Faking French: I See London, I See France

I spent last weekend in London. It was fantastic. I've been there before, so I didn't feel the need to do the whole Big-Ben-Westminster-Buckingham thing. Nope, this weekend was about relaxing with friends, and we had a great time.

Yes, indeed, I did take the Chunnel, although that is the one and only time you'll hear me use that word, because it irritates me. I took the TGV from Le Mans to Paris. I arrived in the Montparnasse station and needed to take the Metro to the Gare du Nord, which is where the Eurostar leaves from. Only naturally the Metro line I needed was not stopping at that station for the weekend and so I had to do a quick re-route involving a different train and a transfer back onto the Metro. (A certain group of students will be shocked to hear that I took the RER in the right direction on the first try. I know, it was wacky; apparently I navigate much better when I'm not jetlagged.)

The Eurostar looked like every other train I've ever been on in France, and the underground bit was actually quite brief. The weird part was before we boarded: we had to clear customs (get passports stamped by French officials), step forward literally five feet and get cleared again (stamps by British officials). Then we had to do the luggage scan/metal detector thing, which you don't otherwise do on train trips. Interesting.

We arrived in London and I took the directions Frank had given me on how to get to the hotel. Step 1: Take the Picadilly line to Covent Garden. Immediate problem: the Picadilly line was not stopping at that station for the weekend. (Sound familiar?) I'm reasonably familiar with the Paris Metro but in London I got nothin', so much time was lost as I stared helplessly at the Tube maps. Finally I wandered down to the Northern line, only it turns out there's more than one of those, so I ended up having to ask a guy in an official-looking uniform how to get to Leicester Square. "You take the Northern line to Euston," he said, "and then you double back on the Northern line going in the opposite direction and it's just a few stops."

In what universe does this make sense? But I did it and I got to Leicester Square and from there stumbled quite by accident onto Covent Garden. From there it was only one wrong turn and I finally arrived at the truly lovely Strand Palace Hotel.

Frank and Ed arrived maybe half an hour later, and we settled into our rooms and went out for food. It was wonderful to catch up with them-- I've missed those two so much!

Sunday Frank and Ed's friend Linda took us to Greenwich. This was wonderful because I'd never been to Greenwich before, and also because Linda is a professional tour guide. I fell madly in love with the town as soon as I stepped foot off the boat (we took the ferry down the Thames). If I lived in London (which I could totally do, it's an awesome city), I'd definitely want to live in Greenwich. We went to the National Maritime Museum and then the open-air market before heading back to London and having Portuguese for dinner.