 100% random.
World News We Got to Experience Firsthand
favorite was the tuna tuna salmon roll. Mmmm. Mike and Brad enjoyed The Rock, tiny sliced steak that they cooked themselves on a hot rock. Fresh crab, requisite California rolls, and did I mention the berry sake martini? Turns out there's one in Vegas, too, so I hope to make a stop there when we travel there for our trade show in April!
Good times, guys, good times.
Mmm. Glow wine.
Jordan and Uncle Brad.
Come on Beth! Let me borrow your Baby Phats!
Brad and I exchanged gifts, then watched Price Is Right with his parents. Brad spoiled me, as always, and I'm writing from my 
Brad would never have to squeeze my ankles again, or sit on my feet, or move to another couch because I'm twitching too much. I can't even imagine. Why oh why do you have to be $400 iSqueeze? Sigh. Think Brad's insurance will cover it? :)
On a final, unrelated note, I finally did some crafting this weekend. As I've mentioned, I've gotten a ton of family photos, from both sides, this past year, and I want to scrap them into one big book. Layouts done: 1. Go me! This one is a two-page layout of my grandma Choppy. On the beach. In her bikini, which is how I choose to always remember her. 
