10/30/2014
Our last morning in Paris. Angel made croissant jambon as we packed to leave the apartment. I lugged the luggage down two flights of stairs into our little courtyard:
Angel: I lugged the backpacks. Which had a lot of water bottles. Yeah.
The metro stop of Les Halles has progressed more in its construction since the last time we came, there's escalators now that helped a lot, as our luggage was very heavy. Although... there is an elevator, somewhere. We've seen it in the underground, but haven't connected it to where it is on the ground level. It's supposedly near St. Eustache. I told Angel to go look around, as those stairs seemed a bitch to go down. Baby was tired from pushing her luggage from the apartment to the metro stop, so she said it'd be more direct to just go down the stairs, as opposed to someone watching the luggage and the other going to find the elevator.
Well, it is more direct. It's also more of a bitch, as I lugged both our luggage down the stairs amidst the lovely stench of urine.
We took the metro from Les Halles to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar into London. I don't remember quite so many people taking Eurostar the last time we came, but damn, it was packed today. I thought we got there early--a whole hour early. But there were so many people already waiting in the waiting lounges. I also don't remember going through customs, though we did go from Paris to London last time. Damn, UK's customs is a whole lot more strict than the US--and I thought the US was bad! They seriously grill you about why you're going to the UK, if you have family/friends there, how many days you're there. The customs agent even asked to see proof of us leaving the UK--do they think a lot of people are going to squat in the UK? I didn't think UK had an illegal immigrants problem :T
I love Paris, but I'm glad we're leaving. There's waaaay too many smokers and I felt, toward the end, that my lungs were gonna go on strike, like the French railway workers.
Angel: Jen was so bothered that last night instead of writing the blog on time she spent time researching the cancer death rates for both men and women in France.
Jen: Well, Angel, now that you mentioned it...
French men have a higher mortality rate due to smoking than any other EU country. New figures show that men are quitting more, due to concerns of cancer. We've seen men on the streets smoking fake cigarettes.
But French women's mortality due to smoking is rising rapidly, though the French women have a saying: “plutôt mourir qu'être grosse.” In other words, "Better dead than fat."
Angel: OK moving on....
Our hotel is relatively close to King's Cross/St Pancras in London, so we rolled our luggage there. We booked a studio, so it has a suite of refrigerator, separate freezer, oven, microwave, and heck, even a free laundry facility downstairs (I just learned this today, when I was looking at our booking confirmation). Though Angel used the laundry room tonight, only to have them turn it off halfway through the drying cycle. Apparently it's only open 8am-8pm >.< Who would wanna do laundry in the middle of the day???
Our hotel, exterior shot:
After we got settled in, we decided to take a stroll down Oxford St to visit our favorite shops/supermarkets - Primark, Marks and Spencer, and Sainbury's. We took Tottenham Court road down to Oxford and really never made it past the first Primark - there was just that much to see and do.
At Sainsbury's we immediately bought ourselves some caramel shortbread squares and some milk chocolate flapjacks. Yum!
Angel: At Marks and Spencer I was pleased to find that the Viennese sandwich cookie we liked so much last time was still sold in the raspberry flavor (in the Prague M&S it was only available in hazelnut). I plan to stock up. =)
We reached Primark around 5 or 6pm, but wth...it's a Thursday night and it was so so crowded. It was like fighting a war...literally! We witnessed a real catfight in the middle of the store, where 2 girls were hitting each other with the merchandise, and store security had to come and break it up. I wanted to see what was going on (as did everyone else who was crowding around to catch a glimpse) but Jen wanted to run away like a squealing slug. Even after we walked halfway around the store, away from the fight, they were still going at it. Sheesh.
Jen: Squealing slug? I didn't know slugs could squeal :P I never really understood it with these things--if there's shit going down, why would you want to be there? Personally, I'd like to be far away. But after I dragged Angel away, she kept saying, "Ooohh, let's go see" with a rather gleeful glint in her eyes. Do you really want to see girls hitting each other?!
Angel: Jen's lying. She does like to see girls going at it; note: I'm not the one who likes to watch Real Housewives.
We bought quite a few things at Primark, enough to warrant us checking out how to get a VAT tax refund. It was rather frustrating, as one employee told us to go to ground level to do it, another told us to go to the 2nd floor, and yet another one tells us to go to the Men's department at -1. Turns out, the last employee was right. It's in the Men's department. The company that processes these tax refunds gets almost 50% commission, so of the entitled 13 pounds I should get refunded, I'll only get 6 pounds back after commission. Damn they know how to make money. They have an option now of mailing back the receipts to get a VAT refund on your credit card, so I'm going to check out how we can do that.
For dinner, we bought Sainsbury's ready-to-go chicken tikka masala. We had this last time with Mom, standing and shivering outside Marble Arch, but having a great time nonetheless, eating the steaming hot curry cuz it was so damn good.
This time, it was so freakin' hot in London, we decided to go back to the hotel, shower and get comfy, before eating. Angel noticed the microwave even has a setting for reheating curry (UK's national food?):
Chicken tikka masala--so yummy! I don't know what kind of spices they put in or how they cook it, but they do it so well! I'd say out of 10 Indian restaurants I visit in the Bay Area, probably only 1 can make it this good.
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