Louvre Staffers' stage a Work Stoppage; Refuse to tell Patrons not to take Pictures.

Before I go on about the Louvre, which came at the end of the day, let me say that I'm completely worn out. Tomorrow when we try to go to places like Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, and what not, we are taking the G.D. Metro. Today we began at the Eiffel Tower, walked through to the Arc de Triumphe, down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, through the Place de la Concorde, Tuileries Gardens, and ending up in the Carrousel de Rivoli (which is underground, right in front of the Louvre. Including the walk back to the Hotel Muguet, that was about a 7-8 mile, 8 hour trek:

We begin in the icon of Paris, the Eiffel Tower. Seemingly small in the distance, its actually quite an impressive structure, especially when you are up on the third level at the tippy top and have an amazing view of the entire city:

A view of the Top Level of the Eiffel from the Second Level. There were lines for everything.

The view of Sacre Coeur from the top level of the Eiffel.

The Invalides's golden dome glistens in the Parisian skyline. Top left is Notre Dame Cathedral, top right is the Parisian Pantheon.

We wondered past the Tocadero, checked out the Arc De Triomphe, and wondered down the Champs-Elysees, which is like the main street of Paris; lined with chic restaurants, stores, theaters, and the sanctuary of womankind: Sephora. I was charged with getting the Mrs. some perfume from L'Occitane, and I would not be denied (although I would be denied at Sephora - they didn't carry it). We grabbed some Crepes with Nutella Chocolate, then on to the Louvre.

After 6pm, admission to the world famous art house is €6,00 so we loitered in the Carrousel de Rivoli, which has some cafes, chocolate stores, and...L'Occitane! (Easiest and most guilt free money I've spent all trip). Anyway, here are some pics leading up to the Louvre:

Looking down the Champs-Elysees at the Arc De Triomphe.

The Louvre from the front.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the Louvre was an interesting B.O./Sewage/Popcorn smell. This really permeated all around the first few halls we visited. The most glaring thing I noticed that despite the signs everywhere that said "NO CAMERAS" in every language imaginable, people were taking flash pictures like it was going out of style. Now, when in the Vatican and in the House of Commons, there was always that guy (in the Vatican, it was us) that was still trying to take pictures despite the sign, but there were also officials that would remind you: "NO PHOTO!". Here, people were taking pictures with flashes like it was going out of style, and not even a peep from the Louvre staff. My Aunt Elly-Ann would have been furious; people would have been cut.

I immediately made a bee-line for the Mona Lisa. "Oh Draconian Devil! Oh Lame Saint!" I had to see her. Getting to where you actually want to go in the Louvre is kind of a task, but when I saw finally saw her, there was the crowd: snapping away. We decided to take a picture, sans flash, but the lighting is kind of crappy in the room so if you don't hold the camera dead still, the shutter stays open a little longer and you get some blur. There is also a reflection from the two dozen other people taking pictures with their Wal-Mart cameras, but anyway, here she is:

Amazing.

Here is the Venis De Milo. Again, the lighting was crap, but Katie managed to steady the camera well enough to get this shot off. Insanely beautiful.

Why the staff at the Louvre decided to throw a camera kegger is beyond me; especially because we still bought some postcards to savor the momento of having seen these pieces. However, we were toward the end of the day, and although we breezed through the Egyptian exhibit, we were pretty much spent, so we headed back to our hotel. We need to realize that everything closes before 8:30 around here (unless you are in the Pigalle area, and I'm not in the mood to get swindled in a sex shop) so tomorrow we will try and budget our time better and get some proper food.

France Receives Word of our Arrival; Fortifies Maginot Line; Surrenders; Forms Underground Resistance.

"I'm in ur country, eating ur cheese!"

A funny thing happened on the way to Paris. Actually, a few funny things happened. 1.) We missed our train. The tube was hitting a few delays (which, apparently is normal). That and we figured we could make a train that departed at 11:05 if we show up at St. Pancras International at 11:03. Didn't happen. Expecting to get absolutely destroyed at the ticket counter when asking for an exchange (figuring this was going to set me back ~£300.00 [$600] in the "we don't exchange" department), the very nice man at the Eurostar took pity on us and swapped us straight up for the 12:30 train. Thank you very much, Eurostar dude.

The second funny thing is that not only did we miss our first train, the train we did make missed an entire stop of people further on down the line. We stopped in the middle of the English countryside to have an announcement go over that "we forgot to pick up people" and were going to have to turn around. About 20 minutes later, the announcement came over the intercom that we were going to move on without picking up the stranded passengers and continuing on to Gare du Nord. There never is a formal announcement that you are about to go under the English Channel, just prolonged darkness. We then emerged to the French countryside and a thin fog all the way to Paris. (Apparently you can't have a train station in Europe unless you have a crap-ton of graffiti-laced buildings leading up to your stop.)

We are now comfortably settled into our Hotel Muguet in Paris. Even though I'm back in a country where I don't speak the native language, my sister should be having us covered in both the money and the translation department. Also Hotel has a little bit more reliable wireless interwebs and therefore I should have picutres from the days events up in the evening tomorrow.

In London, I left my Heart; Savings Account; Feelings in my Extremities.

The Lime Tree Hotel: A Great Place to Stay.

With great pain, we depart from the Empire today. I had a complete blast in the UK. On Wednesday, we did the double-decker sightseeing tour, and didn't even manage to get it all in. My advice to any future travelours: get on the bus as early as possible if you are going to do the sight-seeing tour. If not, buy a one or two day Tube Pass and get around that way. For Katie and I, a one day pass was £10.50, as opposed to the £22.00 A PIECE for the Bus. Also, the Bus runs into a lot of delays, as the downtown area gets crazy congested during the day. Oh, not to mention that its COLD. AS. HELL. The upper deck can be brutal when the wind is really going. Then again, the Tube during rush hour can be a bit stifling as well.

"Mind the Gap, Tosser."

We did get a few good pictures from the Bus:

Kensington Palace. Former home of Princess Diana.

Apparently, its against the law to walk underneath the main archway, unless you are a Monarch.

Things were running a little late so we made the move directly for Tower of London (we already purchased our tickets with our Hotel.) We managed a few pics over there before we tried to settle our train situation:

London Bridge.
London Tower.
Guarding the Crown Jewels. (Insert Joke Here.)

Beefeater Dude.
Bloody Tower. Ominous.

Traitor's Gate. You don't want to be on the other side of that gate.

So we hadn't quite booked our Train to Paris yet. That would have to come at St. Pancras. We tubed on over to book our tickets. Apparently there were two trains available: one at 05:30 (that's oh-five-thirty: in the morning) or an 11:05 AM train which was about £115 more. I made a harsh decision and opted for the later train at the higher price. Mind you, this was still much cheaper than what the two travel agents we had visited earlier in the day had quoted us. I figured it was about 50pence for every extra minute of sleep we got to have.

We didn't think to get any pictures while we were in Piccadilly Circus looking for some good Theatre tickets for the evening. We ended up seeing Les Miserables at the Queen's Theater for £30.00 each -- I recommend going to the "tkts" booth for the good seats--there are tons of other "brokers" in the area trying to sell (or resell) tickets the day of the show. We had pretty solid seats - seventh row.

At the end of the day, I'm really going to miss London, and I do hope to return someday. If only to watch re-runs of Sue Thomas: F.B."Eye".

The British Talk Funny, Drive Funny, Make me Feel all Funny Inside.

I absolutely LOVE the British dialect. I try to engage as many people as possible just to I can hear the proper tongue. We got into Heathrow late Monday night and made it to our hotel via a Coach (bus- but don’t call it a bus, call it a Coach). What’s funny is that even in a country where almost everyone speaks English, I still have to ask the locals to repeat themselves because I just cannot understand them. Well, that and I love the dialect.

Tuesday morning we went on a bit of an excursion. Our hotel isn’t far from Buckingham Palace, and so we decided to walk (yes, walk. Again.) around and see a few sights:

The Horse Guards.

Westminster Abbey was open at odd times that day so couldn’t get in. We did get a few good pictures, though.

Instead, we went over to Parliament (which is right across the street) and check out a debate in the House of Commons.

The chamber was almost this full of MP’s and staff. They were debating a bill on gambling. Although our wait in the queue to get in was over an hour, we did get to see the interior of the building. The only part that allowed pictures was Westminster Hall, which dates back several hundred years.

I’ll tell you what, though. There was this show on the BBC that sucked so hard, it made me question the integrity of British Television. The show…oh, wait. The show’s American. I’ve never heard of this show, which was playing between one of the thirty-eight iterations of Law and Order:

Huh? WTF is this shit? After some quick research, I find out that Sue Thomas is actually a deaf FBI agent. That would make a good Lifetime movie of the week (which they have the Lifetime Channel here), but a recurring TV show? More research told me the show was originally on PAX in the US, but was cancelled a few years ago. Man, even God didn’t have long enough patience for deaf Special Agents with guide dogs.

Places your Children should be Banned: Everywhere.

My late Grandmother used to request a special section in every restaurant, “No Smoking, and No Children”. Well, since smoking has been banned in almost every public venue in Europe, we need to work on the latter part. Seriously, I can remember what our flight from Italy to London looked like in terms of being crammed into a metal tube, kissing my knees and looking at a sea of clouds. However, I couldn’t hear a thing because there were two small children screaming their heads off for nearly the entire two-hour flight. You know, typically the on voices I like to hear screaming are the ones in my own head. I also acknowledge that I have a small child of my own who is relatively well behaved. However, I am not taking my little one up 38,000 feet across a few countries. She is in the comfort of our home, where your children should be as well.

Greatest. Comeback. EVER.

Being in the hotbed of the Old Countries for a week, I've been a bit out of touch with actual civilization.

Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel just posted his reply to his woman Sarah Silverman who recently informed him that she's (f**king Matt Damon). Comebacks are a bitch, Sarah and this one is E-P-I-C:

The only thing shittier than the exchange rate in the U.K. is my internet connection.

Interlude- Ok, so this is our second night in London. We've had a full day today and and even more full day tomorrow. I have a lot of good pictures and posts to share but we had zero internet in Italy, and I'm a little behind.

Apparently, Linksys has it out for Great Britian. Everyone here does a type of wireless internet security that my wireless card doesn't quite understand. It took me almost an hour to get my sister's internet working on her laptop, then by a process of using my MP3 player (for data transfer), a blank CD, google, and tricking my adaptor into thinking it has a different driver, AND switching on the WLAN monitors on in a specific order (no kidding). I was seriously about to whip out the fishing line, duct tape and a fucking tin can, but FIVE HOURS later, I'm finally up and running, therefore I can put up all the posts and pictures I have of Rome.

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I will have some stuff up from London tomorrow night.

Don't let the timestamp fool you. Its 3:30 a.m. here and I'm freaking exhausted.

Ciao, Roma!

Even though by the time this gets posted, we’ll be in London, I wanted to say a little goodbye to Italy, land of...motor scooters, Smart cars, Gelato, and Penini's. Here are some pictures (some enhanced) of the few days we spent here:

The interior of the Duomo in Florence.

A view from The Colosseum.

Exiting the tombs of the Popes in St. Peter's Basilica.

St. Peter's Basilica (as seen from St. Peter's Square).

Katie works her magic to try and get some info from the Vatican guard.

Pope Benedict XVI.
Actually a very dynamic speaker, I was very humbled to see him and hear him speak.

A nice view of the city and river.

St. Angelo's Castle.

A view of the Vatican museum.

I didn't know this, but the Gladiators of Ancient Rome felt the influence of the 12th man.
(This was etched on one of the archways in the Colosseum.)

Inside the Colosseum.

View from the cheap seats.

Exiting.