Day 16

Wednesday, July 26 was my last day in Paris. Rats! I could have spent a whole lot of time there. Contrary to popular American opinion, I found the French people to be a pretty congenial lot.

I got up about 7:00, showered and did a little packing before I went down to the buffet breakfast. I went back to my room to finish packing because I thought I might not have time later. Eurostar to London was scheduled to leave the Gare du Nord at 1:00pm.

The Metro train was quite crowded with people going to work. It was about 8:30 and I was holding on to the pole in the train. I noticed a lady near me and couldn't help looking at her. There was something magnetic about her. The lady, much to my surprise, asked me something in French. I told her I did not speak French and she asked the time. I showed her my watch and she and her daughter (I think) sat down after some of the passengers cleared out at the next stop. I still could not keep from looking at her, nor could she keep from looking at me. I tried the window reflection trick, but so did she. The Louvre stop came up and I had to go. I turned to her and we both said au revoir at the same time. I know there must have been some powerful chemistry working. I was off to the Louvre as the train departed. C'est la vie. (That's life.)

I got to the Louvre before 9:00, but there was already a long line that snaked from the entrance pyramid to the Denon building, one of the three main buildings that make up the Louvre. It started raining, but not to worry, I had my umbrella in my bag. When the museum opened at 9:00, the line moved quickly.

I had to zip through most of the Museum in order to see some of the featured items, but I got a good overview of why this museum is perhaps the most famous in the world.

I headed to the Hammurabi Code, but found that section closed. Rats! I went pretty fast, but some of the art works I saw were as follows: Sculptures included The Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, The Dying Slave by Michelangelo, and Madonna and Child by Donatello. Paintings included works by Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer, and of course the Mona Lisa by Leonardo de Vinci.

The Louvre has extensive collections of Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian, Iranian, English, German, Dutch and many other cultures too numerous to name here. I saw as much as I could in the two hours I had.

Back on the Metro to the hotel, I went up and watched a few headlines on CNN World. I checked out and the desk person asked me if I had taken breakfast while I was there. (All hotels did this. The buffet seems to be on the honor system.) Of course I said I had not eaten the buffet. Ha, Ha, not really, I told her the truth.

I took my rolling suitcase (By the way, that rolling suitcase my mom gave me for Christmas is the ideal piece of luggage.) and rolled it along to the Gare du Nord. I got to the Eurostar gate way early, bought a small sandwich at the snack bar, and just sat around until they allowed boarding.

The train departed on time and picked up speed as we got farther from Paris. The train was not full at all. I had the back 8 seats to myself in my car. We were running parallel to an autoroute, and we must have been going about 130 mph because we were passing the cars at a pretty good clip. The trip is three hours, so I pulled out my London stuff to see what I could do when I got there. I was rather hungry, so I went to the adjoining snack bar/dining car to see if they had anything I wanted to eat. I ordered the "most popular item", a cheeseburger and paid with a combination of francs and pounds. I took the burger back to my seat. That was the worst burger I have ever had. It had been zapped in a microwave oven and the lettuce was hot. Yuk! I blame the British. The French must not be in charge of the snack bar, because I don't think they would foist food of this sort on the public.

Calais came into view, and the train slowed to enter the tunnel under the English Channel. It only took about 20 minutes to cross the channel, and when we came out on the English side, everything looked real familiar. This was the same route taken by my train to Dover on the previous Thursday.

The train didn't go as fast in England as it did in France. In fact we had to stop for a while for some switching problem, I guess. We rolled into London's Waterloo station about a half-hour late.

From Waterloo station, I took the tube to Victoria Station, collected my luggage and hit the streets in search of a hotel. About a block from the station, I saw the sign for Hotel Russel.

I went up to the hotel door and found the sign on the door to ring. I rang the bell, and pretty soon a middle-aged lady opened the door. I followed her up the narrow stairway to the hallway on the second level. I asked the lady (Mrs. Russel?) if she had a single for one night. She said, "Are you sure it will be for only one night?". I assured her I would only be there one night. I asked her how much the room cost and she said 40 pounds, and no credit cards. Oops, I told her I only had 30 pounds on me, but I could go to a money machine for the other 10 pounds. About that time, the husband appeared from behind a door in the hallway. (Mr, Russel?) He had a stubble beard and was wearing a white undershirt. He looked wiry and tough...not big, but intimidating, and no humor at all. The wife explained to the husband that I wanted a single for one night and that I only had 30 pounds, but would bring the rest soon. Mr, Russel asked me again if I only wanted one night, and I assured him that that was all I needed. He said ok, so the wife gave me a key to my third floor room and also a key to the front door. I asked her if the room had a bathroom and she said no, the bath is in the hall and is shared by the 4 rooms on the floor. I deposited my bags in my room overlooking the street, and was relieved to learn that there was at least a sink in my room.

I didn't want to waste any time in getting the money, so I went directly out the door to the foreign money exchange place down the street to exchange my excess German marks for pounds. I hurried back to the hotel where Mrs, Russel was waiting in the upstairs hallway. I paid her the 10 pound balance, relieved that Mr. Russel would now not do me any physical harm.

I went back up to my floor and explored the bathroom. It was 1940's vintage with a great big free standing bath tub with a shower and shower curtain. There were large (not travel size) opened bottles of shampoo on the bath ledge, I guess for the guests to use. (I thought, "Thanks, but I'll use my own"). The toilet was large with a wooden box reservoir mounted on the wall and above, with a pull chain. The bathroom seemed very clean.

My relatively large room was furnished in 1960's vintage furniture and the tv was early' 70's. One thing that disturbed me was that there was no security lock on the door, which I knew could be opened with a credit card. The room was clean and newly painted and I saw no evidence of bugs.

Out on the streets again, I went back over to Victoria Station to get an idea as to where I should go the next morning. I was happy to learn that American Airlines had a baggage check-in location right there in the train station, so I wouldn't have to mess with baggage when I got to Gatwick Airport. Cool!

Harrod's Department Store, I learned, was open till 7:00pm, so I took the Underground to the Knights Bridge Station, near to where Harrod's is located. The store is fabulous. It appeared to me to be a combination of the quality and attention to detail of a Neiman Marcus, with the volume of traffic like the Macy's Herald Square flagship store in NYC. I visited the men's wear sections and specifically the suit departments, to see what they were showing. 90% of all suits on display were solid black, from all the designers! Most of the designer suits were 1000 pounds and up ($1500), but the Harrod's private label suits were a mere 400 pounds ($600). The private label suits were also black. I could tell that the visual department at Harrod's was very professional, with each department decorated in a different theme. They spend big bucks on presentation at Harrod's.

The food department was fantastic, with little Japanese young women serving the take-out sushi trays, which were meticulously arranged for optimum eye appeal. There was also an extensive seafood section, and of course, a gourmet food section, with selections from throughout the British Empire, on which the sun never sets. I was really glad I didn't miss Harrod's after all.

In the tube again, I decided to take a shot at seeing the inside of Westminster Abbey, since I missed it when I was in London before. Rats...The last service was just ending and the gentleman in the robe, by the entrance gate, was not letting anyone in. I walked over to Big Ben and got a wonderful shot of Big Ben with the Western sun shining on it's face. I decided to hoof it back to my hotel area, so I passed several pubs on the way. One particularly popular pub had a lot of yuppie-types outside, standing and talking while sipping their ale or wine. Guess what every one of the men were wearing? That's right. Black suits! I walked around for quite a while and was starting to get hungry. I finally settled on a Thai restaurant about two doors down from my hotel.

The restaurant was crowded, and there were only two persons waiting, bussing and cashiering. The cook was either upstairs or downstairs because the food came by way of a dumbwaiter. I ordered jasmine tea, duck (again) with mushrooms, steamed rice and spring rolls. The food was ok, but not up to the French standard I had established. The jasmine tea came SWEETENED!! YUK!!!

I went up to my room and watched a little tv (all in English), but the rabbit ears antenna was not doing a very good job with most stations. I wore my money and important documents belt to bed and was asleep by 11:00.

End Day 16