london baby

The past few days have certainly been trying.  As Matt mentioned in his Tour post, I was getting sick the last you read, and it has only gotten worse.  The day after he wrote that I stayed in bed all day, truly unable to do anything more.  We had reservations to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower that night, which we did, but it was really miserable for me.  Don't get me wrong, the Tower was beautiful, the view was amazing, and I wouldn't have done it differently...maybe without so much phlegm - ha.  The following day was our last full day in Paris, and being that I still wasn't up for the marathon site-seeing days that I had originally planned, we did a watered down version.  We went to Notre Dame (but not up into the towers because the line was so long), Sainte Chapelle (which was nice, although they are in the middle of a 5 year restoration period, and so the most beautiful part of the church, the altar, was completely covered by large tarps.  The picture outside made it look wonderful though!), and the Conciergerie, which is the prison where more than 2,000 prisoners were held during the French Revolution, including Marie Antoinette, and was their last stop before the guillotine at Place de la Concorde.  We also walked around to see the medieval building’s westernmost tower, “The Squealer,” was used for much worse-torture.

From there we boarded a dinner cruise down the Seine.  We used the advice of our guidebook and saved this until the last night, and it really was great.  The food itself was nothing spectacular (not that I could taste much of it anyway, but Matt confirmed), but floating on the Seine was amazing.  We passed all the major sights for the last time and just relaxed, soaking in the city.

Yesterday we left our apartment in the 8th arrondissement and flew to London, where we are now.  We're staying in a cute little boutique hotel right near the Kensington Gardens.  Today we're going on a super touristy double-decker bus tour and to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.  Tomorrow is when Matt returns home, and I fly on to Tanzania...I'll update again once I get settled there.  For now, cheerio!