Hello everyone!
Time for an update on my day off! So the last week of January I took a week off work from the Moose and visited London and Barcelona. It was a crazy week because I obviously couldn't skip any of my classes so I had to fit in traveling around my teaching schedule. I taught Monday and Tuesday, then went directly to Paris Gare du Nord after my last class on Tuesday afternoon to catch the Eurostar to London! The Eurostar is in a little upstairs section of Gare du Nord that I'd never been to before, complete with British border control agents and an x-ray scanner. For some reason I hadn't expected anyone to care that I was visiting the UK for 2 days, but I ended up having to fill out an immigration card and I was questioned by a border control agent as to the "nature of my trip" (to have fun?) I also had to provide the address of the place I was staying and who I was visiting, etc. The Eurostar "lounge" is a little like a miniature airport terminal, with "duty-free" shops and overpriced food. Once the "gate" opens, everyone gets onto these funny moving walkways that lead down to the train platform, and then you have to find your train car with your assigned seat. The Eurostar was definitely the longest train I have ever seen in my life -- I overheard someone saying it has the capacity of four 747's, but I'm not sure if that's really true -- in any case, it took me 10 minutes to walk all the way to the first car where my seat was.
The trip itself took a little over 2 hours, and the train was great -- smooth, quiet, fast -- pretty much the polar opposite of the train transportation I take most days in and around Paris. It was really strange (and awesome) sitting on the train surrounded by Brits after being surrounded by Parisians on the trains for the past month. One of the things that's interesting about living in a country where the language is not your "langue maternelle" is that it's a lot harder to overhear other people's conversations. It depends on the person and the accent, but if I want to understand someone's conversation in French on the train a couple seats away from me, I actually have to make a conscious effort to focus on what they're saying, whereas if they were speaking English I'd be listening in on their conversation whether I wanted to or not! I spent a lot of the train ride listening to the conversation between two British men sitting across the aisle from me, and I must say, I could listen to that accent all day long! Also, not trying to diss Americans, but Brits really do have a better vocabulary than most Americans I've met!
Anyway, we arrived at London St-Pancras International station, and from there I had an easy connection to the London Underground (the tube!) Compared to the Paris metro it was incredibly easy to navigate, and I took the Circle Line to Tower Gate and then transferred to the DLR (light rail) with no problems! The Aloft hotel where my friend will was staying for his conference was right by the Excel center, steps from the DLR station in the southern docks area, about 45 minutes outside the center of London. I'd been up since 6am, so a hot shower and a few glasses of wine at the hotel bar was pretty much my idea of a perfect night.
The next day Will had to work for most of the day, so I set off to London in the morning by myself to do some touristy exploring. It was incredibly windy in London, which made walking around a little less enjoyable, but London is a beautiful city and I made the best of it! I took the tube to Westminster, then got off and walked past the London Eye, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey, then walked down the length of King's Park to Buckingham Palace (where I'd missed the changing of the guard by 20 minutes! Oh well, next time...) Then I walked back downtown and explored the Charring Cross area (National Portrait Gallery, etc.) and had lunch at a little (French...) cafe right off Charring Cross Road. Then I took myself to go see the Silver Linings Playbook at a movie theater by Piccadilly, and thoroughly enjoyed not having those annoying French subtitles on the screen! Great movie, btw.. funny, sad, and a little off-kilter, my favorite!
After the movie I took the tube up to the top of the Soho area for a celebratory dinner with Will and his co-workers and boss at an AMAZING Thai restaurant (think spicy scallops, 2 kinds of lobster in curry sauces, and ginger-pear spiced daiquiris)... definitely the best food I've had in a long time! Afterwards we went to a pub so the boys could do some Fireball shots (which I declined... I've had enough Fireball "whiskey" in my time as a bartender) and a few beers before making the train journey back to the hotel.
The next day Will had to catch a flight to Berlin in the early afternoon, so we just had time for a traditional English breakfast/lunch at a pub called The Fox by the hotel. Now I can say that I've had real British "bangers and mash" (sausages and mashed potatoes) and fish and chips (with a side of beans)! It was delicious and went great with out barely-noon pints of amber ale :P Then I set off back to St-Pancras for my train back to Paris (and had a 3 hour wait in which I ate way too many croissants and drank far too much coffee).
I got back to my apartment around 11pm that night and then got up the next morning to go teach my 8:30am class, re-packed my bag for Barcelona during my lunch break, then set off directly to the airport for my flight to Barcelona after my afternoon classes. I made it to CDG with plenty of time (I can thank the RER gods for working with me this ONE time), and landed in Barcelona around 9pm that night. A 20-min bus ride and I was in central Barcelona, where my friends from high school Chris Jorde and Chris Chapman met me at Placa Catalunya. They live in the center of one of the busiest and most beautiful areas in Barcelona, 10 minutes walking from the beach and the gothic area. Chapman is a great chef and he had an amazing dinner waiting at their apartment, along with a couple bottles of great Spanish red.
The next day after some eggs and espresso, we set off around 9am to go climbing! We took the metro about 45 minutes to the beautiful town of Gelida in the Spanish countryside, then hiked another 45 minutes uphill through the town and eventually through the forest above to the rock wall. (We stopped along the way to have pastries, coffee, and hot chocolate at a little Spanish cafe. And let me be clear, when I say hot chocolate, I mean large cups of pure, thick, molten dark chocolate...) It was an incredible sunny day around 60 degrees, and I was in heaven feeling the sun on my skin again. It ended up being pretty windy, but who cares. I couldn't have asked for a better day. For those interested in climbing, here's link to a map of the routes:
http://climbingaway.fr/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=3&Itemid=4&recherche=1941
I hadn't climbed since I left California in September, so I got tired pretty quickly, but I managed to do 3 great climbs and got halfway up the last, most physical climb, before my arms completely gave out and I had to call it a day. Climbing again (and outdoors!) was fantastic and made it miss it more than ever. Around 5pm we made the trip back to Barcelona (with another stop at the bakery for good measure), showered, and then went out for some tapas, beer, more tapas, more beer, great gin & tonics, and some absinthe to finish off the night. It was a great night, but I must say by 4am I was pretty damn tired and just wanted to get back to the apartment and pass out.
The next day we all woke up around noon headed down toward the beach, where we stopped by Chapman's favorite churro stand for dulce-de-leche and dark-chocolate covered churro "appetizers" before a 2pm brunch at Milk, where Chris and I had huge Spanish-style "fry-ups", complete with eggs, bacon, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, and toast and Champan had a delectable-looking eggs Florentine.
Refueled, we took a walk through the beautiful Gothic quarter and then set out for Park Guell, where, after a bit of a climb, we got to see the most fantastic view of Barcelona and the ocean beyond. After exploring the park, we headed back to the apartment so I could get my stuff and catch the bus back to the airport for my 9pm flight back to Paris. I can say that Barcelona has by far been the favorite place I've visited so far, and I've actually already booked a flight back for March 5 during my two-week winter vacation. I can't wait to be back and have more time to explore the city and climb with Chris!
I'll write Part 2 of this blog later and post some photos -- it's time for yoga class!
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment