Day 16- Back to London!

You know that scene in Rent where everybody says "its over!" and then they cut to Collins and he stoically says, "its over" before they cut to the sad piano part? That's kind of how I feel right now. Sitting in the hostel lounge watching Opening Ceremonies with everybody feels like it happened so long ago. And it kind of did- it was two and a half weeks ago, but still. I remember sitting there that night thinking how two and a half weeks is a LONG time to be gone, but all of a sudden here I am on the other side thinking about how two and a half weeks have absolutely FLOWN by. I'm blogging this entry on the eve of our return home to the United States. Crazy, isn't it? This trip went by so quickly.

We woke up this morning in Paris, and I'm SO HAPPY to say that we're falling asleep tonight in London. Well- Amy is, at least. I'm trying to stay up as late as possible in hopes of sleeping through most of the flight to the US. I have a feeling I'm going to be so antsy to get home tomorrow that a seven hour flight is not going to do me good. It's probably in everybody's best interest that I conk out until we get back to America.

Anyways. Like I said, we woke up this morning in Paris around 11 AM. With our Eurostar set to depart at 5, we had to stop whatever we were doing at 3 to get our luggage and head back to Paris Gare du Nord. We left the hotel at noon and decided to go have lunch at the Tuileries. Luckily, we were able to walk there from the hotel. Staying off the Metro = happy Gina & Amy. We had a baguette, some brie, grapes and two bags of chips left over from our picnic at the Eiffel Tower on Friday night, so we didn't have to stop for food before we got there. We did, however, stop at La Duree for macaroons.

Outside La Duree. Adorable little French bakery. I got two macaroons: one sea salt caramel, the other raspberry.

Something interesting that I've noticed in this country is how almost everybody speaks at least a little English. I ordered at La Duree today in French, only to be asked in response, "would you like anything else?" in damn near perfect English. No joke- that has happened every single time I've ordered food in France except once. The one time it didn't happen was at Monoprix. The woman behind the counter could tell that I was trying and continued to speak to me in French at a speed I could understand. It is my understanding that they teach English in the schools here in France. That's interesting to me. Why doesn't America do something like that? It seems almost a little arrogant that we don't, you know? Just a thought.

We left La Duree and headed over to the Tuileries, a garden sandwiched in between the Louvre and the Champs-Elysees. We pulled up two chairs in the shade, relaxed and ate lunch while we took in the pretty views.

We finished lunch with about an hour to kill and walked a little bit further down the Tuileries to the obelisk. There were some pretty views there, as well, but we didn't linger long because we (a) had to get back and (b) couldn't be left alone. Seriously. If it's not the guys running around with the HUGE rings of Eiffel Tower keychains, its people carrying clipboards wanting you to sign some petition for deaf and mute people. We've seen these people all over Paris. They come up to you and shove the petition in your face. Beyond annoying. We got to a stopping point to take a few pictures of the obelisk and got freaking swarmed. We did, however, manage to take a few pictures before this happened.

We made our way back through the Tuileries and even took a shortcut when we saw a full on ROW of guys with Eiffel Tower keychains on rings. From there, we headed back to the hotel (not before trying to be scammed ONE MORE TIME by some woman who acted like we'd dropped a ring. Ugh.) to get our stuff and head to the Eurostar. 

Honestly, I was THRILLED to get on the Eurostar and come back to London. Paris is a different world. The people in London are nice and welcoming and talkative. The people in Paris are cold and have no manners (or sense of personal hygiene). It was really annoying dealing with the crowds and having obnoxious people get in your face to sell you things or get you to sign stuff every thirty seconds. It makes it hard to enjoy things. Dinner at Le Petit Zinc was probably my favorite part of the trip. 

My overall opinion of Paris. 

On the Eurostar, after having to shoo another two people out of our seats (*eyeroll*- really, it just gets the trip off to such a bad start), I tried to sleep but ended up starting my Harry Potter book, instead. I got about thirty pages in. I plan on getting further during one of the two flights tomorrow. 

We pulled in at St. Pancras and things finally felt normal and happy again. We immediately set out for London Bridge to find Steve so that we could give him the USA lanyard we got for him. 

Giant Olympic rings at St. Pancras.

It took a little searching, but we found Steve around the corner from the train station and gave him his lanyard. We talked for a while about how London is far cooler than Paris and exchanged travel horror stories. Steve also gave us two Olympics edition Oyster Card holders. I was contemplating cashing my Oyster Card out before I leave since- well- I don't know the next time I'll be back in London, but I'm definitely keeping it now! They can keep my 5 pounds; the card and card holder are awesome. 

Before we left, Steve hit the nail on the head when he said "our paths will cross again." They totally will. Steve mentioned tonight how he is contemplating going to Rio. Last week, I said a few times that this would probably be my first and only Olympics, but now, I'm not so sure. This experience has been amazing- the games really do bring people together. When you watch the games at home, its kind of a figurative thing. When you actually attend the games, you live it. Over the course of the past two and a half weeks, I have met and spoken to people from Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Argentina, Japan, Russia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Germany and a number of others, I'm sure. That's what is so awesome about the Olympics, everyone converges on this one location for this one thing. I don't know if I'll be in Rio in 2016, but I also don't think that this is my last Olympics. We shall see. But Steve has been instructed to let us know if he is ever in Dallas. And to never go to Houston. Don't go to Houston, Steve. Houston sucks. Trust us.

We left Steve and headed over to Hyde Park for one final sweep of both the pin trading center and the shop. We each got a cool Coca Cola pin that says "I was there!" in big balloons. At the shop, I got a hat for my Dad as well as gifts for a few friends. Backs and shoulders aching since we still had all of our stuff with us, we boarded the tube one last time and headed back to the hostel. 

One last dinner at the deli hit the spot. I came down to blog and then went back upstairs to repack. Repacking went a lot smoother than I thought it would, and that brings us to now. 

Medal cutout in the hostel lounge.

Pretty much all of tomorrow will be spent in the air, but as I've said before, I'm really looking forward to getting home. I miss the US for sure. I will make one final blog tomorrow night before wrapping this baby up. So leave me comments! I'll catch you guys then. Goodnight!