What did you find...

most interesting? What was your favorite thing? What was the thing that surprised you the most?

These are a few of the questions I was asked when we got back from the trip.

I will begin with what surprised me the most.

The weather. I am a weather stalker when it comes to vacation. I start about a month ahead of time "stalking" it. Hoping of course for nice weather. Both London and Paris were going to be in the 50s and 60s. London, how can I put this nicely, the sky there was just mostly "doom and gloom" gray.  We had no rain. It was just gloomy most of the time. The sun did peak out occasionally. And it was a cold 50s, not a warm 50s. I thought being May, the weather would be better.

The panhandlers. Paris was full of them. On the subways there would be a group of musicians playing, quite well I might add, and at the end they would pass around a cup to put money in. When they were done with one car they would move onto the next car. There were people also playing instruments in the subway stations.

The Parisian people. I am not sure this goes under what "surprised me the most", more like "what everyone said". We really had no language barrier there. And they are not mean and nasty. We didn't have one unpleasant encounter.

A few oddities we saw.

In Paris we saw an elderly, chinese couple. They were both going into the subway station. Each one was on either side of the stairs, gripping the handrail and going down backwards, one step at a time.

On the Eiffel Tower, while waiting for the elevator to go down, there was a large Indian family also waiting. The odd thing was they each had a full-size rolling suitcase with them. Who goes to the Eiffel Tower with their luggage? Even if they were leaving the city that day they should have been able to store it somewhere for pickup later.

We heard a variety of languages being spoken in the 2 countries, German, French, Italian. But not once did we hear any Spanish. Considering where I live, it was very odd.

We did/saw 32 different things in 10 days.  While I would like to put everything on the list, here are my top ten things from the trip.

Number 10: The Eiffel Tower, Paris. I know this should be higher up on the list. The weather was a big factor as to why it is at the bottom.

Number 9: Our walk through Notting Hill area, London

Number 8: St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Number 7: Sacre-Coeur, Paris

Number 6: Seeing Les Miserables, London

Number 5: The Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

Number 4: Riding the London Eye, London

Number 3: Monet’s home in Giverney, France

Number 2: The Globe Theater, London

And my Number 1 favorite thing: The Orsay Museum, Paris

And that ends our trip. I would love to here any comments or feedback!