Return to the US

We almost had to stay longer in Spain because of the Volcano ash coming from Iceland had most of Europe's flights canceled. We were worried about getting back to work but, at the same time we wanted to stay and go to a Real Madrid Soccer match day after. We were delayed several hours at the airport because the airport was going to be closed. The gate attendants sent us to get a hotel voucher and we were called back to the gate. Nobody knew if the airport was going to remain open or closed. There was no free wii-fi at the aiport. I payed the 6 euros that they charged to log in for 30 minutes, check the news, and send an email to my family. After waiting hours at the airport for cancellations we were ready to go just to find out that our plane was delayed a few more hours due to mechanical reasons. We were upset, but not surprised that American Airlines has mechanical problems. We met other passengers that had driven or taken trains across Europe to fly from Spain. Spain was one of the few Countries that were not affected by the ash clouds. We had a multi-city ticket that allowed us to fly from the US to London and return from Madrid to the US. If the price of a round trip to London was significant lower at the time that we purchased we would have had to stay in Europe for at least one more week. It does sound like a good excuse to extend a vacation but I was taken non-paid time off at work and, my boyfriend had a new job waiting for him. It would have been a not so good way to stay in Europe longer. 

Needless to say, we lost our connection in Miami, we had to take the next flight to Tampa which was also delayed. They offered us to spend the night in Miami and fly to Tampa in the morning. We decided to wait for our already delayed flight. We finally arrived to Tampa at 2:00 AM when we were originally supposed to be back around 6:00 PM. We were lucky to be back on Sunday since we had to go to work early the next day. I was exhausted the whole day and a few more days after we were back. The jet-lag was not as bad as I expected it to be. It is worse when you fly the opposite time zone because you are not ready for bed. When you return from Europe you will be already 6 hours past your bed time. 

Euro Bills

Pound Sterling bills

Y El Paseo se Acabo (and the trip is over)

Next Stop: Paris

Getting ready to blog about Paris is not easy. I have about 1,500 pictures to sort and lots of stories to tell. This City that was a the top of my list of Places to Travel (I have had a top 10 for a long time). Everything about Paris is amazing to me: the language, the history, the culture, the wine, the FOOD!! There is no other place in the world that combines so many things that amaze me and want to try at the same time.  I had been trying to go to Europe for a while, but I always ended up going somewhere else for less time and money. Finally, the trip became a reality and luckily for us, I had a childhood friend living in Paris who offered to host us for as long as we needed. I wanted to go even if we didn't have a place to stay but we would have probably stayed for 3 nights since most of the hotels are so expensive. We decided to stay for 5 nights in Paris. The longest stay of the 6 Cities that we visited.

I started french classes on Saturday mornings a couple of months before the trip. I learned enough to say hello and thank you! I really want to learn french and I can understand a little, but I get ashamed of my poor pronunciation and don't speak much. The hardest part of learning another language is to take the risk of making a fool of yourself. On the other hand, my boyfriend did not speak a single word of french, but he was NOT afraid to try to say something. He even made a friend while we were visiting the Versailles Palace. Not just a friend but A french friend!!! My friend told us a few basic phrases and we were ready for our adventure. I think that was the best part of the trip: the challenge to get everything that we needed and not getting lost a single time. Of course we always asked if they spoke Spanish or English and the French were nice to us for trying to "speak" french first. Either that or they just wanted us to stop killing their beautiful language.

I recently found this video of Paris made of 2,000 photographs that I thought it is the best thing I've ever seen done of Paris. Pictures are always nice, a video is usually longer than I can stand, but this was the perfect mix of images and movement. Plus it is short and you get to see most of the monuments of the City.

Read the photographer's interview here

http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/2011/03/paris-in-2000-images.html

London Day 3 & 4

The third day was nicer and the rain finally stopped. I was supposed to meet another cousin that lives in London that day. We decided to meet at Nothing Hill to walk around the neighborhood and have lunch. Before lunch my boyfriend and I went to Chelsea to see the neighborhood. We ended up getting lost and being late for lunch. They told us there was nothing to see in Nothing Hill and instead they suggested to go to the Kensington Palace and Gardens. This was the official residence of Princess Diana. I thought the gardens were much nicer than the palace. I guess that the word PALACE makes me think of something bigger than a house that looks like a mansion. Maybe is just my lack of knowledge about this subject.

The most beautiful townhomes I have seen

Kensington Gardens

The gardens

Kensington Palace

After this we were meeting a friend of mine from Colombia in Soho. She said that we had to have tea while we were in London. I thought it was a great idea but, my boyfriend was not to excited. We met at the Dean Street Hotel for tea. The afternoon tea time was around 5:00 PM we stayed until almost 9:00 PM when they asked us to leave because the table had a reservation coming. We would have stayed longer if we could. The tea was OK but the biscuits, the scones and the fresh whipped cream were delicious! We were not allowed to take pictures but I found the menu in the hotel's website. This is what we had for ₤15.75 each: finger sandwiches, fruit scones, jam & clotted cream, selection of fancy cakes, and tea of your choice. It was expensive but the feeling of a fancy afternoon tea in London was priceless.

After the tea, we stopped at the biggest souvenir shop that we had ever seen. I love souvenirs. It is silly but, I love refrigerator magnets and if I see a nice t-shirt I get it. This place was located near Piccadilly Circus. It was called Cool Britannia. We didn't buy as much as we wanted because we still had 5 more Cities to buy Souvenirs from. 

Outside the Dean Street Townhouse Hotel

My kind of place - in Soho- we just walked by

On our last half-day in London, we went to the British Museum. We stayed for less than 2 hours because we had to cacth the train to Paris at 3:00 PM. The Museum was incredible. I loved the Egyptian room. I love the history of the Egyptians and going to Egypt is one of my dreams. We almost missed the train to Paris. There are many things that we could not see and do in London. I am sure that we will be back to this great City. 

I love the Underground sign

at the British museum

The Rosetta stone

London Day 2

The second day in London was also a very long walking day. This time it was raining. We packed a big umbrella for this trip but we didn't see it. I thought that we forgot to pack it. My cousin let us take a broken umbrella that he had. We had to buy one at the end of the day because it was a part-time job to keep the umbrella from "flying" up. This is what happens when the umbrella flips up and you end up all wet. Please forgive my lack of vocabulary but, I'm not from a rainy place. When it rains I don't go out, I don't drive and, if possible I stay under the blankets.

We started the day with breakfast at pret-a-mager. The goal of the day was to see the Big Ben and the Buckingham Palace. We started by walking towards Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. It was Good Friday and there were people dressed as Romans representing Christ's crucifixion. We watched for a few minutes and continued walking towards the Big Ben. We finally saw it. It was beautiful and more beautiful than I expected. We crossed the street towards the Westminster Abbey to take pictures. We continued walking towards Buckingham Palace when the rain stated to get bad and we had no place to stop. We got wet and watched the palace as quick as we could. We tried to walk fast toward the other side of the park but it took a while to walk across the palace's gardens. We took a break at the first cafe that we saw. After the rain we walked towards Piccadilly Circus and Leister Square. Then, we walked back towards Hyde Park. At this point we were starving. There were no restaurants of cafes nearby except hard rock cafe. There was a long wait, but we decided to wait sitting down than walk towards who knows where for who knows how long.

Happy to see the big Ben up close

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

Picadilly Circus

Piccadilly 

Every time we saw a guard we had to photograph him

hello?

The umbrella incident happened way too many times. It was cold and we were wet but it was funny

This pic is off focus but I love how you can tell is a double-deck bus and it was a coincidence

I collect HRC pins of the places that I travel. It started as a favor for a friend that collected them. I used to buy her one for every trip that I took where she didn't have a pin. I started to buy one for her and one for me. I really got into it and now my friends buy pins for me when they travel. I like it because there is always a HRC in every "important" City. We didn't have one in Colombia when I lived there so, I always thought it was so nice to actually have a Hard Rock. There are 3 hard rock cafes in Colombia so, I guess we qualify as a worthy tourist destination.

@ the original Hard Rock Cafe. I collect HRC pins from the places I travel and my friends bring me pins when they travel. It is a nice collection that I'm proud of.

After shopping and having dinner we took a double deck bus back to meet my cousin. We walked towards the Big Ben again to see it at night. We tried taking pictures but the night pictures are not the best. We were supposed to go out later with my cousin but we were just too tired.

Taking pictures at night is a nightmare for the non-professional photographers

The London Eye at night

EuroTrip 2010. First Stop: London

Our first stop in Europe was London. We were supposed to sleep in the plane but neither of us could. We arrived at 6:00AM to London Heathrow. We were staying with my cousin who had given us directions on how to get to his place. The first thing we noticed was on the train ride when they kept saying "mind the gap". I didn't see the gap until we got of at our station. We will be eternally thankful to my cousin who at the time was a student at LSE and let us stay with him in his tiny dorm room. It was very small but, were were right next to Trafalgar Square and a main underground station. Most of the time in London, I felt that we were in New York and not in Europe. Maybe because we were still speaking English or, maybe because many of the buildings and museums looked a lot like NYC. 

I had to get the notebook that I used when I was in Europe to write the details of these blog. I wrote all the places that we visited when we were flying back. You think that you will never forget all the amazing moments but, the truth is that in one year I forgot a lot. I am now ready with my "cheat" sheet to write about all the things that we did and the places that we saw.

The first day in London was one of the longest walks of the whole trip. We left our bags at my cousin's place and then we had breakfast at pet-a-mager. This became our favorite breakfast place in London. The croissants were good and they had a lot of tasty food. The three of us walked towards LSE to see my cousin's school and he showed us around the places where he went. We walked towards the south bank and Tower of London. We saw the Thames river and the London Eye for the first time. We kept walking and stopped at the Tate Modern Museum. I wish that we could have spent more time here. Some of Picasso's and Matisse's famous paintings are here. There is no fee for the Museum. I definitely recommend it. Then we saw the Shakespeare's Theatre and continued walking. We finally saw the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. We took lots of pictures of the bridge and then headed to visit the Tower of London. My cousin had never been inside so it was great to have him there as a tourist. The tour was nice and along the way they were telling us the stories about the Tower and Henry VIII. At some point we sat down to listen to one of the stories and I fell asleep. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep that at the first chance to sit down in a quiet place I fell asleep. I was ashamed! How could I be at this site that I wanted to visit for a long time and fall asleep???? I felt bad until I found out that my boyfriend fell asleep too. 

First day in London. Sleep deprived but Happy to see the Tower Bridge

The Tower Bridge

The entrance to the tower of London. I was very excited to see it. I love the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn story.

It was about 5:00 PM and it was time for lunch. We walked to the Liberty Bounds, a pub close to the Tower of London, for lunch. We had Indian food. My cousin said that we had to try it while we were in London since it was very "typical". I don't love Indian food but, I have to admit that it was good. Probably better than having the traditional fish and chips dish. We stayed for a while and had a few beers. Actually, I don't like beer, they had beer and I had Strongbow cider.

Since we were happy to see the City we didn't feel tired anymore. We ended up walking all the way back towards my cousin's dorm. We wanted some coffee and went toTrafalgar Square to have cappuccinos at Caffe Nero. They were VERY good! I wish Starbucks was that good.  Finally it was 10:00PM and it was time to sleep. We slept for 12 hours that night.