"my first old man in paris"

"my first old man in paris", originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

so as soon as we arrived out of the gare du nord in paris, we checked our map, went to drop our bags & decided the first on the agenda was to go find the eiffel tower like all good tourists do. (well actually, we stopped at the yummiest boulangerie first! mmm...) but we wanted to see the eiffel differently, bl mapped us a route & we popped out of the metro down the seine aways...we meander across a very cool bridge with larger than life sculptural figures on it and stop half way across. down the center of the seine is the beautiful eiffel tower - we are in france!! very thrilling for this first timer :)

there is a photo shoot going on on the little stop over on the bridge, and we sit to take it all in. as we are sitting this lovely old gentleman, with super duper fly away hair starts to come over & speak to us in french -- eep! i only know a very little -- enough to get me by in boulangeries, restaurants, getting directions etc...he obviously figures out we don't speak french and starts to speak in english with a heavy french accent, some german thrown in & the occasional french word when he can't think of what he wants to say. but he proceeds to tell us all about how paris was built & the interesting sections to go to see the architecture and about napoleon and all that he did paris...on, on, on - he's so darling & i'm trying my best to understand all that's he's telling us about.

at the end of the conversation, he motions to bl to sit next to me so he can take a photo of us with our camera. he does so, and then, so cute, he motions bl *out* of the photo and gives him the camera and tells bl to take a picture of the two of us :) isn't he so lovely? so after the photo, he turns to me and says, "now then, you have just met your first old man in paris!" & it was so quintessentially perfect, on our first day, first outing, to have a such a good story to relay! :)

i'll post some more about paris in the next coupla days before we move onto venezia!

hello paris!

hello paris!, originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

we were only in paris 3 nights - far too short! it is on our list of places we will be visiting again

let's talk a little bit more about london

where we stayed in london, originally uploaded by sproutgirl74.

we stayed with this wonderfulmous lady, sian - & her two cats, one of which ran away while we there, but thank goodness, came back while we were gone - phew! we were all very worried about her.

london was amazing. we loved it & want to go back right away. perhaps we will, sian would you like us back so soon? ;)

we saw soooooo much art. the tube was super easy, everywhere was super clean, it was easy to understand people (which was nice to come back to after trying my hardest in france with my little bit of french, then italy, switzerland, german - uh, totally lost there, couldn't even guess - amsterdam, & belgium)...we had an afternoon & evening in london on our way back out so we ran down to the tate modern again because i think we are a little bit in love with it.

what i miss already from london: the yummy chips, bombardier beer (& truly, i'm not a huge beer fan, but from the flickr photos you would never be able to discern that one), super duper art, museums, & galleries - all free! i miss sian & the kitties too of course. digestive biscuits, minding the gap, the always sounding intelligent british accent & speech, ultra creamy dairy products (even though i can only partake on a small scale), cobblestone, old-ness everywhere, history everywhere, my understanding of the past century's history so much better now that i have a context to put a bunch of it into. i miss the walk to the tube, take away food, bloody hell's, mates, & darling's...the pubs, the thames, properly brewed kicker english tea, & our wanderings & walkabouts - for we had many, many wonderful ones...maybe we can go back at christmas for another holiday...hmmm?

back in the states!

just by a hair though - the uk didn't want to let us back in to fly out. this is going to be a super short post just to say hey, and i'll be posting photos just as soon as i get back from l.a. from the felt club show. eurpe was amazing, too quick, a little whirlwind, enlightening, provocative, full of art, full of observations & differences...we are ready to go back and are planning our next trip already. i knew once the needle of traveling abroad would be in, i'd be hooked forever.

much more later!

xxx.