Travelog
I just got back from Paris and London. I should have blogged every day, but didn’t. I did take lots of photos though, some of which are up, some of which are on temp. cameras that I need to get developed. Here’s my itinerary. I’m going to be doing this in bits, as I have a tart in the oven, don’t want to type, need to practice my guitar, and am trying to watch Jesus Camp. Check back! You can also check out my Flickr stream to get the full photo experience.
Update: The travelog is done. Enjoy.
Thursday:
- Land at Heathrow. I am sick and groggy from my beta blockers.
- Flight to Paris delayed by an hour. I eat something called “tomato bread” at an airport restaurant.
- Finally get to CDG, which is a terrible airport. Take a cab to our hotel in Paris, in Villiers.
- Walk around aimlessly. Get cranky. Eat at an American-themed restaurant called “Indiana.” Have salad.
Friday:
- Truly realize how difficult it will be to remain vegan in Paris. So I eat some Nutella. Why not be hung for a sheep as a lamb?
- Get to Notre Dame in time for no lines.
- Refuse to go into the Louvre. Wander around the city.
- Amble through the Jardin du Luxembourg.
- Have mid-morning coffee at Paul. Eat three small cookies. Oh. My. God.
- Pompidou! What a lovely building. And the collection was tremendous.
- See several Monsieur Chat graffiti bits around the city.
- Graze for lunch in a small grocery. Also purchase a tarte tatin and eclair framboise for post-lunch snack.
- Take nap then take ridiculously powerful shower.
- Eat ice cream at Berthillon, this amazingly old and just amazing ice cream parlor. Eat blackcurrant sorbet and coconut sorbet. Also eat burnt caramel ice cream. Salty sweet heaven.
- Head to Eiffel Tower with Champagne. Greeted by tent full of drunk supporters of French rugby team.
- Finish the match in a neighborhood restaurant. Eat a giant, ultra-fresh salad, a ton of bread and the best creme fraiche I have ever tasted.
Saturday:
- Scarf down breakfast before packing up.
- Dash down to the Catacombs. This was frightening and amazing. The claustrophobia was terrible, but seeing the amazingly arranged bones was great.
- Dash over to Sacre Coeur and walk through the pee-stank streets of Montmartre.
- Haul and heft way too much luggage to CDG, the worst airport ever. Scarf a bunch of macaron on the plane, as I once again become vegan when the plane lands.
- Take the Heathrow Express to Paddington. Shop for staples at Sainsbury’s. Cab to Canary Wharf.
- Have meltdown. Drink wine. Wait for takeaway from Tiffin Bites to show up.
- Watch hours of British television. Fall blissfully asleep.
Sunday:
- Stroll through the Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane
- Take long walk through Green Park and down Bond Street to Trafalgar Square to see the setup for the free Chemical Brothers gig. (Free tix all taken before we got to town)
- Get drinks and snacks at the Canary Wharf All Bar One. Read several papers, book.
- Make pasta for dinner.
- Slumber!
Monday:
- Get up early and head out for a day of exploring.
- Find vegan breakfast goods!
- Go to Design Museum for Zaha Hadid and Barnbrook exhibits.
- Visit Tate Modern. Really like the audio-visual companion guide. HATE the TM’s wayfinding scheme.
- Walk across Millennium Footbridge. Grab lunch at Marks & Spencer. Eat on steps of St. Paul’s.
- Crash a Martini Masterclass at Christopher’s American Bar & Grill
- Dinner at Masala Zone
- At least an hour of watching weird house music videos
Tuesday:
- Locate the same vegan breakfast bread!
- Spend all morning, early aft. at the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. Can’t stress enough how amazing this was. Really enjoyed the Dig for Victory exhibit on wartime victory gardens.
- Get hungry. Go eat vegan lunch at Red Veg. Yummy burger and fries.
- Wander around TopShop at Oxford Circus. End up buying a limited number of (adorable) items.
- Make dinner, fall asleep on couch.
Wednesday:
- No more vegan breakfast bread to be found. I eat some M & S spiced nuts and coffee. Mmmm.
- Boarded a bus to Stonehenge and Bath.
- Decided that everywhere reminds me of California
- Stonehenge is smaller than you’d expect, between two highways, and its’ mysteriousness takes away from its’ impressiveness
- Bath is amazing. I’m totally taken aback by the craftsmanship. It’s nearly 2,000 years old after all.
- Starving. Run through the Jane Austen Museum (yawn) and then eat quite a tasty hummus sandwich and Kettle chips. I also buy a bag of Starburst to eat on the way home.
- Read M.F.K Fisher’s “Gastronomical Me” on the way home. Love her.
- Get back to Waterloo. Am hungry again. Am intolerably cranky. Eat eh dinner. Go home.
Thursday:
- Enjoy kind of a throwaway day.
- Go to Harrod’s to buy tea for presents.
- Walk through Westminster. Walk through Hyde Park and along the Serpentine.
- Eat lunch in front of St. Paul’s again. GO TOTALLY NUTS to find out that M & S’ raspberry jelly is vegan. I haven’t enjoyed Jell-O this much ever.
- Go home to nap before trying to go have drinks with a client. Eat more raspberry jelly.
- Can’t meet up with my client, so I head to Islington to the Jerusalem Tavern. Get a nasty grapefruit ale and some chips.
- Go home and eat leftover pasta and more hummus!
Friday:
- Take walking tour of Soho. Learn all about London’s former and current prostitutes!
- Have totally awesome lunch at Hummus Bros. Am so, so happy eating my fava beans, hummus and lemonade. Mmmm.
- Check out the start of the Thames Festival, the performance of “Maritime Rites.”
- Enjoy a yummy dinner at Wagamama, then go home to collapse in front of the TV. Am in love with “Suburban Shootout” on BBC.
Saturday:
- Get up early to stroll through the Borough Market. Take tons of photos of fresh veggies and assorted yumminess. Taste fresh-from-the-barrel cider and organic wines.
- Purchase much vegan Turkish delight. Eat much vegan Turkish delight.
- Walk through Southwark. Gawk at the gorgeous Southwark Cathedral
- Walk across Southwark Bridge to enjoy the Thames Fest.
- Picnic behind St. Paul’s. Go home to take nap.
- Go for long walk, then make AMAZING dinner while watching a documentary about the best documentaries. Meta much?
Sunday:
- Get all packed to go home.
- Go to Spitalfield’s again.
- Stop by Waitrose to stock up on vegan Pringles, Starburst and Skittles
- Take train to Heathrow
- Board uneventful flight. Watch “Georgia Rule” the worst movie ever
- Take train then bus home
- Collapse in my room with some Leona’s and Office DVDs
1 Comment so far
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Posting here, cause I couldn’t find your email. My name is Shannon Heffernan. I’m the online community manager at Vocalo.org, a new radio station and web community based here in Chicago. I was really excited to find your blog. I especially like that I can read a post about a trip to Bloomington Indiana, and Europe in the same blog– right next to each other, neither seeming to have more weight. I think your work would make great radio material was hoping you might consider posting some of it for us to air.
In case you haven’t already heard about Vocalo, here’s a quick overview. (If you want more of a detailed overview, there are press links at the bottom of this email.) Vocalo.org was started by Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ, a little over six months ago. But donât be fooled, itâs not at all like your normal public radio. It’s a new kind of radio, integrated with a web community. Users can post content (written, audio, or video) on our website (and really, anything goes). We then air this material on the radio, playing the audio or making audio versions of the written content. Right now we air in Northwest Indiana at 89.5 FM; by the spring we’ll have a new 50,000 watt tower that will allow us to expand to cover all of Chicago. It’s a brand new station making radio in a brand new way, and we hope you’ll get in with us now, on the ground floor.
Think about it: here is your chance to be on the radio! How cool is that?
We welcome content that is already posted on your blog, so it’s very easy to take the work you’ve already done and get it on the air. It’s also a chance to expand your audience and bring readers and listeners back to your own blog. Other bloggers and podcasters who have joined our site have noted its ability to increase their own site traffic. If you create a profile on Vocalo.org and upload content, you can link back to your blog from our site. And you can put your site address at the end of your piece, so every time we play your stuff, we’ll give a shout out to you and your blog’s web address on the air. In addition, we often invite our favorite users to co-host, especially if their posts are relevant to a topic we are covering. Really, the possibilities are endless.
We want to create a new community online, but we also want to enrich existing online communities. We hope that as more bloggers and podcasters join Vocalo.org, it will help you (and journalists) find and reference each other more often, and find bigger audiences more easily. And for bloggers who are already interested in radio, we hope to become a way for you to become proficient in audio production, too.
We really do hope you’ll check us out and consider becoming part of our growing online and on-air community. If you decide you want to record your post (not required) and need some help or just want someone to walk you through the site, don’t hesitate to call me at 312-893-2956.
Best,
Shannon Heffernan
Chicago Sun Times: Public Radio Eyes Net Gains
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/guy/552386,CST-FIN-eCol12.article
Beep: A Radio Revolution, Public Radio Turns the Waves Over To You
http://www.beepcentral.com/story.aspx?story=18568) .
Stop Smiling: WBEZ Does it Again
http://stopsmilingonline.com/wordpress/?p=224