Day 10: London to Paris

We made breakfast and watched the news as usual trying to keep in touch with the things that are happening around us. Since we've been here Wimbledon has seen local Andy Murray win, Euro cup occurred in Paris, tour de france continues, a new prime minister was quite suddenly installed at downing street, a terrorist attack occured in Nice, a coup was stopped in Istanbul, and we're only 10 days in. We're thankful for an uneventful trip so far and hope some of the changes will be positive. We seem to be on the cusp of major change, but it's hard to say what that change is exactly. Life goes on and we will continue to enjoy ourselves. For our last London site we visit the British Library next to the train station. The building itself is quite boring contrasting with the beautiful victorian gothic St. Pancras train station. What's spectacular about the library is what it contains. I knew it held a copy of the magna carta, old Bible manuscripts (which were neat to see) but I was more fascinated with it's copies of Jane Austen's hand-written Persuasion, Handel's Messiah, and Henry the 8's love letter to Anne Bolyn. It is well worth a quick look in. We went back to our flat to grab our bags and make our way to the station. Our flat was nice and served it's purpose, but we're definitely looking forward to more comfortable accomodations in Paris. We went to the top floor of the international station which was renovated in the late 90s after suffering great damage from bombings during the second world war. We enjoyed a coffee and relaxed in a great little spot away from the crowds (Benugo espresso bar) before our departure on a high speed train to Paris. The train and station are incredibly nice. The train is super comfortable... jealous. I love traveling by train and wish we could travel like this in the states instead of flying. It's above ground most of the way, but does go under the chunnel for about 20 minutes. It travels from London to Paris in 2 hours and 20 minutes so you can't beat that. We get off and make our way to the underground metro. It's instantly easier to navigate than the tube. It's great learning the tube first (english and a little complicated in my opinion) and then learning the metro. The metro uses numbers and their signage is much better than London. In just a couple minutes from leaving the train, we arrive to pick up our 5 day pass for unlimited metro and bus use and a fast pass into more than 50 museums called the Paris Visite card. To me, time is money and I didn't fly all this way to wait in lines. We then walk a block to our hotel (Hotel Saint Honore) which is right next to the Louvre. We originally used our reward points for free plane tickets, but when we needed to cancel that trip we used the points towards our hotel for 6 nights free in an awesome hotel. What better place than Paris to be comfortable? Our polite and funny bell hop takes us to our room and thankfully Joel exchanged our last pounds into euros to have something to give him. Whew! We relax for a bit before finding dinner. We happen upon a nice bistro and eat a light and healthy meal - Joel has the chicken Picatta and I have a very healthy portion of Salmon Tartare. Suddenly I feel like I'm actually on vacation. Up until now, it's been too crazy to actually relax because the energy that is in Edinburgh and London is palpable. Paris is completely different. Less people, less tourists, warmer weather, and happier people that are living at a slower pace. After dinner we walk to the Louvre and through Tuileries garden back to our hotel for a shower, chocolate (it's an essential part of my nightly routine), and plan for the Louvre tomorrow.Read more