Irene in front of the Eiffel Tower; me in the catacombs, the sign reads "Attention: this is the empire of death;" and both of us on the top of the double-decker in London.
I am back in Jordan after spending the last nine days in London and Paris with Irene. London was fantastic. We stayed in the financial district which was very centrally located. The hotel was right next door to St. Paul's Cathedral and extremely close to the Millennium Bridge and several other attractions. We walked all over the city and got a pretty good feel for it. We also purchased a bus tour pass for a day so that we could hop on and off at any of the tourist attractions. Irene and I were especially impressed with Westminster Abbey, coronation (and burial) place of the Kings and Queens of England. It was an impressive tour. I also enjoyed the British Museum which has amazing collections pilfered from all over the world.
The people in London were fantastic. Very nice and polite as was expected. The food was pretty standard "pub fare," but the selection of cask ales more than made up for the simple nature of the food.
After three days in London, Irene and I then took the Eurotrain through the "Chunnel" and arrived in Paris. Paris was unbelievably expensive. It was also quite a contrast with London. Whereas London was clean and well kept, Paris is covered with trash, graffiti, there is dog feces all over the sidewalks and Irene saw a guy peeing on a wall in broad daylight. The Metro (subway) in Paris was convenient, yet disgusting. Also, many of the Metro stations reeked of urine.
We stayed in two very nice hotels in Paris that were located extremely close to the Arc de Triomphe. Irene and I toured around Paris and saw all of the landmarks that are required on such a trip. The Louvre was good (though I preferred the British Museum) but as many before me have noted, it is too large to see more than a few rooms in a day. The catacombs were very cool and it was one of my favorite tours of the vacation.
I guess the best thing going in Paris is the food. After getting completely screwed at an Indian restaurant the first night there (I especially enjoyed paying the equivalent of $20 for white rice to go with our small plates of curried chicken), we followed the advice in a guide book and had some pretty fantastic meals for a reasonable (by Paris standards) price.
My main complaint about Paris was the seemingly endless string of French bastards that took it upon themselves to screw me out of my Euros. Besides the aforementioned $20 white rice, there was the $15 Guinness, the $8 glasses of water and the $5 diet cokes (and that was a bargain price -- the hotel charged $10). Then there were the constant "mistakes" that occurred at the restaurants. On more than one occasion we were "accidently" charged for items we didn't order or for the more expensive prix fix menu when we had ordered ala carte. Now, mistakes do happen. However, when you hand the check back to the waiter and he doesn't even need an explanation before turning to "fix" the problem that is a pretty good sign that he is trying to screw you. There was also the cab driver that charged 6 Euro to go about four blocks even though the meter read less than 4 Euro. I'll spare you the details, but I think Irene was surprised at the speed with which I chased that (profanity omitted) French (profanity omitted) down the street after we exchanged words and he laughed in my face and asked me "what I was going to do about it?" If only he hadn't made that next light I might have seen how the filth of the Metro compared with the filth of a French jail.
So to wrap up, that's thumbs way up for London. Thumbs somewhat down for Paris. Most importantly, it was nice to spend time with Irene and, hopefully, she has the "Paris thing" out of her system and now we can focus on a return trip to Ireland.
