PARIS!

As an engagement present for Peter and I, and a graduation present for Cat, Peter's parents booked a weekend trip to Paris for the five of us. Friday morning we woke up around 5am and were on our way to the euro tunnel which goes straight into France. You literally drive your car into the train and it takes about a half hour to get to the other side. The drive then is about 2-2.5 hours into Paris, most of which the three of us in the back were asleep :-) We stopped once for a croissant and tea, and soon we were at Disneyland!! The weather was grey and rainy, but only really rained right when we got there. The first ride: Big Thunder Mountain. This ride was very similar to ours, only it had a few extra turns--including one that goes under a little lake, which we don't have. I was very happy to find so many similarities to ours, as I think it should be! One thing that I really liked: when I think of Disneyland, I automatically think of ours in Anaheim. Yes, it is the original, but it's also where I grew up going. To think that some people think of Disneyland Paris as "Disneyland," felt weird to me. Some people, like Peter, grew up going to this place and thinking of it as Disneyland, because it's simply the closest Disneyland park to him. Another yummy food for thought: when I am at Disneyland (Anaheim), I tend to notice how many tourists there are. How far people travel to go to Disneyland. And here I was, in Paris, all the way from San Diego! Finally, I was an actual tourist at Disneyland. What a crazy idea! After Thunder Mountain, we went to Pirates. When Peter came to our Disneyland, he told me that he really liked the entrance better in Paris compared to ours. I do like when the line/queue tells a story before you get on the ride, and I did like this in Paris. But, our ride was better. (And that's all that matters! ;-)) This one was still very similar, but it lacked character monologue and music. I love the skull in ours and how he speaks just before the drop, and the music all around, including the "Yo-Ho" that everyone obviously sings along to ;-) Next was Indiana Jones. Peter had never been on this and had a false concept of what the ride did, which made it exciting. No story while waiting in line like ours, and no story during the ride, either. It was plain and simply a small little roller coaster with one loop-de-loop. It was fun, but absolutely 100% NOT like our Indiana Jones ride :-) After this, we went into Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan. Peter's mom loves this ride, and honestly, who doesn't? Of all the rides in Fantasyland, this one always guarantees a long line (unfortunately) for one simple reason: it's so good! This one was literally exactly like ours. Next, Small world: very similar to ours. Lots of intricate detail that makes the ride so interesting. Then we were on our way to Space Mountain. Space seems to be a favorite to many people at Disneyland. It's dark, it's fast, the music is right in your ears, and it's fun! This one was a little more intense compared to ours because it's more of a roller coaster with loop-de-loops and cork screws. Still dark and fast, lots of fun. One thing I do like about ours in Ca is that even children can ride it and enjoy it. I don't think Disney's original intention was to make big scary roller coasters that some children could potentially be afraid of. Nonetheless, it was great! Our last ride of the day at Disneyland was the Haunted Mansion. I love this ride at Disneyland because it's a good relaxing ride after a long full day of walking. One of the negatives about this ride--it was entirely in French, so while you're in the elevator, I had no idea what he was saying (although I can assume it's the same as ours). Aside from the obvious language barrier, it was great fun and so similar to ours. Maybe even better--dare I say! Towards the end, where ours has weird mechanical ghosts that you can HEAR moving, this one had sorta-scary, cool looking skeletons which seemed to be a major theme. All in all, if it hadn't been so similar, I might not have liked it as much as I thought I was going to. I can say, that even though everything LOOKS very similar, it doesn't exactly feel that way. The layout of the park is much bigger, so everything is more spread out. I didn't hear a lot of music around the park, and I didn't see very much staff as you would at ours. We went over to the other park called "Walt Disney Studio" which is basically like a very small California Adventure. It has the Hollywood Sign, the statue of Walt and Mickey, lots of shopping, and the Tower of Terror. It also has a roller coaster inspired by Aerosmith which is crazy fun! So we rode that twice, then Tower of Terror, then headed to the hotel.

Our hotel was just minutes away from the Eiffel Tower. When we walked outside, we could see it just a few blocks down :-) We all stayed on the top floor (31st!), so we had an amazing view of the city center. We came in, showered and got ready for dinner. We had booked a reservation for one of the Japanese restaurants in the hotel, one that would have a chef cooking our food in front of us (like Benihana or Shogun). But after opening the menu and seeing how much the prices were, we had to apologize and find a new place. The prices were outrageous. So we found a nice place a few floors below with a nice view and delicious menu :-) After dinner, Peter and I went for our walk to the Eiffel Tower where we were meeting my friend Jessica Williams. She was on a little vacation with someone she'd met not long before who lives in France. So we met them and had a few drinks, it was really nice to catch up with her, especially because it feels like forever since I've seen any of my friends!! After, Peter and I enjoyed our gorgeous, slow walk back to the hotel and off to bed for our 8am wake up!

After leaving the hotel at 9am, we went to our first car park in Paris and stopped for breakfast at a place called Les Deux Magots. It's seemed like now it's become more of a tourist attraction, as several famous people such as Oscar Wilde, Earnest Hemmingway and Pablo Piccasso were known to frequent here often. After our delicious french breakfast of croissants, tea and coffee, we were off to the next car park and walked to The famous Arc de Triomphe. To our delightful surprise, European members from age 18-25 were free to go to the top! After an endless climb up the spiral staircase, we took in the gorgeous birds eye view of Paris.

Next was our venture to the British Embassy. We were all really excited for this, as Peter's friend Tom works here, so we would have our own personal tour around the place known to only very important people! Colin Firth had just been there for "The King's Speech" premier party. Everything from the utensils and the kitchenware to the furniture and chandeliers was absolutely breathtaking. And so much history was involved in each piece, too! I think Peter's parents were especially pleased with our intimate tour as they were already so knowledgeable about the history that accompanied it. 

Last but not least was our journey to Montmartre. I had been here before, but during sunset, so it was nice to see it during the day (even though it seemed like it was sunnier last time). Still, a great view  of Paris!

I got through immigration with no hassle at all. I had been nervous about this ever since getting through immigration at the airport--and it was a piece of cake! It was the perfect ending to such a fantastic weekend! Au revoir!

NYE!

The fireworks!
New Years eve, Peter and I celebrated in London. Just before our drive up, we made our own pizzas while drinking Buck's Fizz (mimosa) and chatting with mom on Skype. I got to wear my new dress I got for Christmas, and got a new belt for it too! The drive up to London was actually really quick, it took just over an hour. We parked in the O2 stadium parking lot, and caught the Tube right into Leicester Square and walked to Picadilly Circus to meet James, Jessica and Allison. James and Jess were visiting Allison (who is studying in Swansea for a year), and they made a trip into their stop to see Al. They were coming from Dublin and on their way to Amsterdam then Germany. We met them in a pub, and after meeting all of Allison's friends from school, we had a few drinks before heading to the next pub. The entire city was packed, so we made our way as close to the fireworks as possible to stop for a last drink before the show. It was actually pretty relaxed, since we weren't getting too out of hand with the drinks, so we just enjoyed seeing everyone and made our way to find a good spot. We ended up on Whitehall St., so Big Ben was just to our right, and Thames River and London eye straight ahead. Though we were one street parallel to everything, we couldn't hear the music, but could see the fireworks, and they were amazing. People everywhere were going crazy they were so good. 

Getting out of London was a nightmare. Of course, most of the girls in our group had to use the bathroom (including myself), so that made getting out even more frustrating. Basically, all 250,000 people were trying to leave at the same time. There were police on horses blocking the streets just to monitor the crazy traffic flow. Once we finally got out of the street we were on (we ALL had to hold hands to make sure we were together, it was that crowded), we walked a ways away back to their hostel, and Peter and I continued to find an open Tube station. The entire walk, which must have lasted an hour and we barely got anywhere, we were on the lookout for bathrooms. It was clear that we weren't the only ones, as we saw loads of guys stopped off in corners, or along buildings doing their business. Unfortunately, it's not as easy for women, so we kept looking. Pubs and restaurants were closing, and were not letting anyone inside. Once we had left the group, we had to walk all over to find a tube station that was open. Most of them had only closed because they were too crowded. We found a Burger King across one of the open stations, so went inside knowing they'd have a public restroom. But, they had security guarding the downstairs area (where the restroom was), and you had to show them a receipt to get down there. SO! We had to wait in line to order something to get through. Once getting through, there was another LONG line just to get into the restroom, as it only had two stalls. Everyone all around was frustrated. Here we had just walked what seemed like miles through an insane amount of people to finally find this one open restroom. Women were constantly trying to get in the mens bathroom, since they obviously didn't have a line, but there were a few security guards stopping them. This was the one thing that seriously aggravated me about this night. They must have obviously known that these fireworks would attract an insane amount of people, so it would make sense to have some portable toilets placed around the city. Instead, we had guys all over the city peeing anywhere, and really upset women.

Aside from that incident though, it was  a really fun night and the fireworks were the best I have ever seen. It was good to see James, Jess and Al, as I haven't really come into much contact with other American's since being here. Everyone flocked to Peter since he knew where he was going, so it was fun to watch everyone come to him with maps and follow him around.

During the weekend, we took a drive to a place called Sandwich. It was only about 30-40 minutes. Peter hadn't been here before, and it's pretty well known. So we drove through and admired the small town and buildings, and went a few more miles to a place called Deal. This was right along the coast, with a pier and a castle. We wanted to stop somewhere for fish and chips, but the place we went to wasn't as good as we had hoped. Here are some of the pictures we got!