Day 5- Travel Day to London, England

Monday, December 30, 2013

Today was a day that was both sad and exciting. The much anticipated four day trip to London was here, but it was the day I would be leaving my beloved city behind. We woke up around 5:00 a.m. to get our shuttle to the French train station. Surprisingly, it was a very nice and scenic tour of the French and English countryside as we made our way to London under the English Channel, which took around two hours. The country side reminded me of pictures I had seen of Ireland, very green, wet vast farmlands with the cutest little sheep I had ever seen (thousands of them).

{Richard and I enjoying our breakfast on the train ride}

{Leslie drinking the delicious OJ}


After our train ride, we checked into the most beautiful hotel, The Royal Horseguards. It offered the classic London feel of the grand white stone building, beautiful flower arrangements (even in the dead of winter), an adorable door man with a top hat, along with much more. 

{Our BEAUTIFUL Hotel from across the Thames River}

{Getting ready to go to Harrods}

Once we checked into the hotel, we got changed into warmer clothes and rain jackets, and had our door man hail a cab for us to take to Harrods department store.  I have only heard stories about this department store, but I do not think you can quite comprehend the magnitude of this place until you see it in person. The store contains your typical upscale clothing lines that the average person cannot afford, but the best part was the food court and the team rooms.

{Just a few options from the food court}

 

We ate this delicious authentic pizzeria, which is funny because the most popular food choice in London is Italian. As we ate and enjoyed our pizza choices, it was a nice relief to finally understand the people around us and read the menu.  After I ate an entire pizza on my own, we decided to walk around and see all the tea rooms and neat toy stores that were offered there. Since today was our travel day between Paris and London, we decided to walk around London and get a feel for the city. What is nice about London is that everything is very centralized. Once we walked outside of our hotel, we were able to walk to Parliament/Big Ben, Thames river, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace within minutes.

{The view of the London Eye from our hotel}

 

{The first thing that came to my mind the moment when I saw Big Ben was the classic movie- Peter Pan}.

{Classic phone booth picture...a tourist must}

{The London Tube}

{ The more modern version of the Double-Decker bus}

{Trafalgar Square}

{That night we walked to a classic London pub called Sherlock Holmes}

{First night I had the classic chicken pot pie}

Snow Storm of 2014

There was much anticipation of it snowing in Atlanta on Tuesday, January 28th. However, As a teacher you walk into school knowing that your students are going to be crazy and wanting school to close for the day; however, the local meteorologists predicated just a light dusting of snow for northern counties of Atlanta. Today was supposed to be a normal/ fun day because Richard and I were supposed to be hosting my mom's 55th birthday dinner at our house, which obviously didn't happen.

The snow started to fall around 11:00 a.m., but I never thought it was going to stick until the snow fall got worse and the temperatures quickly dropped below freezing.

{View from my classroom around 11:00 a.m.}

As schools started closing early and parents attempted to pick up their children, the entire city of Atlanta left work, school, and every other place someone could leave to try to get home. However, for millions of people that did not happen. Roads quickly iced over and there were car accidents every couple of feet as they were sliding down hills. For many of us, our normal 30 minutes- 1 hour drive home turned into 5-6 hours sitting still in a panic not knowing if you were in traffic or stuck behind someone who was in an accident. As the storm and roads got worse, parents were unable to get their children from school. My mom, like many other teachers and staff workers, stayed behind with the children keeping them warm and feeding them dinner as they had to stay the night. Then you had people like my brother-in-law who was stuck in traffic and unable to get home because of the iced roads, but  he was eventually able to stay at a friend or a friends house on the other side of town after sitting in the car for over 10 hours.

{Google Maps just informing all of us there is no where to go}

{Road outside our neighborhood- complete ice}

My heart breaks for all the people who were stuck and currently are stuck in their cars after sitting on the road for 20+ hours with no gas, food, or a place to relax. As I woke up this morning, 1/29/14, I thought I would wake up to the news reporting on how the roads are clear and everyone got home, but that is far from the truth.

Many newspaper articles are calling what happened in Atlanta "SNOWMAGEDDON" and
"FROZEN IN PLACE", as people have left their cars on all major hwys not allowing emergency vehicles get to the people in need.

Nevertheless, this a time where our eyes are opened a little wider today as you hear and see all the stories of people getting on four wheelers to push people up hills, opening their homes to complete strangers, and teachers staying the night at school until the children are home safe. Hopefully today temperatures will rise enough to warm the roads so the stranded people can get home and off the roads before they freeze over again.

{Just a few pictures that Richard and I were able to get once we got home safely}

Day 4- Paris, France

Sunday, December 29, 2013

(Last Day in Paris) 

Today we woke up early and had a traditional Parisian breakfast, which consisted of a small cup of coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a freshly baked croissant with a variety of jam (It's just the perfect size). After breakfast, the four of us took a cab to our "official" visit of the Eiffel Tower.  The size and detail is just beautiful as the strips of iron wrap to the very top.  We decided not to go to the top since it was a 3-5 hour wait due to only 2 lifts being in operation.  Instead, we walked to the quiet side of the tower as the sun was starting to rise.  Normally, the iron resembles a dark bronze color, but today it was the brightest gold color thanks to the rising sun shining upon it.  It was very beautiful!

After the million pictures we took, we decided to take another cab ride to the highest point in Paris, Montmartre.

(One of our only group pictures of the trip)

The winding cobble stone streets took us to another world that felt like we were no longer in Paris.  As we approached the city, our view of a beautiful  called,  Sacre-Coeur, which means sacred heart.  This section of Paris absolutely took my breath away and was definitely my favorite part of the entire Paris-London trip. As we got out of the cab we started our walk into the square right when the church bells began to rang.   There was so much life in Montmartre.

(Sacre- Coeur, the sacred heart)

(Classic look of a Parisian- so mysterious)

(The beautiful view of Paris from the top of the city)

Street vendors and artists roamed the streets.  The artists had an amazing display of drawings and paintings.  I was shocked by their beauty.  Richard and I bought two beautiful oil paintings: one of Notre Dame Cathedral and one that was painted of one of the street views of Sacre-Coeur.  We purchased our Sacre-Couer painting from the sweetest old man name Pierre Michigan.  Since we did not have enough cash on us, he ran Richard down the street to pay with the credit card at his studio. Richard said that Pierre rang his studio door bell with extreme excitement as he was overjoyed to show is wife that he was able to sell one of his larger works to us.  He was so grateful.  Best experience yet.

(Buying our first painting of Notre Dame)

(The painting after it has been framed)

(Our favorite painting...Thank you Pierre!)

(Our beloved artist, Pierre Michigan)

That night, out last night, Leslie booked a dinner cruise down the Seine River, which was absolutely beautiful. As we ate our three course dinner, we were able to get a different view of the city from the river.  The best part of the dinner cruise was when we saw the light show of the Eiffel Tower, which consisted of strobe lights flickering all across the tower. Surprisingly, the light show was very short, lasting only five minutes, but it started at 11:00 p.m.

(video of the Eiffel Tower during the light show)