Knifeless in London (April 6th)

So it was our last day in London and also our last day of good weather for about a week. We left bright and early for our $120 Chunnel ride to Paris and it was starting to snow. Are you kidding me??? SNOW!!! The same stuff that we had for about the last 4 months non-stop in Iowa.

Anyway…

We get to the security checkpoint at St. Pancras Station and we are hustling to try to make our 10:28 am train and naturally, I am stopped by security. The went the whole way too: threw on some latex gloves an started going through everything in my 30 lbs. backpack as I stood there and watched. The culprit of all this was my pocketknife that I got as a gift from my recently deceased Uncle Bob…which locked when you pulled the blade out. Apparently in the UK this is considered a lethal weapon and thus illegal for me to have possession of.

So we’re stopped there and I’m getting absolutely PISSED talking to the security guard. He explains to me that it’s illegal and he has to confiscate it. I ask, “Well can’t I at least mail it back to myself in the states?” He says no and I realize that there’s no way I’m getting this knife back.

Long story made a little less long: I’m pissed and I now have lost my knife. How am I supposed to defend myself in the highly likely situation where Scott is attacked and I have to pull out my knife to defend him? DAMNIT!!! Now I know why our 2nd amendment allows us the right to bear arms…the damn Brits won’t allow you to! (*this joke is being made in honor of Charelton Heston, former leader of the NRA, who passed away this past week.)

On to more of the day…

We ended up only losing a half an hour and we made the 11:03 train to Paris. It was actually a very enjoyable ride as we rode in the “leisure” section, which I would say translates to 1st class. We were served what for us was a gourmet meal of broiled ham served with mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli, some weird organic rice, a roll and our very own mini wine bottle.

The meal was delicious and ended up putting me back in a good mood as we arrived in Paris.

Getting off the train, we finally realized that we really don’t know anything about traveling. France was our first non-English speaking country and virtually everything at the train station was in French. Scott and I give each other the “Oh shit” look and randomly walked around the station looking for an information booth. Once we got there, we bought a 3 day Metro pass, which was good for any transportation within the city, found our train, and we were off to find our aptly named hostel: Oops! Checked in there, made a few calls, and then we set out into the night to find our “perfect French meal.”

Now let me tell you, we only had about a day and a half total in Paris and Scott and I easily spent about 6 hours looking for that perfect looking restaurant where we could find our perfect French meal. But on the way, we did end up doing some pretty cool things.

The first of these was when we headed back to the train station to make sure we knew how to work our Eurail pass (which you’ll be happy to know, we still don’t have a damn clue how to use….damn reservations!) However, when we got there, we saw a massive protest in the terminal. Not knowing anything about what was going on and ignoring the army gunmen and police officers securing the area, we decided it would be a good idea to go and explore what it was all about.

As we got closer, we saw Tibetan flags flying all around and we soon began to wonder if they were there protesting the arrival of the Olympic Torch in France, thus protesting China’s oppression of Tibet, because China is hosting the Olympics…poorly worded, but you know what I’m talking about.

It turns out that we waited around for an hour for what we THOUGHT would be the Olympic torch, but what we actually ended up seeing was a single Tibetan woman holding up a weirdly shaped flashlight as she was surrounded by loads of cameramen. No idea what the heck all the fuss was about. But they gave us a handful of flour and at the conclusion of what we assume was Tibet’s anthem, we threw our flour into the air with all the other protestors and walked away just a little whiter and a lot more clueless.

Leaving the station, we then headed WAY up north to see what Scott and I really came to Europe to see.

We walked out of the train station, headed up winding roads, climbed massive amounts of steps, walked up even more winding roads and finally came up on it: Au Lapin Agile! That’s right, we actually found the Lapin Agile, the setting of what the Ames Daily Tribune rated as, “The second best theatrical performance in Iowa of 2007”: Picasso at the Lapin Agile(http://www.midiowanews.com/site/tab1.cfm?dept_id=554340&newsid=19149126). You can image what Scott and I were like, walking up to it, already in character, so excited to grab a seat and order a Rosé and Absinth, Picasso and Einstein’s drinks in the play. As we snapped our pictures, the door opened and a man invited us in.

What we found out shortly there after was that the Lapin Agile wasn’t actually a bar as Steve Martin had suggested in his play, but it was actually a cabaret and the performance had started an hour earlier. We were quite bummed. Devastated and disappointed, we left the Lapin Agile, but with the vow that we would return sometime in the future and take in a cabaret.

Passing by numerous French restaurants that were exactly what we were looking for, we took the train back down to our stop, Place d’Italle. This was at about 11 o’clock and we were starving, not having eaten since our Chunnel meal. Every place we found in our neighborhood was either closed or had the word “Italian” in its name, and Scott and I weren’t about to eat at an Italian restaurant in France.

We settled on Pizza Caesars, an Italian chain restaurant. Damnit again!

Disappointed with our choice, but absolutely starving, we each ordered an Italian meal in France (which was actually very good) and then headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

…at least for awhile…