Whew. So Simeon and I made it back from Europe (obviously) last week and I am still reeling from the trip. I just barely got over my jet lag, finished all my many loads of laundry, and caught up with stuff around the house. I have been spending any and all spare minutes I come across hugging and playing with my baby, who I am never leaving ever again. Anyway, sorry it’s taken me so long to finish posting about our Europe trip. So here goes:

We spent our last day in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum, grabbed a final German meal then headed over to our hotel at the airport. We caught an early flight out of Berlin’s Tegel Airport and flew into London’s Heathrow Airport. We had a couple hours to kill before catching the “Chunnel” (the Channel Tunnel that runs under the English Channel) from London to Paris, so we met Sim’s friend Mark for lunch. Mark lives in England and works right in London so he took us to a great pub for a bite to eat before we caught the Underground to Waterloo Station and boarded our train.

Everyone we talked to about visiting Paris had said not to book our hotel room in advance, just to find an area we were comfortable and there were always rooms available. Not planning ahead is totally not our style, but we wanted to have fun and be flexible. It was just our luck that the one time we didn’t reserve a room, Paris would be hosting the Rugby World Cup and hotels were totally booked. After walking around from hotel to hotel for what seemed like days (but was only a couple hours), we finally sat down in a restaurant and started calling every hotel we could find until we found a room. Luckily, a hotel a few blocks from the restaurant just had a cancellation so we rushed over to grab the room. It was small, but quaint, and we were just so happy to have a room. And we were in Paris! While we were going from one hotel to the next, we did find one that had a room for the rest of the nights we were there so as soon as we got checked in to our room we called and reserved the room. Boy did that take a lot of stress out of the rest of our stay! Apparently we don’t do “spontaneous” very well.

The rest of our time in Paris was packed full to the brim. We got more than our fill of art at the Musee d’ Orsay (highlights were Monet, Van Gough, and Renoire) and the Louve (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo), walked along the Seine River, toured the Catacombs, enjoyed gelato while walking through the Luxembourg Gardens, took a walking tour of Paris, saw Napoleon’s tomb and enjoyed the view of the city at sunset from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Oh and all the fabulous food! Although the menus were quite intimidating and hard to translate with our pocket dictionaries, we were never disappointed! The pastries, baguettes, and espresso alone made the trip totally worth it.

Then we got up early the next day to take the Chunnel back to London. We met up with Mark once again and he graciously gave us the “local’s tour” of London. Being the giant Harry Potter fan that I am, no trip to London would be complete with out a stop at Platform 9 & 3/4. We visited Platform 4, where they filmed the movie, but they even have a little Platform 9 & 3/4 set up complete with a trolley half-way through the wall. It was fabulous. We also walked through Trafalgar Square, took a boat ride down (maybe it was up?) the River Thames, among other things and finally grabbed a gourmet burger and a couple pints for dinner.

The next morning Sim and I decided we were done walking and took a double-decker tour bus around the city. We saw the London Bridge, Tower of London, Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, and a million other things I will never remember. Then we had a fabulous Italian lunch before touring Buckingham Palace. It was actually perfect timing because there was a special exhibit celebrating the Queen’s 60th wedding anniversary, displaying her wedding gown and tiara, gifts they received, etc. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the palace, so that was a little disappointing. On our final evening in London we went to the Apollo Victoria Theatre and watched the musical Wicked. It was wonderful to just sit and be entertained for a couple hours. The next morning we got up super early to start our almost 20 hour journey home.

The trip was exhausting, but totally worth it. You can see all the pictures on my Flickr page. It was easier to upload them to Flickr when we were abroad (when we actually had Internet, that is). We took just over a thousand pictures, and it took me this long to get them all uploaded there, so it may be awhile before I get them transferred to my own gallery. Some day, I promise!