Thursday Thirteen: Paris and London in Pictures

Here’s thirteen pictures from my trip to Paris with the quick skip to London.  Hope you enjoy!

1. Pastries!

This was the first French pastry I had.  It’s a raspberry tart, and it was fantastic!

2. A little cycling humor.

My mother is on a big cycling thin in Paris.  Her neck has a tendency to hurt her on long rides, so she has this little note to herself to look around to save her head and stand to take some of the pressure off her ass.

3. That tower everyone’s so crazy about.

Required picture of the tower.  What I didn’t take a picture of was the miles of lines of people who get in line first thing in the morning to take a trip up to the top of the tower.  We did not do that.  It is a really cool thing to walk under.

4. The reason I was excited to go to Paris.

This was one of the things I really wanted to see.  Notre Dame cathedral.  I have a love of cathedrals and stained glass windows.  The lines to go in are very long, but it takes about ten minutes to get through.  I did the audio tour and it was totally worth it.

5. Give me your crown and I’ll give you a sandwich.

This is within the treasury in Notre Dame and during special occasions holds a shard of the crown of thorns that Jesus supposedly wore during his crusifiction.  I don’t have much faith in that claim, but the casement was really awesome.

6. Rent-a-bike!

Bicycles are huge in Europe, but it’s one of those things you have to see to believe.  They have these rentable bike stations where you can come up, pay something and pedal away.  I’m not exactly sure how it works, but it does.  We saw a similar system used in London.

7. London.

This is the big square in London.  I took a lot of pictures, but this is one of my favorites.  You can even make out the count down to the Olympics to the side of the fountain!

8. Experiencing the local cuisine.

One of my goals, should we go to London, was to have fish and chips with a cider.  I did, and it was delicious.  Not only that, but we ate in a little hole in the wall pub that had some pretty rocking atmosphere.

9. Bicycle Shorts.

No, I don’t know his name, but those shorts only did great things for him.  Those cycling shorts hide nothing.

10. The artwork.

I’m just going to have a twelve year old moment and admit that when I saw this display of four dudes checking out their packages, I giggled.  This older couple were clearly embarrassed and we all shared amused smiles.  This might be my favorite display, just because I laughed so much.

11. Cafes.

I loved hanging out at cafes and the lazy atmosphere, even if the service isn’t snappy.

12. The shopping.

Yeah, a lot of the shops sell the exact same things, but there’s something really fun about shop after shop after shop.

13. Post-it note art.

I’d never heard of post it note art, but I saw it in a lot of places around the city.  I really want to create some in my office but I don’t think it would fly.