Vacation 1 (of 4) I love working in France.

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Vacation 1 (of 4) I love working in France.

One of the perks to moving to a foreign country to take on a job that entails morphing into a master illusionist and fooling small people into thinking you know exactly what you are doing, (For instance, I stand in front of them and sound like the teacher on Charlie Brown: Wha, whaaa, wha, whaaaa flapping my arms and making ridiculous faces, and somehow they understand) is that you have (at least in France) four vacations. Let me repeat… four vacations. When it comes to downtime, the French mean business. Each vacation is two weeks and spread about five to eight weeks apart. The first vacation lands at the end of October, the second during Christmas and New Year, the third at the end of February through the beginning of March, and the fourth at the end of April.

Being that I was exhausted and overworked from slaving away a total of 24 hours each week in October, I was in dire need of a hiatus- you are feeling very sorry for me aren’t you? And France, being the accommodating and understanding country that it is (don’t laugh), granted me my first wish. Ok, I admit, I was not really overworked, but the stress of adjusting and feeling less than inadequate (a bizarre and surprisingly unpleasant experience for me), and enduring the constant, egocentric question of “Carey, you are not in your right mind, (mainly because you are talking aloud to yourself) what in the blazes are you doing here?” had me craving reprieve. So, my first official vacation found me hightailing it to Anglophone central: Great Britain.

My friend Rayshell, mustered the money and courage to hop the pond alone and met me in London for a week of tea with milk, greasy egg and meat filled breakfasts, Indian food, and English (four of my favorite things not often found in France.) I booked a cheap flight on Easyjet, (inappropriately named) thrilled that I found a carrier that actually flew out of Charles de Gaulle rather than an obscure pasture someone had slapped a few lights on and whistled for the sheep dog to round up the flock so the planes could land. I patted myself on the back for finding a cheap and ‘easy’ way to London. I congratulated myself on my grand cunning and travel genius, but when my alarm sounded at 3:45 a.m. that day, I started to wonder if I may have celebrated prematurely.

Defining the word ‘easy’:

Wake at 3:45 am. Drag oversized suitcase down 4 flights of marble stairs. Walk 20 minutes to the train station in a freezing fog, barely make the 4:38 a.m. train to Paris. Sit on the train for 2 hours, get off the train, and take the AirFrance shuttle bus to CDG. Sit in traffic. Look at time... time to panic. Panic that the AirFrance shuttle does not go to Terminal 3. Get off bus and onto another bus to reach Terminal 3. Run to terminal again lugging luggage to barely make check in before it closes. Get on another bus to get to the plane, get on the plane, get off the plane, wait in customs, get on another bus to train station, get on a train, get off train at Kings Cross in London, and realize I have no map to the Hotel George. Jump in a taxi, taxi drives around the block and dumps me two seconds away. Pay 5 pounds (yikes $10!), and finally after walking a mile, 2 trains, 4 buses, a plane, and an overpriced rip-off taxi, I arrive almost 8 hours later. Yes, it is now proven. I am a travel genius I say sarcastically with an audible forehead smack) Then again it would have just been easier to take the train from Paris to Kings Cross, but we will pretend like that is not true.

London, England: October 27-October 30

I was ecstatic to see Rayshell who had arrived at the hotel a few minutes before I had. We were not able to check in so we had a few hours to kill. We walked down the block, grabbed a coffee and enjoyed watching the array of people. I enjoyed seeing tall men again… sigh. We bought a map, looked in one of the ridiculously overpriced souvenir shops where a plastic bobble-head bulldog with a Union Jack T-shirt was going for about the same amount I have in a Roth IRA. We ventured around to the British Museum and froze our backsides on the cold marble steps for a few more minutes of people laughing- watching isn’t exactly what we do. At the time, we didn’t realize admittance to the British Museum is free, or we would have conducted ourselves like intelligent people and gone inside. My bum would have thanked me for growing a brain. We then returned to Hotel George to check in and settle down for a much needed nap.

That first night we just wandered- which can be either the most rewarding way to come across new things, or can be the most annoying way to see nothing. It all depends on luck, sense of direction, and energy level. I am proud to say I have a decent sense of direction, and we were in luck- at least during the first part of our wanderings. We walked around the darkened tower of London, saw Tower bridge, walked across the bridge and along the river, but then we got a bit lost in a random financial district that looked a bit like Houston. Goodie. With our energy drained, hunger setting in, and lack of interest in our modern and grungy surroundings, we hopped the subway back and ate dinner at a traditional English restaurant: Pizza Express. Coming from Nogent, the land where pizza parlors grow on trees, I wasn’t too keen, but by that point I was starving and wanted to sit. Was it good? I don’t remember exactly how it tasted. I just remember I was happy to be eating. It kept me from withering up and blowing away- I can hear you laughing... that is not polite! So we were content and slept well after watching lots of TV (in English!)

The second day we put on our tourist hats and went on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. For $20 it was a wonderful way to see all the major attractions and save energy. Our guide was witty and amusing and used the word “Nutters” when referring to the less than sane people who swim in freezing water in Hyde Park. I was highly amused at the use of the word and have since adopted it as my own, using it when particularly pressed. It confuses French people, but then again so does my accent. I enjoy it.

The tour took us through the major historical parts of London, and gave the history and facts about the places we passed. The history of a place is my favorite part of visiting somewhere new. It gives it a whole personality that didn’t exist before. Like the difference in your impression of people from the first moment you meet them to when you know them well. History helps us know a city or place well and have a relationship with it. Did you know this round-about is where they used to hang people? Did you know that church is 1000 years old and was a shelter for fallen women? Did you know this is where the Queen gets her cigarettes? Personality, my dear chaps, personality.

We decided (even with my reluctance to leave our cute, clever tour guide) to visit one of the most famous historical sights in London- Westminster Abby. I have decided I have been ruined for churches forever, and Italy is the culprit. When I walked into Westminster Abby, although it is grand and beautiful and has the same amazing carvings, marble, pomp and circumstance, I was essentially unimpressed. It was more of a mausoleum for the famous- historically and otherwise. You cannot walk three feet without trodding on, or bumping into the random tomb of a Duke, Duchess, or the Second Earl of Randomness. It seemed as if even the present nobility were buying space, bricks from the wall, or tiles from the bathroom floor, all to get their initials carved in a small corner here and there. Maybe I missed the point, but I was under the impression it was a church, but there didn’t seem to be much room for anything but tombs and tourists. I prefer the vast emptiness that gives you space to think and focus on art and imagery that inspires divination rather than the overstuffed, over celebrated memorials of Westminster. Call me a cathedral snob, but I really just feel blessed to have seen enough to have an opinion, and am happy to express it.

The rest of the bus tour took us by Parliament, The London Eye, Tower Bridge, and The Tower of London, where we hopped off again and went into the castle. The Tower of London is one of my favorite places in the city. It is dark, fortified, haunted, riddled with death, scandal, and history, and I enjoy every second of it. They have free tours of the grounds, led by military retirees in ceremonial red and black, and we happened upon one right as it began. The tours include stories of various executions, prisoners, ghosts, and inquiries at different points around the grounds. The museums are full of military artifacts, spiral stone staircases, and the Crown Jewels.

The Crown Jewels stretch the imagination. It is really hard for a normal person such as myself, who cherishes the few tiny diamonds I own, to look at the extravagance of the collection and believe they are real. Rubies as big as cherries, diamond-encrusted everything, not a surface that isn’t laden with emeralds, sapphires, or gold, and the fact they are actually priceless for a reason that has nothing to do with monetary worth and more to do with legacy is hard to really grasp. But in the grand scheme of things they are a bunch of colorful rocks you wear on your head, and it makes you wonder what really makes something valuable? How much it would be missed if it no longer existed? What would really be lost, a visual history? Maybe people are naturally cynical- believing something is only half true unless they have something physical to prove its existence- a symbol, a relic. I just know I value my grandmothers’ diamonds more than all of the British Crown Jewels, and I think half the people in England would agree with me.

That night after a fantastic dinner of perfect Indian food, we went to see Spamalot, a musical in the West End based on the film, Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail (one of my favorites), interlaced with clever and amusing songs that would certainly make John Cleese and my friend, (a Monty Python guru) Jenny, proud. It was a riot. Starring Tim Curry leading a rabble cast, it had all the parts necessary to make it truly silly, especially the part where a friar and nun (with a winged habit reminiscent of The Flying Nun) did an interpretive dance together, resembling the finale of Dirty Dancing (minus the dirty parts of course; that would just be blasphemy- well then again so is most of The Holy Grail). I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.

Our last day in London was spent shopping and exploring, and that night we went on a Jack the Ripper tour to get geared up for Halloween. We met in front of the Tower of London and followed our guide for a couple of hours through the streets hearing tales and seeing the places where the acts took place. It was interesting to see the places, many of which still exist, and the theories that have surfaced regarding suspects for the infamous murderer. Some of the areas were not much to look at, covered by modern buildings and again resembling Houston. I think it may have been the area we got lost in a couple of nights before (lucky us!), but there were also older buildings, dark alleyways, and quiet corners that put a little briskness in your step and sent your imagination reeling. We ended our few days in London on a gruesome but fascinating note and tucked in to make our way to Scotland the next day- an adventure in itself!