Here's a quick rundown of the days.

Day 2
Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Chinatown, Covenant Garden

Day 3
Sightseeing tour: Grosvenor Square, Hyde Park, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Tower of London, London Bridge & St. Paul's

Cathedral. Changing of the Guard. Free time.

Day 4
Guided excursion to Oxford and visit the University.

Day 5
Free Day

Day 6
Eurostar Train through English channel to Paris then a bus tour of Paris; Arc de Triomphe, the Chemps-Elysees, Eiffel Tower,

Ecole Militaire, the Opera Garnier, Place Vendome. Followed by a walking tour of Montmartre and a hilltop community once home

to Picasso & Van Gogh

Day 7
Walking tour to Notre Dame Cathedral; the Concierge, Paris' first prison; St.Chapelle, the Gothic Catholic Church. Day ends

with a tour to Versailles, palace of Louix XIV.

Day 8 & 9
Free Day


London, I had trouble navigating around and didn't rely on my map at all so I was only relieved when we went with the tour guide until free time came. Very lost and confused as to what to do. Our first dinner was Fish & Chips and so I auotmatically thought we were getting just that, chips with fish. Fish with fries. Dessert was Lemon Merang Sponge cake. I don't care for the lemon bit but it was good. One of the most common foods over there besides Fish and Chips is Indian Cuisine, there aren't enough of these places over there and I mean that in the way they have Starbucks on almost every side of the street. They are also throughout Paris.
The hotel we stayed at, were weren't able to check in until later. The room I was in was small,the ceiling was high. I did hear that all the rooms were small. The walls were thin you could hear anything. And a big window with a depressing alley view. And not to mention a closet sized bathroom where you could take a shower and sit on the toilet at the same time. Funny, I tried the hot water on but all I could get was the cold water. I got the guy at the front desk and found out that even though it had a blue circle around which would lead me to assume it was cold water, it was in fact hot water. I tried both of them. That was tricky. The tv the hung off the wall and had 5 or 6 channels. Luckily there was at least some movie or a show on to keep me occupied like "Hide and Seek" or some variation of CSI but can't recall the exact name.
I aquired a ticket to go see the play "Wicked". I remembered seeing the title at a bookstore back in the U.S. but I didn't actually know the story or what it was about. Now this is the first major stageplay I've seen. Every other play I've seen has been school plays up to this point. It was intense.
There came a time where I had to decide what to do on my free day. Because I was interested in seeing Stonehenge. It was either spend the day going to all kinds of different places; The London Dungeon, where you get a tour of Jack The Ripper. A
Museum exhibit of Dali and Picasso paintings (Right now I appreciate Dali's work more). The London Aquarium, The Natural History Museum. And many other places. There were a few options, but the one I chose to do was the excursion to Salisbury,Stonehenge and Bath. The bus ride there was long and the time there short. Because of this it felt unsatisfying. That was one reason. The other was because I knew I was missing out on all the other exciting things. For some reason I had actually mistakenly thought Stonehenge was around Paris.
In Bath there was a corner shop selling little wooden Hindu statues and I was thinking of getting one. There was this beautiful Hindu blanket that was used as a backdrop decoration for a display of other garments for sale but the blanket was not for sale. The lady there told me it was a heavy piece from Thailand and they are rare.
I had at least two dinners at The Hard Rock Cafe where I had my first taste of red wine. Nasty. Most of the pictures I took here were blurred. They give you a pager and you wait how ever long it takes for a spot to open. The longest was over an hour. Almost 2 if you wanted to wait that long to eat. Across the street was The Hard Rock Store. I brought leftovers back with me the first night. I found a Pizza Hut in Oxford and the pizza there according to my buddy is better than American pizza. When we had told someone we went to Pizza Hut they had told us "oh no you didn't". We were told that McDonald's and KFC and any other resteraunts like this don't exist here for obvious reasons. We were suppose to have a wine tasting but unfortunately it was canceled because of open hours. However, I thought I could get a taste at a vineyard in Bath but that never happened. Across the Thames on one of our bus rides there was a magnificent pagoda structure with a Buddha. Someone told me the London Eye wasn't that great. On one of my walks there an American flag was raised on top one of their buildings and my buddy mentioned that Obama might be there, well, I had just read that Obama might have been in London not too long ago but not sure what day.


Paris was different. Besides there being bird shit nearly everywhere I had to really watch for the pickpockets. Most of them were at Notre Dame. The hotel had bigger rooms with bigger bathrooms and a nice flatscreen Samsung tv(they seem to have a lot
of Samsung over there) with lots of channels. It had a great view from 5 stories up. I used my map to get around when I figured out my destination. At least there was a marker indicating where the hotel was unlike the other map. This hotel also wanted to be green. We had a list of things to help conserve such as reuse towels, turn of the tv when not in use. It also had fragile power so there was concern if a group of people were to plug in anything that consumed a lot of power but fortunately nothing bad happened. Out hotel also had an actual cafe where we ate a continental breakfast each morning. In one of the corners hanged a Klimt.

I was disappointed when asking about two other destinations and the tour guide didn't know anything about them which meant that I couldn't do them. I wanted to visit the Plaincouralt Chapel to see the Adam and Eve Fresco and go to the Lascoux caves. But these were far destinations. They weren't near Paris. Somewhere else in France. I didn't know the exact locations of any of these places. So I lucked out on them. I was told this state is about either 3/4 or 4/5 the size of Texas. Besides that I asked about the statue of liberty which we got to see on one of the bus tours. I didn't want to do this but ended going on a tour in a perfume museum and nobody in the group I was with ever heard of the movie nor the book "Perfume". Only the tour guide who kept mentioning the the name of the author. That tour was small. We were given a series of sprayed scented strips to smell in which I had only received all but one. I ended up buying two things for souvenirs.
I wished I had done more here. I had forgotten about the Le Catacombes until someone mentioned it at Versailles. Our bus to Versaille had stopped a couple of times making me worry it might not make it. There was this beautiful garden behind Versailles which I didn't have any time for. The next day I left with a small group to a fleamarket(where I upset a homeless person when they accidentally bumped into me and I couldn't figure out a way to apologize) thinking that they were going to the catacombes afterward but they didn't plan to. Had I mentioned when the two other people that were going with them were leaving at a certain time I would've went with them to Le Catacombes so I ended up going there early the following morning by myself and then back to Cimetiere Du Montparnasse. Caught a showing of "Angels Et Demons" at probably the only street in Paris playing films in English and a cost of 10.50 Euros. Think of how much that would be in U.S. dollars along with popcorn that you pick out from a shelf and a drink. There were at least three other films I wanted to see; "Ponyo"(I had no idea where to find the theatre playing this one since the only place playing it that I knew of was at a theatre near where we first made a rest stop), "Etreintes Brisees" from Pedro Almodovar, and "Vengeance". Non of which I watched. On one of our bus tours we caught a glimpse of a filming but I don't know what movie they were filming for. A buddy of mine went to Disney Land (I was thinking of going there).
I was afraid to use the subway until I had to on the last night there or I'd lose out on the dinner and our boat ride "A Night On Paris" because I had just missed the group that took off 10 minutes before I arrived back at the hotel. The dinner was fish and rice. The fish we had in London was better at least. And my second taste of red wine here because I thought this time would be better. All I could say is...how can people like this?

There were times where I had to decide the appropriate times to use my camera or my camcorder. Sometimes both which made it difficult. One thing I should have had with me was the paper of places on which days to remind me of what we were doing each day and my 4 and half hour battery that I would've had had I checked months ago to see if it was compatible. Unfortunately I couldn't find any before or on the trip to make up for the one I didn't take along. I did not bring shampoo, conditioner or hand soap with me. Big mistake. There were times where I went to take a picture with my camera and the focus seemed blurred. It wasn't until the last minute that I realized the macro/micro switch on the side of my camera was set this way. So I now have a few pictures that didn't turn out that great. But a few did.


Some things I will not miss is the overcrowdedness of the these two cities, lack of few bathrooms and free water and all the walking I did. I'd rather take the subways now that I think about it. It's much more cooler down there anyways. Options for transportation are bus, biking(there were two different types of bikes for rental, a regular bike and then there's an actual motorcycle), subway or walking. Speaking of Subway, I believe I've seen at least one I think in Paris or maybe it was London.
I feel bad for the homeless because I've never seen so many. Someone said the Mona Lisa was underwhelming. And then the tour guide gave a history on the Mona Lisa.

So some how I managed to keep myself together and go with whatever I had. There was too much to see in so little time. Others managed to fit a lot more into their schedule and I could've done better on my free days in Paris. So hopefully the next time I venture into London and Paris I'll get to see what I haven't.I still feel that there could've been more pictures and I was holding out for Paris.
There was so much information that I couldn't keep up with what the tour guides were saying. And not everything was interesting. We didn't even have an exclusive bus guide so there were lots of different guides. They expected us to pay each of the bus guides individually and also for every time luggage was put on or hauled off the buses. I'd also like to add that this experience has opened me up to more things and maybe in a few more years I'll be going with the group to Spain.