I Hate Paris in the Fall!

And for those of you who are fans of "French Kiss" with Meg Ryan, it's not because my love is there - with his slut girlfriend. No - I hate Paris because of it's completely incomprehensible subway system. As you can see from the map posted below, it has 1 million lines and none of them connect at points that are logical. It seriously takes one hour to get anywhere! This was the main factor in the most frustrating day of our trip.

Our first day in Paris started very early with a ride across the English Channel on the Eurostar train. I really would have liked to have used the three hour ride to sleep, but I had the French equivalent of my sister sitting right behind me. For those of you who know Jen, you know that her voice carries and she never stops talking. Well, that was the case with the French college girls sitting all around me and Trent. I'm glad they were having fun, but it did not make for a very peaceful ride!

When we arrived in Paris, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Hotel Relais Bosquet, in the Rue Cler neighborhood.

I had used Around the World Travel to book this hotel, and when we arrived, the desk clerk said that the travel agency had indeed made our reservation. However, the agency later cancelled the reservation! No idea why they did this, and when I checked with them upon our return home, the only response was that the reservation was no longer in their system, so they couldn't tell me what happened - not even a "Sorry." Luckily, the hotel did have some rooms available, or I would not have been a very happy camper. This hotel was not quite as impressive as our hotel in London, but it was clean and was one of the nicer hotels I have experienced in Paris. This was the view from our window.

After checking into the hotel, we headed out for lunch. We ate at Cafe du Marche near our hotel. Apparently, we arrived too early for lunch, but they said I could order a salad, rather than a pastry from the breakfast menu. Thinking I had found something on the menu, written in French, that I could identify, I ordered a caesar salad. What I got was not a caesar salad. I wish I had a picture of my food and my face when it was presented to me, but I was so disgusted, I didn't even think of it. On top of my lettuce and other veggies was a huge pile of pinkish, wet looking chicken. I later found out that it was meant to be an Indian spiced tandoori chicken, which accounted for the pink tint, but it just looked gross! I made the best of it and just ate around the chicken, but this 25 calorie lunch necessitated several snack stops later in the afternoon. We ate gelato from Berthillon, the most famous ice cream shop in Paris, and I also had a Nutella crepe, which is my absolute fave! Here is TMT showing off our gelato.

The original plan was to hit up some stores, but I quickly learned that shops in Paris are generally closed on Mondays, or only open late in the afternoon. So we switched gears and headed out on our Rick Steves' sightseeing walk. We started out on Ile de la Cite by famous bridge.

The highlights of our sightseeing tour were the French Supreme Court, Notre Dame, and the Louvre.

After spending hours completing our sightseeing tour, we decided to head to the Champs-Elysees. Unfortunately, TMT's metro ticket didn't work, and the lady working at the metro stop pretended not to speak English. We could not figure out what to do to get his ticket working. In hindsight, we should have just bought a one-ride ticket, but we were so frustrated that we just started walking. An hour later, we ended up at the Champs-Elysees, but decided that we better just give the metro another try, to make sure we had enough time to do the Eiffel Tower before dinner. At this point, my feet were absolutely killing me! I was very grumpy. What seemed to be a fairly short ride on the metro to the Eiffel Tower ended up taking quite a while because we timed the journey perfectly to coincide with Paris rush hour. Being crammed into a subway car with lots of Parisians for whom deodorant is optional was unpleasant to say the least! We arrived at the Tower and headed up in the elevator to the second platform.

While up in the Eiffel Tower, we saw a man who must have been terrified of heights. There are these steel beams along the interior of the platform. As his wife moved around the edge of the platform taking pictures, he would literally run from one steel beam to the next and just hold onto that beam for dear life! I can't describe how funny it was, but it definitely took my mind off my aching feet. Here's a picture I covertly took of this man runing from one beam to the next.

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed for the nearest Metro stop. At this point, I was starving and my feet still hurt! Trent saw a great photo opportunity, and braved my wrath by asking me to stop and take a pic. It did turn out great, and I'm glad we took it.

We headed across town to dinner at Chez Omar, which I had read great things about. Again, it took us about an hour to get across town. At least we had entertainment this time! A Chinese couple, who looked like they lived in America - based upon their clothes - got on the metro one stop after us. They got off to transfer at the same stop that we did. As soon as we all got off the train, the girl just laid into her boyfriend. She would yell in Chinese for about five minutes and then physically turn away from him. After about two minutes spent thinking about her next attack, she would go off again. We spent about forty minutes waiting for the train we were transferring to, and she yelled at him for pretty much the whole time. We couldn't understand what she was mad about, but he must have done something really bad because he just stood there and took it! We finally arrived at Chez Oamr, and again, I wish I had taken pictures of the food, but I was just too worn out to do it. I had read that the specialty was steak au poivre with frites. This is basically steak with a peppercorn mushroom sauce and fries. We asked that our steaks be cooked medium well, but they came out competely raw, with the exception of about one centimeter around the edges of the meat. So our dinner consisted of a plate of fries. After this disappointment, we headed back to the hotel, hoping for a better day on Day Two in Paris!

A Rainy Day in London

Our second day in London started off overcast, but we decided to go ahead with our planned double-decker bus tour. Here we are right before we got on the bus.

And here we are just minutes after boarding! I was so not happy! I'm only smiling because my mom trained me to smile when a camera is around. I am six years older than my sister so when she was a baby and we were getting joint pictures taken, my mom would tell me to start smiling as soon as the photographer came in the room and just keep smiling until we were done. That way, as soon as Jen gave the photographer a facial expression that was decent, he could just snap it. The consequences of this are that at times, like in this picture, even though I look happy, I'm really not enjoying myself. Those little free ponchos just are not worth anything. I had rain blowing in the neck hole and in both sleeves. It was also dripping down off the hood into my face!
TMT took pity on me and sent me downstairs for the rest of the tour. Even though I couldn't see as much or hear the guide as well, it was worth it to be warm and dry. TMT continued to ride around on the top level like a crazy person for most of the tour.
We got several pictures like this one of TMT by himself. I guess he wanted to take pictures of what he saw and I had told him at the beginning of the trip that I didn't want a bunch of pictures of buildings without us in front of them. Thus - the "take your own photo" style of photography.
We ate lunch at this pub, the Bag o' Nails, which was near Buckinham Palace. The food was less than stellar, but we accomplished another of TMT's goals for the vacation - to eat at a real English pub - with our visit to this fine establishment. He got a burger and I got a chicken sandwich. There were nachos on the menu, but I wasn't so sure about the quality of nachos in London period, much less at a pub. I saw another lady who got them, and it was pretty clear that I made the wrong choice for my meal. Oh well , I obviously didn't starve - I just hate to waste a meal when I'm in a new city!
Our next stop was Buckingham Palace. Here we are in front of the palace. In the past couple of years, the palace has been open to the public for tours during August and September, when Queen Elizabeth lives at one of her other castles. Maybe the one in Scotland?? I was super excited to hear about this because I have a strange fascination with British royalty. I was totally on top of getting us tickets to do this tour. Even the tickets were fancy; they were embossed, which I love. On the tour, we got to see the State Rooms, which include several galleries, receiving rooms, and the Throne Room. This year, the ballroom was set up as it would be for a state dinner. I absolutely loved this part! I love parties - the china and crystal and silver and the planning and preparation. So it was super fun to see all the fancy stuff they use for such a special dinner.

Here we are in the backyard of the palace.

We had initially planned to hit the British Museum next, but we were too tired to do anything else educational, so we hit Harrods instead. This store just amazes me. It is so huge and has such a wide variety of things to buy. Although I browsed through $7000 dresses and $1000 shoes, we spent most of our time in the food halls - this being due to my love of grocery stores. Whenever I go to a new city, I like to visit their grocery stores and see what kind of stuff they sell. I do this in places like Tulsa too - it's not limited just to exotic locations. I so wish we had a food shop like this in NWA - the closest thing we have is the new market in the gas station at Pinnacle Promenade!

We headed back to Nottinghill for dinner at Osteria Basilico. I had read about this restaurant ahead of time, and it was pretty good. I didn't love what I got, but I think was due more to a bad pick on my part than the quality of the food. This place had an atmostphere like a big family dinner. The tables were pretty close together and there were several big groups in the restaurant that night, so it was a fun and loud experience.

We got eggplant parmesan for our appetizer, which was disappointing because it was cold in the middle. The flavor was good, but cold eggplant is just yucky! TMT got his old standby - pepperoni pizza. I didn't get a picture of it, but he says it was pretty good. I initially ordered some kind of tortellini with cream sauce, but they were out of it. I switched to fettucini with veal ragout. It was good, but after I ate the whole plate, I decided it was a little too rich for me. I'm not a big meat-eater, so I probably would have enjoyed a less meaty dish more. However, it did look really pretty on the plate, and now I know that I probably shouldn't spend my time trying out a ragout recipe at home.

The Thompson Family European Vacation

TMT and I recently went on a whirlwind tour of Europe. In nine days, we visited London, Paris, Villefranche in the French Riviera, Monaco, Florence, and Rome. We definitely needed a vacation from the vacation by the time we got home - packing up our stuff and moving to a new city every couple of days was exhausting!

We started our journey by flying from XNA to Newark, which is an airport that I avoid in the future. We spent an hour circling the airport and trying to get the plane parked after we finally landed. TMT and I had a very long layover scheduled, so we weren't all that worried, but the Yankees on the plane were getting fired up. People were starting to yell naughty things about the pilots and the ground crew. Here's a picture of TMT just waiting it out!


In London, we stayed at the Parkcity Hotel in Kensington. I loved it! I have been to London two other times and have not been impressed at all with the city's hotel offerings. However, I did a lot of research before booking our hotels for this trip, and it paid off. This hotel was clean and very modern. It was located on a quiet, residential street, which was nice. I felt like we were really part of the neighborhood. Any of you who have traveled with me know that I do not like hotels, and I always look for a hotel with white bedding. For some reason, it seems cleaner to me, even though it's probably not any better than the ugly old-style hotel bedding. Anyway, the Parkcity had white bedding, so I was happy! It even had a gym and business center. If any of you are heading across the pond anytime soon, I highly recommend it.

Our first sightseeing stop was Westminster Abbey. I knew that we'd be tired after an overnight flight, but I also knew that we shouldn't go to sleep or we'd never get adjusted to European time.* So, I scheduled a full day of sightseeing to keep us busy. At Westminster Abbey, we took a verger-led tour. Vergers are not priests; they basically function like ushers at our churches. They get the Abbey ready for services and help the priests with whatever they need. Our verger was an interesting little guy, but his tour was very interesting. We learned a lot more on this tour than we would have gotten out of it had we just gone through on our own. We saw the burial sites of a lot of famous poets, scientists, kings and queens, including Elizabeth I. We also learned about the coronation of the current Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana's funeral, which were both held at the Abbey.

* I took a Tylenol PM about an hour before we boarded our flight from Newark to London. I fell asleep before take-off, woke up for about 15 minutes to eat dinner, and then slept until they started serving breakfast about an hour before we landed. TMT skipped the Tylenol PM and spent the entire flight watching movies. He was really sorry the next day!

We ate lunch at a little cafe in Nottinghill - the Lazy Daisy Cafe. I had read about it before we left and when we stumbled upon it, we decided it looked like a fun place to eat. The food was okay, but nothing special. One of TMT's goals for London was to eat fish and chips, so we were able to check that off our list after this lunch. While we were in Notthinghill, we tried to go to the Portobello Road Market, but we couldn't find it. I was really disappointed, as I love a good flea market, and I was hoping to find some unique things to bring home.
Our next stop was the Tower of London. We took a tour led by a Yeoman. I have been on this tour twice before, but I still love it. I am a history nerd, and I love the story of Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine. We saw the tower where Anne Boleyn stayed right before her coronation and also a few years later right before her execution. They also have an exhibit on the Crown Jewels at the Tower. I think the crowns they have here are probably fakes and the real ones are locked up somewhere else, but it's still fun to look. No pictures allowed in the Crown Jewels exhibit, so I can't show you what they look like, but trust me - they are impressive.
After the Tower, we headed back to the hotel for a little rest. We both fell asleep and had to drag ourselves out of bed to head to our final stop of the day - Covent Garden for dinner.

I want to preface this by saying that I love to eat. It really is one of my favorite forms of entertainment! So - a lot of my stories about this trip will be about the food that I ate - good and bad. Some of the best food in London is Indian food. I love Indian food, and anytime we are in a big city, I have to eat it! Although it is not TMT's fave, he indulges my love for it and goes along with me. For our first dinner in London, we went to Punjab, which was some of the best Indian food we have ever eaten. We had veggie samosas, which is basically a pastry filled with mashed up veggies and fried. I got my standard chicken tikka masala, and TMT got some other really spicy chicken dish. I think the menu said it had spices that gave it a pickle taste. Not my cup of tea, but TMT seemed to like it.

Razorback Pride

This was the scene at my kitchen table this afternoon. Despite the Hogs' embarrassing showing against the Texas Longhorns, my sister and I spent all day making Razorback wreaths for our front doors. These were a total pain to make - we used wire wreath forms instead of the usual grapevine, which means that it was hard to make them look full enough. We struggled through two trips to Hobby Lobby for extra materials and had to make a last minute run for superglue, but we think the results are worth it. These will be so fun to display on game days!

Our Life

This blog will be about my life with my husband and our dog, Tallulah Belle Thompson. For everyday purposes, Tallulah Belle goes by Lulu. For some reason, my husband doesn't want his name on the Internet. I'm not sure, but I think his sensitivity to being part of a blog just might have something to do with his job! Therefore, he will be referred to on this blog as "The Unnamed." *** Now that he's seen how dorky this looks, he says I can use his initials - TMT. I knew that would work!

Stay tuned for some fun posts about cooking, our travels, and my current decorating projects!