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September 24, 2007
europe travels
Just a quick and irregular update.
Went back to London last week...was a great trip. Not enough time in the old city at all; there's so much to see. But I did get a chance to swing by the old digs and some of my old haunts. The Syracuse London center is somewhere else now, and the Ladbroke Grove building is still there but now belongs to someone else. I think the Bayswater flat might be part of the Comfort Inn next door, now, but I couldn't remember the exact address, and so, not sure.
Taza is still there and still making excellent chicken shawarma, and I made it a point to go sit and eat lunch under my old reading tree in Kensington Gardens. The Kensington apartment above the Indian restaurant is still there, and I hit Sainsbury's next door for some salt and vinegar Pringles, and Orange Coke, if you believe it.
Julie's wedding in Kew was beautiful and we had a good time. We took Robin on a bus tour the first day we were there, did the full tour of the Tower of London, and ate lunch in an old pre-London-fire pub called The Bell. Spent some time in Harrod's buying gifts, and walked along the Thames out in Richmond, where Julie and James live.
Paris was nice as well, but don't drink the water...I wasn't thinking and had a few glasses of tap water the first morning we were there. Within an hour I was sweating like I was running a marathon. I told Robin and Kara to go do tourist stuff and I headed back to the hotel...once I figured out why I was sick, I was much relieved, and I took a walk that afternoon to try to sweat out some of the whatever I was feeling. The next day we did the D'Orsay in the morning and the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon, then ate lunch/dinner in the shadow of the Arch De Triomphe.
Our trip home took us through Dublin, where we actually walked down a set of stairs outside the plane instead of a jetway, and I sampled a new type of Guinness called Guinness North Star...I was hoping that it would end up stateside eventually, but checking the website seems to say that it's only available in Dublin for a limited time. I feel lucky, then, for having had the chance to sample it.
Now we're back and we've pretty much unpacked everything. School is ramping back up. It was nice to be on vacation, but it's nice to be back home again.
Posted by Mark at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)