A day of surprises

Since we had to officially check out of our flats before 9 am this morning, it was an early morning trying to get last-minute items packed and taken downstairs, clean up/inspect the flat, and turn in keys in time for class. With our lovely three flights of stairs, getting the luggage down, taking out the trash, and getting everything squared away involved a lot of stairs, but in the end, we were done with time to spare. It was a little sad, though, to leave London because it's been so much fun and it does not seem like it's already been two weeks. Nonetheless, before we left on our Eurostar trip to Paris, we had one final stop in London, a location that was one of my top must-see places: the British Library! (see more behind the cut)

The British Library may sound like a nerdy choice for a must-see place in London, but I've actually wanted to go there because of their "treasures" collection of rare and ancient manuscripts, including a ton of Shakespeare works, a Gutenberg Bible, and drafts, books, and/or manuscripts by Austen, Hardy, Handel, and R. Vaughn Williams to name a few. I particularly enjoyed hovering near the sixteenth century English authors cases since so many of those texts, along with earlier works (i.e. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) were common reading selections in undergrad. It's incredible to think those documents have been preserved and survived for so long, particularly the Sir Gawains of the group. I had heard or read somewhere that there was a Beowulf manuscript kept there, but couldn't find it, so that was a little disappointing (Beowulf was a quite popular selection in high school and college English courses alike), but I'm really glad I got to go, especially since there was also an original handwritten copy of Alice's Adventures Underground with the Carroll illustrations, so that fit perfectly with my LC quest at Oxford. :)

After picking up luggage and hailing a cab (my first taxi ride in London!), we made our way to the Eurostar station, picked up lunch, and were on our way to Paris! The ride was quiet and basically uneventful, although we lost an hour time-wise coming from England. Getting our luggage and everyone to the hotel was a fun experience, largely because the Metro in Paris has some definite differences from the tube in London, the most important to me being that the individual stops are not announced, only posted outside on the walls, and you have to open your own door to get in or out (odd...). At any rate, we made it to our hotel after a couple of direction checks and got settled into our clean but tiny rooms. They remind me of a microtel, which is totally fine, but it is a little comical trying to locate and utilize the randomly placed plugs in the room and navigate our giant luggage in the walkway space; to capitalize on that space, one of our desk chairs ended up temporarily in the bathroom, while the other is sitting on top of the wardrobe/closet, so we have an unconventional setup going. :) The internet works in the rooms, though, and my cell phone works here sans the drama it caused me in London, so that's always a relief.

We wandered the neighborhood directly around our hotel after settling in and managed to find an ATM (a necessity since none of us had any Euros), and I got to practice my French skills at a boulangerie, where we picked up dinner before our group trip to the Eiffel Tower. The Tower was beautiful at sunset and especially when it was all lit up at night; I wished I'd brought a sweater given the definite change in temperature, but I did have a light jacket handy, which helped. Atop the Tower, we were wondering if we'd see much of Paris at night since it is the "city of lights" and yet most of our traveling/exploring is done in the day. However, there was an interesting scene with one or more people running from the police when we were at the bottom of the Tower waiting to cross the street (the guy got caught), so perhaps I won't miss not seeing much of the city at night. :) I was definitely glad to be with a large group at that point too.

It's still kind of surreal to be here, probably because it still doesn't seem like our two weeks in London should be over and partly because I always equated traveling to France with a school program with trying to speak in French all the time (i.e. one of my hesitations in studying abroad in Avignon as an undergrad). The remainder of our time here promises to be interesting, fun, and full of new experiences, though, and I'm looking forward to the Louvre tomorrow.

Peep had some fun on the train ride over here

Peep at the Eiffel Tower with the light show